I might be too late with this post and no one will see it now, but will put out this idea on the off chance Joe sees it, loves it, and convinces everyone to push MLB for it...
I think MLB needs to give two trophies, 1 for the MLB champ and 1 for the World Series champ. The MLB champ will be the winner of a 7 game series between the best record in NL and best record in AL. The World Series will be a tournament with 14 teams. 10 (or 12) that are the top finishers in the MLB, and 2 (or 4) who are from other leagues (e.g. Japan, Korea). The AL and NL winners get a bye in the first round and will be when they are playing their MLB championship series.
I don't see a downside with this plan. Regular season becomes much more valuable, world series tournament gives even more craziness than current playoffs, should be more games with TV interest, international appeal, etc.
I have no problem with the fact that the teams that won the most are by and large out, but AM concerned that we're using too many 3 and 5 game series. Baseball is a game where the best teams will win 6/10 and the worst 4/10. There are many months that a terrible team will like GREAT. The 162 game (or 154 in the old days) season was needed to separate them. Best of 3 or 5 is too likely to allow an inferior team to advance. Let's have 8 teams with three best of 7 series.
Somebody with more ambition than I have can probably calculate the odds of (say) a .600 team playing a (say) .550 team in a 3, 5 and 7 game series and find out the difference in the odds of the better team winning. I'm guessing it's not large. Of course, there are other factors, like days off and number of quality starting pitchers, but I think just basic math will tell you the extra games make some difference, but not a huge one.
Perhaps, but the NBA and NHL have both settled on 7 games per round and while some best of 7's come to mind where you STILL don't suspect "the best team might not have won" (e.g., 1960) there don't seem to be a lot. The original World Series was best of 9. It's intuitive, I grant you, but the fewer games certainly the greater chance a weaker team will prevail. The old one game play in was even sold along those lines by many (IF YOU DON'T WIN YOUR DIVISION YOU'LL BE SUBJECT TO PURE RANDOMNESS AS TO WHETHER YOU GO ON). As a Nats fan of course I'm grateful that we had 5 teams in 2019 and who knows who have have won all best of seven series, but objectively speaking I think it's a better balance than 12 teams and a best of 3 round.
I don't think there is any doubt that the "better" team has a better chance in 7 games instead of 5 or 3. The question is: 'how much better." I would say the NBA is not a good comparison, as the better team nearly always wins those 7 games series, which is definitely not true in baseball. Hockey maybe, I don't know crap about hockey.
Agreed. According to Joe's most recent post, Pete Palmer (who DOES do the math unlike us) says its only about 88 games in that skill even begins to equal luck, and even I don't want a best of 89 game series!
Why so much hand-wringing over the fact that lower seeded teams are winning? Why the great desire to make sure that the team with the best record emerges from the playoffs? The point of the expanded playoffs is to add excitement, not subtract it. If the Astros and Dodgers just crashed through the playoffs what is the point? Having a Philadelphia v. San Diego NLCS is tremendous (as long as you are not a TV executive). Those teams stepped up when it counted. Atlanta, New York, LA, did not. Let's hope Cleveland beats the Yankees tonight and then finds away to dispose of the Astros. Let's have a Cleveland v. San Diego World Series!
I saw an article by Ken Rosenthal in The Athletic saying that people are already upset that the 5 game series did not turn out as expected (victories by the higher seeded 100+ win teams) and that there is clamoring to expand those to 7 games to make sure we are more likely to get the "right" outcome. This is idiotic. If baseball just wants the two best regular season teams to face off in the World Series, they can do that, and, indeed, did that prior to 1969. If you want playoffs, you should be overjoyed when the unexpected happens (unless you are a TV executive who really only cares about TV viewership in NY, Chicago and LA).
Agree, it's working the way they want it to and there is more playoff baseball to watch, which means more pressure games and more drama. But for me the beauty of baseball is the regular season and the day-to-dayness of it and the playoffs have always been just a sideshow no matter what the format.
I'm somewhat entertained. But it's a lot of strikeouts. And the long 0-0 games, which might be interesting if starting pitchers were dueling for 10 innings each, are just slogfests of relief pitchers striking out hapless hitters.
I will say that the Guardians-Yankees series has been fun October baseball for the most part. Still too many strikeouts, but that's just the way things are in today's game.
Agree. I'm a Mariners fan, and after a 20 year playoff drought (disclaimer, I only moved tot eh PNW and started rooting for Seattle 6 years ago), you would think an 18 inning playoff game would have me glued to my seat. But no, after9 or 10 innings I think most people accepted it was going to be a solo HR that won it, and it was just a matter of grinding through enough ABs to find one. I actually read a book while I kept an eye on the game.
