Baseball 2017 Season Thread

[Valmy]

If all you care about is the regular season you can pretty easily ignore the postseason.  I almost succeed at it every year without trying.

How? Because your team is usually not in it?

I don't really care about baseball, and the Languish Fantasy League is no more.

Ah.

I guess I took from your post that you do care about the regular season. Carry on then. Baseball is now a rather niche obsession.

[alfred russel]

Over the length of the season, the best team in the NL was the Dodgers. It makes absolutely no logical sense at all to split the league into arbitrary divisions and decide the whole thing by by a few five and seven game series when the Dodgers already won the league during the regular season.

But it is more fun. And that is the same reason the Wild Card's existence. I get what you are saying but that ship sailed after 1968.

The real issue is that you have a 162 game regular season, and if you didn't have a wild card the playoffs for a division / league could ultimately be decided well before the all star break. There was little doubt the dodgers would win their division, for example. If there was only a national league/no divisions, it would be hard to maintain fan interest in the dodgers walking away with everything.

Nevertheless, right now 10 teams make the playoffs in some form or fashion - 1/3 of baseball teams. I find it frustrating to have such a long regular season and so many playoff teams. Though the 1 game wild card game isn't a terrible solution to the issue of the first paragraph, I still hate the expanded post season.

[alfred russel]

I guess I took from your post that you do care about the regular season. Carry on then. Baseball is now a rather niche obsession.

The games are too long.

The unfortunate part is that this should be fixable. Just cut out the mid inning breaks, for example, and you could dramatically lessen the time of the game (if everyone went to the DH the pitchers could stay warm while their team batted). I do understand this would cut into advertising revenue.

[Valmy]

I guess I took from your post that you do care about the regular season. Carry on then. Baseball is now a rather niche obsession.

The games are too long.

The unfortunate part is that this should be fixable. Just cut out the mid inning breaks, for example, and you could dramatically lessen the time of the game (if everyone went to the DH the pitchers could stay warm while their team batted). I do understand this would cut into advertising revenue.

Originally of course there were no mid inning breaks and prior to TV baseball games would rush by at breakneck speed, usually ending in under 2 hours. It is also why I preferred college baseball more for years...but now college baseball is also on TV most games so that one advantage was lost.

[The Minsky Moment]

I get what you are saying but that ship sailed after 1968.

That's a good point.
If you are a purist about the regular season being meaningful in determining the champion then the true original sin is the divisional system.
In 1973 the Big Red Machine crushed the rest of the league but lost 3 of 5 on the NLCS so a weak 83 win got to represent the NL in the World Series.
The WC system is a categorical improvement on that because the WC is almost always better than at least one the divisional qualifiers and sometimes better than 2. The chance of a truly weak sister team getting through is lower, although it can still happen as in 2006.

[alfred russel]

I get what you are saying but that ship sailed after 1968.

That's a good point.
If you are a purist about the regular season being meaningful in determining the champion then the true original sin is the divisional system.
In 1973 the Big Red Machine crushed the rest of the league but lost 3 of 5 on the NLCS so a weak 83 win got to represent the NL in the World Series.
The WC system is a categorical improvement on that because the WC is almost always better than at least one the divisional qualifiers and sometimes better than 2. The chance of a truly weak sister team getting through is lower, although it can still happen as in 2006.

I think the true sin was overexpansion.

The nationals finished tied for the 8th best regular season record in baseball.

[Valmy]

There is context for that record though. They sucked shit at the beginning of the year and then got really really good. I mean there is getting hot and there is being excellent from June to October so it was no fluke.

[Admiral Yi]

Umping was pretty shyte this year.  Bad on balls and strikes, unforgivable on the interference call.

[alfred russel]

There is context for that record though. They sucked shit at the beginning of the year and then got really really good. I mean there is getting hot and there is being excellent from June to October so it was no fluke.

Valmy, if you want to discount the relevance of games in April and May, then don't play those games.

In Atlanta, I see a lot more excitement surrounding the MLS team than the MLB team. If you told me that would be the case 20 years ago, I'd say that was insane. The reasons that is the case aren't hard to figure out. Among them:

-Baseball games are really long, soccer games are comparatively short. Baseball games are bloated to allow for the better part of an hour of commercials a game, soccer games never break.
-Baseball plays an absurdly long regular season to get to a postseason where literally 1/3 of teams qualify in some form. There isn't nearly that level of commitment to be a soccer fan.

[The Minsky Moment]

Valmy, if you want to discount the relevance of games in April and May, then don't play those games.

Of course the games are relevant but the point is they aren't decisive of a team's destiny.  You can suck it in April and still come back to contend.
The team that improves the course of the year and is strongest at year end will always have an advantage in the postseason over the team that starts strong and limps across the finish.
And I don't see the injustice of a 93 win team allowed to compete in the playoffs when there is already a 91 win team that is in.

[Valmy]

There is context for that record though. They sucked shit at the beginning of the year and then got really really good. I mean there is getting hot and there is being excellent from June to October so it was no fluke.

Valmy, if you want to discount the relevance of games in April and May, then don't play those games.

I don't discount the relevance. They were not the division champs and had to grind their way through the wild card for a reason. But nothing I said is untrue. It is not some kind of fluke they won the World Series, they have been dominant. They weren't some shitty team that got lucky.

In Atlanta, I see a lot more excitement surrounding the MLS team than the MLB team. If you told me that would be the case 20 years ago, I'd say that was insane. The reasons that is the case aren't hard to figure out. Among them:

-Baseball games are really long, soccer games are comparatively short. Baseball games are bloated to allow for the better part of an hour of commercials a game, soccer games never break.
-Baseball plays an absurdly long regular season to get to a postseason where literally 1/3 of teams qualify in some form. There isn't nearly that level of commitment to be a soccer fan.

Ok dude 12 of the 20 MLS clubs make the playoffs every year, more than half. 1/3rd of the teams qualifying is small for most pro leagues. And MLS plays an even longer regular season calendarwise (going form early March until late October) AND additional tournaments. How that is not also absurdly long is beyond me.

Listing that shit as a reason MLS is better than Baseball is laughable.

The first part is fair enough. But Soccer has that advantage against every single one of the big 4 American sports.

Edit: Ok I just realized there are more MLS clubs now so 12 of 24 make the playoffs....still though.

[alfred russel]

Valmy, the Nats weren't really dominant--over the last 30 their record was 19-11, which was 7th in baseball. Houston was best at 22-8. (that is the longest period I can find for the latter half of the season, though I didn't look that hard)

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2019-standings.shtml

I agree that the Nationals weren't some shitty team that got lucky. There were an above average team thrown into the roulette wheel of postseason baseball.

[alfred russel]

Listing that shit as a reason MLS is better than Baseball is laughable.

I'm not saying MLS is better than MLB. I hate MLS and wish it would leave Atlanta and never come back. And not like how the Braves left by just moving to the suburbs, but by totally disappearing from the face of the earth - sort of like how the Atlanta hockey team did by moving to Winnipeg.

Still a 34 game schedule is much easier to follow than a 162.

[crazy canuck]

That 2017 season sure took a long time to play out.

[alfred russel]

That 2017 season sure took a long time to play out.

No fucking shit. 30 something spring training games, 162 regular season games interrupted by an all star break, followed by 4 rounds of playoffs.

But it wasn't any longer than any other baseball season.