Sammys Boombox

If you're scrapping AL/NL, just pick a ruleset and go with it. DH or not. Consistency across the league is more important to me than whether we have the DH or we don't. I agree. Just a thought. I actually think what would happen is the vast majority would pick DH. Might have some teams without a good DH option that want to decrease AB by some stud DHs in their division. Then after a few years they would just adopt DH across the board.

Crazy DH idea. If we scrap AL/NL, what if each team had to declare before each season if their home games would be played with/without a DH?

The big benefit from the 8 team divisions in the proposed schedule is that it takes a big bite out of travel costs. You could do eight 4 team divisions and weight the schedule with games from your division and a sister division for the same result, and the main benefit is about a playoff structure that is less desired(8 teams) or can also be replicated with 4 divisions. Unless we're switching to buses I think everybody touting He travel cost thing is making stuff up. You are still getting in a plane every 3-9 days. You are still staying in expensive hotels. I think travel cost probably isn’t a huge deal, but having more games start in your time zone or close to it for TV is a huge deal. There are a handful of teams that would really benefit from this. Also, the modularity of the schedule really makes it easy to completely remove stupid things like flying to LA from eastern or central time zone for one series and then flying back east right away. Right now trying to fit the current schedule structure in is a nightmare and leads to some really stupid travel during portions of the season.

100-win teams playing a 1-game Wild Card and 79-win teams waiting for them in the division round. If you go that route my opinion is that winning your division only guarantees you a playoff spot, but teams are seeded 1-6 based on record alone. So, yes, a wild card could go to the division round while a division champ has to play in the wild card round.

12 teams in the playoffs is not much different than the current 10 teams. I don’t want to get too far down the 1 versus 3 game series Wild Card rabbit hole, but it is one reason I like the 3 game series. I think homefield carries more significance in a 3-game series than a do or die. Which helps create a race between some of those middle Wild Card teams that may be out of their division race but well above the lower wild card spot. I do admit, this is a very minor difference. It’s one reason I also like having only 6 or 7 wild cards instead of 8. You want to try to structure it so you don’t have too many wild cards that comfortably have a playoff spot but no shot at a ticket to skip the wild card round. The more tiers that are setup in a playoff system the more likely games in September matter for more teams. There is value in winning the division, value in getting the top wild card spot, value in getting home field for wild card game or series and value in making the playoffs period. Admittedly one divison race would be slightly less meaningful in years where two teams are close to each other and no wild card teams have a shot of catching them, but that’s about it. But that wouldn’t even happen every season.

Wow. Would like that. Mine was my best case scenario based on my own opinions. But you wouldn’t hear me complain about this at all. If I had to tweak one thing it would be only 6 or 7 wild cards so you can reward second place teams that are likely 95-win teams many years. You reward them by letting them make the playoffs while not winning their division. The point is to make the regular season meaningful, despite opening up to more teams. They'd also get home game for their one game playoff. In my opinion there are lots of pros and cons. I personally prefer to reward the best wild card (or two) as opposed to giving the team 15 games back of them a 1-game shot to knock them out. Especially if that worse team has an ace, and the 99-win team threw their ace on one of the last 2 games of the season and lost the division to a 100-win team. I do believe you can separate this argument from the current format because the divisions are so large. A second place team in an 8-team division that has a better record than all of the other second place teams is guaranteed to be a top 5 team in the league and could fall anywhere from 2-5. Currently we let 6 teams out of 32 into the division round straight from the regular season. I prefer that number to remain at least 5 in a 32 team league.

Wow. Would like that. Mine was my best case scenario based on my own opinions. But you wouldn’t hear me complain about this at all. If I had to tweak one thing it would be only 6 or 7 wild cards so you can reward second place teams that are likely 95-win teams many years.

Then just ignore I said it. Almost didn’t even include it because I knew so many of you would get hung up on it.

I’ve done a ton of realignment variations over the years, but I think this one captures quite a bit of what most people want. I’ve even proposed it to purists whose knee jerk reaction was “no way,” but then when I discussed the merits with them they have changed their minds and have gotten excited about the possibilities. Realignment No more AL/NL. 4 geographic divisions of 8 teams (Portland and Montreal get us to 32 teams). Schedule 12 games against 7 division opponents 3 games against the remaining 24 teams 156 Games Postseason 4 Division Winners 7 Wild Card Winners Wild Card Round - (if you’re gonna get all upset and stop reading when I say best-of-three then just skip this section and assume I said 1 game do or die). Regular season ends on Thursday. Throughout the day Saturday 6 of the wild card teams play game 1 of a 3-game series. Sunday afternoon all 3 game 2s begin staggered by an hour. If necessary game 3 is played immediately after. Division Round - Best of 5. Division Winners get seeds 1-4. Best overall Wild Card team got a bye as well and gets the 5 seed. 3 winners from Wild Card Round are reseeded 6-8 based on regular season record. Pennant Round - Best of 7 World Series - Best of 7 DIVISIONS WEST SEA POR SF OAK LAD LAA SD AZ MIDWEST COL HOU TEX KC STL CHC CHW MIL NORTH MIN CIN CLE DET PIT TOR MTL ATL EAST BOS NYM NYY PHI BAL WAS TB MIA Realignment Discussion These divisions would help with travel. And I really like the possibilities for the postseason including the chance that any two teams could face off in a World Series. Only 2 teams reside in a time zone that doesn’t match every other team in the division and purposefully both of those teams are one hour behind the rest of the division. So basically all evening start times will be 6:00 or 7:00. Other than MIN and COL the most series a team would ever play outside their time zone is 12. This will be an improvement for every single team in baseball except for the current East divisions, but it is basically a wash for them. It would be really easy to setup the schedule so 4 teams in one divison all go on a road trip to play 4 teams in another division over the course of 2 weeks. Block scheduling could be awesome for planning road trips. Schedule Discussion At 156 games you actually get pretty close to having an off day every week of the season. This minimizes the need for 2 and 4 game series, but the few you need could all be in your division. The schedule math easily works, which is often overlooked in these realignment plans. Hopefully, that’s enough off days to fit in rainouts since you have individual series against 24 teams. That’s the biggest con to this schedule. Postseason Discussion All 3 games of Wild Card Round are played in the higher seeds’ park. 3 teams get eliminated in the course of a few hours. It’s as close to a March Madness type day as baseball can get. In the current format I think the 1-game Wild Card is fine. This format changes things a bit, and I prefer the 3-game format. If you hate it, then just change it to a 1-game format (or 5 for those who prefer that).

Umpires suck

What is this?

Should’ve sent him.

In play, run(s)

Why are we throwing a pitch in the strike zone there?

I really hate this offense right now.

We had the major benefit of calls that game, imo Maybe, I wasn’t able to watch the entire game closely. Bad (large) K zone all game from what I saw. Pitch should have been called strike 3.

I don’t think we have complained enough about the non-strike call to Turner.

How many blown saves in the 9th or extras is that now for the Cubs? Mostly with 2 outs too.

Really pissed about a lot of stuff, but not ringing up Turner is pretty high up the list.

RING HIM UP!

9 left in scoring position today.. cool

Triple was groundball between Bryant and the line that Schwarber had trouble figuring out down in the corner. Double was a pop up that any of Zobrist, Happ or Heyward probably catch if nobody else is around, but none of them went for it.

What a joke

I’m absolutely amazed at the lack of runs when this guy pitches.

What’s with the sun this year? Seems way worse at a Wrigley than in years past.