That's one of the problems (one of many) with expanded playoffs. I'm entertained, but more than willing to go back to 8 teams instead of the current 12.
Some of us don't mind at all when Dodger fans feel pain. (Not that I wish you personally any pain. I'm sure you are a fine person.) Hope the Yankee fans feel the pain later tonight. (OK, that is personal - but I grew up a Yankee fan and only left the dark side as an adult.)
Terrific post, as always, Joe. A few mistakes, though because you were probably so excited and tired. I think you meant Soto, instead of Sosa on Sam Diego. And I believe the bloops in Cleveland went to left field.
These baseball playoffs are terrible in being a barometer of a team's quality. The current Playoff system makes the regular season next to meaningless. There should never be a series less than 7 games after 162 games schedule. To increase the Playoffs to make each series meaningful the regular season should revert to a 154 game schedule in order to enable each series to be a 7 games These three game series are not fun at all. It's designed to make it unreasonably difficult for the best teams to move forward. I'm an inch away from ignoring MLB all together.
Baseball fans should take a look at postseason history before making bold proclamations about the new playoff format. Best to look for yourselves (https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason) but here are some quick and dirty stats. By era (1947-1968), (1969-1993), (1995-2011), (2012-2021), here are the records of the better team in the series (not counting teams with the same record), and how often the team with the best record won the World Series (teams with the same record counted).
Post-Integration/Pre-Division Era (1947-1968)
Better Team Record: 9-10 (.474)
Best Team Won: 9 out of 19 seasons (.474) (if you want to count teams with same record here, then 12 out of 22 seasons)
Division Era (1969-1993)
Better Team Record: 43-34 (.558)
Best Team Won: 7 out of 25 seasons (.280)
Wild Card Era (1995-2011)
Better Team Record: 60-54 (.526)
Best Team Won: 3 out of 17 seasons (.176)
Play-In Era (2012-2021)
Better Team Record: 51-38 (.573) (40-34 (.540) if you ignore 2020)
Best Team Won: 4 out of 10 seasons (.400) (3 out of 9 seasons (.333) if you ignore 2020)
Looking at this shows you that it's been pretty much a coin-flip for as long as any of us can remember. Things may have been slightly more "fair" to better teams in the 1969-1993 era, but the 2012-2021 era hasn't produced wildly dissimilar results. More notable is that even in the "golden era" before divisions it was still a coin flip! So maybe the visceral reaction is because the best record in baseball team wins less often, but the playoffs nowadays don't seem to be producing aberrant results. Will be curious to look at these numbers in another 10 years for sure.
Thanks for verifying how the regular season has become a meaningless marathon. Obviously, the shorter the series the greater the possibility for an an upset. Shorten the regular season and let every Playoff Series be 7 games. The season should end no later than mid September to accommodate these crowded Playoffs of 12 teams. The last 8 games of a season are not all that interesting for the majority of teams considering that so many teams make the Playoffs. Instead of every team playing those last 8 relatively uninteresting games for the majority of teams. Get rid of them, go back to 154 games regular season since it means so little now, and extend all Playoff Series to 7 games where upsets are less frequent. I think it would benefit MLB because those Playoff Series would be far more intriguing than watching so many meaningless games in the last two weeks of the regular season. The interest in the races for the Playoffs will be just as exciting in a 154 game season as a 162 game season with less meaningless games before the anticipated Playoff series begin that are now 7 games instead of the ridiculous three game series that make it so difficult for the cream to rise to the top as you so aptly have proven to be the dismal case in your well-researched study.
While I understand the idea of making the season a bit shorter, I don't understand the obsession with 154 just because baseball had that many games when they had 16 teams. I mean, the last season they played with 154 they had 16 teams and it was over 60 years ago. Eisenhower was President. We still basically had apartheid in the south. The recently departed Queen of England was 34. Former President Obama had not yet been born. Ted Williams was still playing. The NFL had 12 game seasons, and a startup league people barely noticed called the AFL had it's first season.
With 30 teams (probably 32 at some time in the near future) this number no longer has any relevance. With the playoffs as they are now, I like the three games on the road to start. Those last two teams don't get a home game unless they win 2 out of three on the road. I do believe the 2nd series should be 7, and I think it will go to that eventually. Not sure it would have helped the Dodgers or Braves this year. They just went cold, or the other team got hot, which has been happening in playoff series forever.
The only way to make the season more relevant (It would be just as irrelevant with a few less games) would be to have less playoff teams. I was against expanding playoffs, but there is no putting that toothpaste back in the tube, and I have to admit there has been some exciting baseball the last week.
