Bryants Disco Ball

Bring it on Agreed. Those are the pitchers you have to face and beat to win a World Series. Might as well continue to prove you can do it now.

1995 to 2011 is 17 seasons (no playoffs in 94 due to the strike). You say 5 wild card teams won, so that's 5/17 or 29%. Considering that the other 3 "seeds" only won 12 /17, I'd say no, it wasn't harder then to win as a wild card, which is one of the reasons they added the extra WC and the play in game, so the team with the best record actually got a real advantage for being the best team over 162 games. This is where I seriously am just dense. I look and see that Wild Card teams won less than 30 percent of the time and think that means wild card teams don't win as much. But I can see where I'm wrong. At least I think I can see. I suck at math and all things math. But I am right when I say Carlos Gomez is not as good as a lot of people here think he is, which has nothing to do with anything.

There's nothing to disagree or agree with. It's simple math. You might've missed it, but I acknowledged the disadvantage that the wild cards are at in the current system. http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3252465#p3252465 Once you're past that round, everyone's chances are roughly 1/8. A little more than that for the stronger teams and a little less for the weaker teams, but all the teams being pretty good means even the margin there isn't as much as you might want to think. OK. I did miss that. Fair enough. So, part of the playoffs are a crapshoot more than the entire thing. That appears to be accurate, right? And I'm asking sincerely for my own knowledge. The entire thing. The new format just made it harder for the wild cards, that's all. It was a crap shoot before and it's still a crap shoot, except now there are two wild cards (per league) with a roughly 50/50 chance of being one of the 8 in the regular playoffs instead of just one that gets right in with the rest of the teams. One last thing and I promise I'm out. There have only been six wild card teams to win the World Series since the wild card first started in 1995. There were five wild card teams to win from 1994 to 2011, when each wild card didn't have to first play a 50-50 game. Doesn't the math suggest that, percentage-wise, it's tougher to win the World Series as a wild card even before the invention of the play-in game? Now, I'm the worst person ever at math, so if I look like an idiot, I won't be surprised.

There's nothing to disagree or agree with. It's simple math. You might've missed it, but I acknowledged the disadvantage that the wild cards are at in the current system. http://northsidebaseball.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3252465#p3252465 Once you're past that round, everyone's chances are roughly 1/8. A little more than that for the stronger teams and a little less for the weaker teams, but all the teams being pretty good means even the margin there isn't as much as you might want to think. OK. I did miss that. Fair enough. So, part of the playoffs are a crapshoot more than the entire thing. That appears to be accurate, right? And I'm asking sincerely for my own knowledge.

The first two sentences are meaningless nonsense (this team is what it is today and the last 7 years mean absolutely nothing) and nobody is denying the last two. Agree with this, mostly because seven years isn't really that long. If this were 1984 and they hadn't been there in decades, OK, making the playoffs is pretty big for the franchise.

David, I feel like that's not what you were saying the other day. You said you'd just basically pick a team out of a hat rather than trying to guess which one would win it all. But here, it seems like you are saying that the odds are not equal. Not trying to put words in your mouth or misconstrue what you were saying, but felt that was what the convo was about. That said, I agree with it. Winning the division would be way better than winning the wild card. But in just trying to make sure we get to the playoffs, I'm going with the wild card right now. Which means it's far more meaningful when the Giants lose. I'm willing to sacrifice the Cards being the one to beat them.

mediocre night Whatever you say. The Cubs just moved a half game closer to making the playoffs and a half game closer to hosting a playoff game. yes, the giants catching the cubs is more likely than the cubs catching the cardinals, but you treat one like it really matters a lot and the other like it's a complete impossibility that should be disregarded. why is that? If the playoffs are just a crap shoot, then all I care about is making them. So I agree with him. The Giants losing means a much greater deal to me than the Cardinals winning.

I'm probably weird, but I don't believe in 1/2 games. No matter what, we go into Tuesday up four in the the loss column on SF.

Well, tough to be upset when a team has won 15 of 16, due to them having to lose at some point. Also, I embrace off days. A time for them to get rest without having to miss an actual game.

Make it easy on Utley. It's a short drive from Milwaukee to Chicago. Don't make him get on that plane.

The last two games.....what are the umps looking at???

Castro caught the ball AND applied tag. That's what you call progress.

This where Bryant will look bad on first two and then dong.

Damn, that dude took forever to throw pitches.

Use this type of game to get better. It's only going to get more stressful as time goes on and games get even more magnified.

Maybe start with a hit first.

Normally it would have been scary that the innik would blow up after the worst error in MLB this season. But then you realize Haren is on the mound and it's like "we got this."

Let's get Utley.

Oh no.

It's fine but the constant complaining every time a team were competing against scores a run and it's only mid-August is a bit strange And when the run is scored in like the top of the first.

When people aren't happy about winning 9 in a row I don't know what to say either And trembling before Sale like he's some kind of unbeatable monster instead of a lanky dork throwing the ball like he's actively trying to tear his torso in half. they got this. Swag, bitches.

Who cares - if we keep playing like this, everything will take care of itself man. We're not going to keep playing like this. And we have like 3 teams we want to lose, so it'd be nice if some of them were doing it now. Exactly. I'm thrilled to have won 9 games in a row, but if we lose and the Pirates win today, we'll have gained all of one game on them in a stretch of 9 out of 10 wins. So the Cubs still have their WC spot. ARE YOU NEVER PLEASED. Yeah, I'm looking at this really differently. This streak helped position the Cubs to make the playoffs, where as before we were behind in the race. Just give me the postseason.

What the [expletive].

Damn reeeealll stupid tonight.

This inning is David's baseball version of a wet dream.