I think they will eventually add two more. I don't like it, but it will happen. IF they were going to expand while still having 30 teams, I am a proponent (I was thinking about this when a 14 team postseason looked inevitable for a time in the off season) of having all three division winners get a bye, and the other 4 teams would play a college style double elimination tournament at a predetermined site (Cities would bid on this) with one team only emerging to join the 3 division winners for the quarterfinals. This would be compelling TV. Elimination games starting day 2. You could have one network do the entire series. Traveling competing home crowds sharing the same stadium. Not as many wild cards participating in the quarterfinals. Better chances of at least one of the best teams being in the LCS.
Upsets, with an occasional exception, happen in the early rounds. The more rounds, the more upsets. Cream rises to the top eventually. Let's see what happens before drawing conclusions.
We're seeing the exact opposite of the "Cream rising to the top" with shorter Playoff Series, we're seeing far more upsets so the Skim Milk somehow gets to the top way too often.
Maybe we're not understanding each other. Basically what I'm saying is that upsets are more likely to happen in early rounds like in every sport. The number of games increasing adds to that likelihood. Bottom line is the playoffs have a long way to go and it's too early to pass judgment.
BTW, there have been 4 WS that were best of 9 including the first one. Maybe that's what we need for every series to determine the real best team.
Where's your proof of that? Are you claiming games or percentages? I think 7 game is sufficient. 9 might be good for the World Series, but I think I'd go with the adage that "too much is no good." It's not too early to pass judgment because two out of three is a recipe for far too many upsets.
I wholly agree except for any series less than 7 games. If it's not a 7 game playoff series, it shouldn't be happening. Baseball is a far different beast than Basketball and Hockey due to the fact that the player with the most impact on winning and losing is usually dependent on who's on the mound. The Pitcher is the single most important player in every game, just like the QB in football. Only, the quality of the Pitcher changes for each team game-to-game, unlike football. Imagine how important Pitching would be if they only played a 2 games every 10th day. Baseball would be back to emulating the days of Cy Young, and the Pitcher would be more important than even a QB in the NFL. Than a 3 game series would make sense. Depending on whose Pitching changes the odds dramatically. Currently, A team's best Pitcher(s) may not even pitch in a three-game series if they had to pitch to even qualify for the Playoffs to begin with. The three game series is not a barometer of a team's overall quality in any way. Even a five-game series dilutes the true efficacy of a team. I'd rather see a 9 game World Series than these marginalized three game series that knockout the better team way too frequently. It's really a joke IMHO at the point it's reached in MLB's Playoffs.
The three game series are all wild card games. Yes, I guess one is the third best division winner, but they (like the top wild card) get three home games. It just so happens that the underdog (by seed) won 3 of 4 this year. I don't think that will be the case long term. I do agree with you about it being a travesty to reduce the division series (quarterfinals) from 7 games to 5. I thin that part will change on it's own. I highly disagree about giving seed 5 and 6 home games in the wild card and a longer series. I think that would (in the long haul) result in MORE #5 and #6 seeds moving on - and too long playoffs getting way longer to service the worse playoff teams.
You are taking a one year anomaly and assuming every year will be that way. The three game series at one place is fine, just like the old one game wild card was fine. It is just to reduce the lesser teams and make a little more money before getting on to the real show. Every series has a possible elimination game in game two, with a loser goes home game in the third game, and then they are over, and we are down to the 4 teams that we should start with anyway.
Khazad, yes that makes sense to me. I realized that my system doesn't work after the WC as there would be only 3 teams left, but I would still like to see less teams in the playoffs.
I think division winners should get the bye, then have 4 and 5 play the 3 game WC.
Every team's ace got a chance to pitch in this last WC and it serves enough of a penalty for not winning a division.
5 game series is fine, especially if division winners get the bye. They can line up their ace and top guys.
Upsets are fine too. If your ace isn't getting it done or you are in tough against great hitting, then so be it.
Seems plausible the division winners could line up their ace for the right amount of rest in anticipation of the wait after the WC series, while the WC team is appropriately penalized for not winning the division.
Best of 7 is enough games to settle a winner.
If it were to go best of 9 that makes for a very long playoffs and the way some of these games have already been bullpenned, we would see some terrible pitching match ups and long games with all the scrambling for arms.
Shorter season with more off days would mean the difference between a healthy bullpen and starters in the playoffs.
I'm not assuming, that's mathematical reality. The shorter the series, the greater that chances for an upset. It is you that is doing exactly what you're claiming I did.
IMHO, there is such a thing as too many upsets. A single team making a run is one thing, but a whole bunch of lesser teams making a run is quite another.
It's the same in March Madness. A single Cinderella team making a deep run is always fun but a whole bunch of them, not so much.
We'll have to see how the playoffs finish up and how things play out in future years to know whether this is a rare occurrence or the new normal. Personally I hope it's a rare occurrence and I'm a Phillies fan (I'd feel a lot more satisfaction slaying the Dodgers in the NL finals than the Padres).
But unlike March Madness the most important player that a team's hopes rest upon doesn't play every fifth day. A game like baseball requires far more games than three to get the full breadth of the quality of the team. A best of 7 games was a terrific barometer. I'd rather have fewer Playoff teams to ensure that the Playoffs and World Series were all best of seven series.
The World Series, and therefore baseball playoffs, started as an exhibition, a fun little idea between two rival leagues whose teams never played each other otherwise. It’s never been a good way to determine the ‘best team,’ and often hasn’t, ever since the 116-win 1906 Cubs lost to the 93-win White Sox. If we skipped to a 7 game series between the Braves and the Dodgers that still wouldn’t tell us anything about who the real ‘best team’ in the NL is. But playoffs have become the be-all end-all of American sports and that can’t be undone. So just enjoy the ride.
I do wish the prevailing fan mentality of championship or bust wasn’t the case. That devalues the regular season just as much as any playoff format does. That you see Dodgers fans ENRAGED that they haven’t won it all since the bygone days of 2020 (in the most crapshooty short series playoff format of all-time) is ludicrous. That people perceive the 2015-2021 Cubs as a disappointment because they ‘only’ won one World Series is absurd. It’s a very hard thing to win! Only ever being happy with a championship win seems like a miserable way to be a sports fan.
Just like the Super Bowl, it's not as interesting when teams have played each other. I rarely watch the Super Bowl anymore. It's just another game. Next year every MLB team plays every other one as MLB continues its quest to be like the NFL. A WS rematch is guaranteed.
Most people by far disagree with your opinion of the Super Bowl as "just another game." Check out the ratings and the cost for TV Ads. It's far and away from being "just another game." But you are entitled to your opinion regardless of how much it's out of sync with reality.
I like being a contrarian and I don't form my opinions or preferences based on what is popular. Actually I don't even watch the NFL anymore so I guess I'm really out of touch with reality. Darn .
I give you credit for your self-awareness, however, being a contrarian doesn't make your opinion correct. The NFL obviously tried to emulate MLB when it created the National and American Conferences.
Obviously that was a long time ago when baseball's popularity exceeded football's.
So what determines the "correct" opinion? Popularity? TV ratings?
As for the Super Bowl, it's not thee game for many, it's the only game they watch-if they watch it and not just the commercials or halftime show or it's background noise at their party. It's a TV spectacle.
What are the ratings for the NCAAF championship when it's a rematch vs when it's not?
I'm not so sure Baseball popularity exceeded football in 1972. I'm relatively certain that football exceed baseball in the mid to late 60s. I would venture the correct opinion is based on popularity that is determined by the media, the focus of the majority, sales of paraphernalia, and obviously TV ratings.
I totally agree with what you say about the Super Bowl. I've no idea about your inquiry regarding the NCAA Football Championship, but I believe that college football's popularity rates 2nd to College Basketball., while the NBA has always trailed both the NFL & MLB. I think the NBA made a mistake in not following football's lead in not absorbing the entire NBA as the NFL did with the AFL. I believe the Super Bowl era is when pro football became King of the Hill. Part of that was having two major leagues pitted against each other that created a new excitement. The same thing actually occurred with MLB when the AL merged into MLB and the World Series era began. Of course, there was really only baseball and boxing that had mass appeal in 1903. But while there were prior World Series going back to the 19th century, they were upon agreement and not necessarily annual. Even the MLB World Series missed one season, but that never happened again due to public demand.
It's probably pretty entertaining as long as *your* team is winning, but it's a lot harder to care about series where they're not involved anymore. I used to enjoy watching LCS and World Series long after my Pale Hose had been eliminated (so, late August or so), because I had narratives to entice me. Ooh, are the Bash Brothers even the best slugging duo in the Bay Area, or have the Thrill and Kevin Mitchell surpassed them? Aah, the Twins and Braves both went worst to first, and let's see how each one's exciting young pitchers do against the other's veteran sluggers! We'd been hearing about those stories all summer, and they were finally coming to fruition.
There are still people who are paid good money to develop those narratives once it's announced that the Padres are playing the Phillies (the exciting young core in San Diego vs. the most majestic set of outfield statues this side of Monument Park), but our attention is more diffused so it seems forced. It'd be a hard job at the best of times because there are more playoff teams, but we're also not trying very hard to market players and narratives outside their home cities, and we're not putting the best vs. the best.
I suppose the best way for me to get into it would be to treat it like the Olympics. Every four years we turn on something we know nothing about and it's the announcer's job to give us the back story and tell us why we should care, and every four years a few stars break through and thrill us. I've always wanted the slow-building climax that baseball used to have, but I could try to get used to that (and maybe still get the slow-building climax if the couple of teams I follow closely happen to do well).
I might be too late with this post and no one will see it now, but will put out this idea on the off chance Joe sees it, loves it, and convinces everyone to push MLB for it...
I think MLB needs to give two trophies, 1 for the MLB champ and 1 for the World Series champ. The MLB champ will be the winner of a 7 game series between the best record in NL and best record in AL. The World Series will be a tournament with 14 teams. 10 (or 12) that are the top finishers in the MLB, and 2 (or 4) who are from other leagues (e.g. Japan, Korea). The AL and NL winners get a bye in the first round and will be when they are playing their MLB championship series.
I don't see a downside with this plan. Regular season becomes much more valuable, world series tournament gives even more craziness than current playoffs, should be more games with TV interest, international appeal, etc.
That sounds pretty cool. Just have to shorten the regular season to allow for it.
I have no problem with the fact that the teams that won the most are by and large out, but AM concerned that we're using too many 3 and 5 game series. Baseball is a game where the best teams will win 6/10 and the worst 4/10. There are many months that a terrible team will like GREAT. The 162 game (or 154 in the old days) season was needed to separate them. Best of 3 or 5 is too likely to allow an inferior team to advance. Let's have 8 teams with three best of 7 series.
Somebody with more ambition than I have can probably calculate the odds of (say) a .600 team playing a (say) .550 team in a 3, 5 and 7 game series and find out the difference in the odds of the better team winning. I'm guessing it's not large. Of course, there are other factors, like days off and number of quality starting pitchers, but I think just basic math will tell you the extra games make some difference, but not a huge one.
Perhaps, but the NBA and NHL have both settled on 7 games per round and while some best of 7's come to mind where you STILL don't suspect "the best team might not have won" (e.g., 1960) there don't seem to be a lot. The original World Series was best of 9. It's intuitive, I grant you, but the fewer games certainly the greater chance a weaker team will prevail. The old one game play in was even sold along those lines by many (IF YOU DON'T WIN YOUR DIVISION YOU'LL BE SUBJECT TO PURE RANDOMNESS AS TO WHETHER YOU GO ON). As a Nats fan of course I'm grateful that we had 5 teams in 2019 and who knows who have have won all best of seven series, but objectively speaking I think it's a better balance than 12 teams and a best of 3 round.
I don't think there is any doubt that the "better" team has a better chance in 7 games instead of 5 or 3. The question is: 'how much better." I would say the NBA is not a good comparison, as the better team nearly always wins those 7 games series, which is definitely not true in baseball. Hockey maybe, I don't know crap about hockey.
But it's all fun to think about :-)
Agreed. According to Joe's most recent post, Pete Palmer (who DOES do the math unlike us) says its only about 88 games in that skill even begins to equal luck, and even I don't want a best of 89 game series!
Would love to see the calculation!
Love the little digressions. Only thing missing was dog poop sandwich bag & a lighter. Or maybe that was a given. In Cleveland.
Why so much hand-wringing over the fact that lower seeded teams are winning? Why the great desire to make sure that the team with the best record emerges from the playoffs? The point of the expanded playoffs is to add excitement, not subtract it. If the Astros and Dodgers just crashed through the playoffs what is the point? Having a Philadelphia v. San Diego NLCS is tremendous (as long as you are not a TV executive). Those teams stepped up when it counted. Atlanta, New York, LA, did not. Let's hope Cleveland beats the Yankees tonight and then finds away to dispose of the Astros. Let's have a Cleveland v. San Diego World Series!
I saw an article by Ken Rosenthal in The Athletic saying that people are already upset that the 5 game series did not turn out as expected (victories by the higher seeded 100+ win teams) and that there is clamoring to expand those to 7 games to make sure we are more likely to get the "right" outcome. This is idiotic. If baseball just wants the two best regular season teams to face off in the World Series, they can do that, and, indeed, did that prior to 1969. If you want playoffs, you should be overjoyed when the unexpected happens (unless you are a TV executive who really only cares about TV viewership in NY, Chicago and LA).
Agree, it's working the way they want it to and there is more playoff baseball to watch, which means more pressure games and more drama. But for me the beauty of baseball is the regular season and the day-to-dayness of it and the playoffs have always been just a sideshow no matter what the format.
I'm somewhat entertained. But it's a lot of strikeouts. And the long 0-0 games, which might be interesting if starting pitchers were dueling for 10 innings each, are just slogfests of relief pitchers striking out hapless hitters.
I will say that the Guardians-Yankees series has been fun October baseball for the most part. Still too many strikeouts, but that's just the way things are in today's game.
Agree. I'm a Mariners fan, and after a 20 year playoff drought (disclaimer, I only moved tot eh PNW and started rooting for Seattle 6 years ago), you would think an 18 inning playoff game would have me glued to my seat. But no, after9 or 10 innings I think most people accepted it was going to be a solo HR that won it, and it was just a matter of grinding through enough ABs to find one. I actually read a book while I kept an eye on the game.
The playoffs have indeed been entertaining chaos, but it's like, why even care about the regular season? Why spend 6 months following so closely?
So I can laugh at the Dodgers when they get knocked out.
That's one of the problems (one of many) with expanded playoffs. I'm entertained, but more than willing to go back to 8 teams instead of the current 12.
It's going to be even more extreme when it expands to 14 (or 16!).
Because baseball is fun to watch
I’m a Dodger fan. No, I’m not entertained. Baseball is pain.
Some of us don't mind at all when Dodger fans feel pain. (Not that I wish you personally any pain. I'm sure you are a fine person.) Hope the Yankee fans feel the pain later tonight. (OK, that is personal - but I grew up a Yankee fan and only left the dark side as an adult.)
Terrific post, as always, Joe. A few mistakes, though because you were probably so excited and tired. I think you meant Soto, instead of Sosa on Sam Diego. And I believe the bloops in Cleveland went to left field.
These baseball playoffs are terrible in being a barometer of a team's quality. The current Playoff system makes the regular season next to meaningless. There should never be a series less than 7 games after 162 games schedule. To increase the Playoffs to make each series meaningful the regular season should revert to a 154 game schedule in order to enable each series to be a 7 games These three game series are not fun at all. It's designed to make it unreasonably difficult for the best teams to move forward. I'm an inch away from ignoring MLB all together.
Baseball fans should take a look at postseason history before making bold proclamations about the new playoff format. Best to look for yourselves (https://www.baseball-reference.com/postseason) but here are some quick and dirty stats. By era (1947-1968), (1969-1993), (1995-2011), (2012-2021), here are the records of the better team in the series (not counting teams with the same record), and how often the team with the best record won the World Series (teams with the same record counted).
Post-Integration/Pre-Division Era (1947-1968)
Better Team Record: 9-10 (.474)
Best Team Won: 9 out of 19 seasons (.474) (if you want to count teams with same record here, then 12 out of 22 seasons)
Division Era (1969-1993)
Better Team Record: 43-34 (.558)
Best Team Won: 7 out of 25 seasons (.280)
Wild Card Era (1995-2011)
Better Team Record: 60-54 (.526)
Best Team Won: 3 out of 17 seasons (.176)
Play-In Era (2012-2021)
Better Team Record: 51-38 (.573) (40-34 (.540) if you ignore 2020)
Best Team Won: 4 out of 10 seasons (.400) (3 out of 9 seasons (.333) if you ignore 2020)
Looking at this shows you that it's been pretty much a coin-flip for as long as any of us can remember. Things may have been slightly more "fair" to better teams in the 1969-1993 era, but the 2012-2021 era hasn't produced wildly dissimilar results. More notable is that even in the "golden era" before divisions it was still a coin flip! So maybe the visceral reaction is because the best record in baseball team wins less often, but the playoffs nowadays don't seem to be producing aberrant results. Will be curious to look at these numbers in another 10 years for sure.
Thanks for verifying how the regular season has become a meaningless marathon. Obviously, the shorter the series the greater the possibility for an an upset. Shorten the regular season and let every Playoff Series be 7 games. The season should end no later than mid September to accommodate these crowded Playoffs of 12 teams. The last 8 games of a season are not all that interesting for the majority of teams considering that so many teams make the Playoffs. Instead of every team playing those last 8 relatively uninteresting games for the majority of teams. Get rid of them, go back to 154 games regular season since it means so little now, and extend all Playoff Series to 7 games where upsets are less frequent. I think it would benefit MLB because those Playoff Series would be far more intriguing than watching so many meaningless games in the last two weeks of the regular season. The interest in the races for the Playoffs will be just as exciting in a 154 game season as a 162 game season with less meaningless games before the anticipated Playoff series begin that are now 7 games instead of the ridiculous three game series that make it so difficult for the cream to rise to the top as you so aptly have proven to be the dismal case in your well-researched study.
While I understand the idea of making the season a bit shorter, I don't understand the obsession with 154 just because baseball had that many games when they had 16 teams. I mean, the last season they played with 154 they had 16 teams and it was over 60 years ago. Eisenhower was President. We still basically had apartheid in the south. The recently departed Queen of England was 34. Former President Obama had not yet been born. Ted Williams was still playing. The NFL had 12 game seasons, and a startup league people barely noticed called the AFL had it's first season.
With 30 teams (probably 32 at some time in the near future) this number no longer has any relevance. With the playoffs as they are now, I like the three games on the road to start. Those last two teams don't get a home game unless they win 2 out of three on the road. I do believe the 2nd series should be 7, and I think it will go to that eventually. Not sure it would have helped the Dodgers or Braves this year. They just went cold, or the other team got hot, which has been happening in playoff series forever.
The only way to make the season more relevant (It would be just as irrelevant with a few less games) would be to have less playoff teams. I was against expanding playoffs, but there is no putting that toothpaste back in the tube, and I have to admit there has been some exciting baseball the last week.
I think they will eventually add two more. I don't like it, but it will happen. IF they were going to expand while still having 30 teams, I am a proponent (I was thinking about this when a 14 team postseason looked inevitable for a time in the off season) of having all three division winners get a bye, and the other 4 teams would play a college style double elimination tournament at a predetermined site (Cities would bid on this) with one team only emerging to join the 3 division winners for the quarterfinals. This would be compelling TV. Elimination games starting day 2. You could have one network do the entire series. Traveling competing home crowds sharing the same stadium. Not as many wild cards participating in the quarterfinals. Better chances of at least one of the best teams being in the LCS.
That's for a longer post season with 7 games series. The amount of teams there are is irrelevant.
Upsets, with an occasional exception, happen in the early rounds. The more rounds, the more upsets. Cream rises to the top eventually. Let's see what happens before drawing conclusions.
We're seeing the exact opposite of the "Cream rising to the top" with shorter Playoff Series, we're seeing far more upsets so the Skim Milk somehow gets to the top way too often.
"Eventually " They're just getting started.
How so? This isn't something that can be improved.
Maybe we're not understanding each other. Basically what I'm saying is that upsets are more likely to happen in early rounds like in every sport. The number of games increasing adds to that likelihood. Bottom line is the playoffs have a long way to go and it's too early to pass judgment.
BTW, there have been 4 WS that were best of 9 including the first one. Maybe that's what we need for every series to determine the real best team.
Where's your proof of that? Are you claiming games or percentages? I think 7 game is sufficient. 9 might be good for the World Series, but I think I'd go with the adage that "too much is no good." It's not too early to pass judgment because two out of three is a recipe for far too many upsets.
Like I said, we don't understand each other. I'll leave it at that except to add the 9 game comment was sarcastic.
Oh,yeah, and now there have been 4 series with 3 more to go.
150 game season or maybe back to 154 for the traditionalists
Give players more days off and have healthier players for the playoffs
I like the wild card best of 3 even though my Jays lost. Better than a one game playoff but still a penalty for not winning the division.
3 division winners plus 1 wild card would be best. With the balanced schedule coming make the 3rd best division winner play wild card
Will never happen and unfortunately probably more playoff teams added in the coming years.
I wholly agree except for any series less than 7 games. If it's not a 7 game playoff series, it shouldn't be happening. Baseball is a far different beast than Basketball and Hockey due to the fact that the player with the most impact on winning and losing is usually dependent on who's on the mound. The Pitcher is the single most important player in every game, just like the QB in football. Only, the quality of the Pitcher changes for each team game-to-game, unlike football. Imagine how important Pitching would be if they only played a 2 games every 10th day. Baseball would be back to emulating the days of Cy Young, and the Pitcher would be more important than even a QB in the NFL. Than a 3 game series would make sense. Depending on whose Pitching changes the odds dramatically. Currently, A team's best Pitcher(s) may not even pitch in a three-game series if they had to pitch to even qualify for the Playoffs to begin with. The three game series is not a barometer of a team's overall quality in any way. Even a five-game series dilutes the true efficacy of a team. I'd rather see a 9 game World Series than these marginalized three game series that knockout the better team way too frequently. It's really a joke IMHO at the point it's reached in MLB's Playoffs.
The three game series are all wild card games. Yes, I guess one is the third best division winner, but they (like the top wild card) get three home games. It just so happens that the underdog (by seed) won 3 of 4 this year. I don't think that will be the case long term. I do agree with you about it being a travesty to reduce the division series (quarterfinals) from 7 games to 5. I thin that part will change on it's own. I highly disagree about giving seed 5 and 6 home games in the wild card and a longer series. I think that would (in the long haul) result in MORE #5 and #6 seeds moving on - and too long playoffs getting way longer to service the worse playoff teams.
You are taking a one year anomaly and assuming every year will be that way. The three game series at one place is fine, just like the old one game wild card was fine. It is just to reduce the lesser teams and make a little more money before getting on to the real show. Every series has a possible elimination game in game two, with a loser goes home game in the third game, and then they are over, and we are down to the 4 teams that we should start with anyway.
Khazad, yes that makes sense to me. I realized that my system doesn't work after the WC as there would be only 3 teams left, but I would still like to see less teams in the playoffs.
I think division winners should get the bye, then have 4 and 5 play the 3 game WC.
Every team's ace got a chance to pitch in this last WC and it serves enough of a penalty for not winning a division.
5 game series is fine, especially if division winners get the bye. They can line up their ace and top guys.
Upsets are fine too. If your ace isn't getting it done or you are in tough against great hitting, then so be it.
Seems plausible the division winners could line up their ace for the right amount of rest in anticipation of the wait after the WC series, while the WC team is appropriately penalized for not winning the division.
Best of 7 is enough games to settle a winner.
If it were to go best of 9 that makes for a very long playoffs and the way some of these games have already been bullpenned, we would see some terrible pitching match ups and long games with all the scrambling for arms.
Shorter season with more off days would mean the difference between a healthy bullpen and starters in the playoffs.
I'm not assuming, that's mathematical reality. The shorter the series, the greater that chances for an upset. It is you that is doing exactly what you're claiming I did.
IMHO, there is such a thing as too many upsets. A single team making a run is one thing, but a whole bunch of lesser teams making a run is quite another.
It's the same in March Madness. A single Cinderella team making a deep run is always fun but a whole bunch of them, not so much.
We'll have to see how the playoffs finish up and how things play out in future years to know whether this is a rare occurrence or the new normal. Personally I hope it's a rare occurrence and I'm a Phillies fan (I'd feel a lot more satisfaction slaying the Dodgers in the NL finals than the Padres).
But unlike March Madness the most important player that a team's hopes rest upon doesn't play every fifth day. A game like baseball requires far more games than three to get the full breadth of the quality of the team. A best of 7 games was a terrific barometer. I'd rather have fewer Playoff teams to ensure that the Playoffs and World Series were all best of seven series.
The World Series, and therefore baseball playoffs, started as an exhibition, a fun little idea between two rival leagues whose teams never played each other otherwise. It’s never been a good way to determine the ‘best team,’ and often hasn’t, ever since the 116-win 1906 Cubs lost to the 93-win White Sox. If we skipped to a 7 game series between the Braves and the Dodgers that still wouldn’t tell us anything about who the real ‘best team’ in the NL is. But playoffs have become the be-all end-all of American sports and that can’t be undone. So just enjoy the ride.
I do wish the prevailing fan mentality of championship or bust wasn’t the case. That devalues the regular season just as much as any playoff format does. That you see Dodgers fans ENRAGED that they haven’t won it all since the bygone days of 2020 (in the most crapshooty short series playoff format of all-time) is ludicrous. That people perceive the 2015-2021 Cubs as a disappointment because they ‘only’ won one World Series is absurd. It’s a very hard thing to win! Only ever being happy with a championship win seems like a miserable way to be a sports fan.
As a Royals fan, the thing I'm most proud of about the 2015 team is that they had the best record in the AL that year. THAT was an accomplishment.
Just like the Super Bowl, it's not as interesting when teams have played each other. I rarely watch the Super Bowl anymore. It's just another game. Next year every MLB team plays every other one as MLB continues its quest to be like the NFL. A WS rematch is guaranteed.
Most people by far disagree with your opinion of the Super Bowl as "just another game." Check out the ratings and the cost for TV Ads. It's far and away from being "just another game." But you are entitled to your opinion regardless of how much it's out of sync with reality.
I like being a contrarian and I don't form my opinions or preferences based on what is popular. Actually I don't even watch the NFL anymore so I guess I'm really out of touch with reality. Darn .
I give you credit for your self-awareness, however, being a contrarian doesn't make your opinion correct. The NFL obviously tried to emulate MLB when it created the National and American Conferences.
Obviously that was a long time ago when baseball's popularity exceeded football's.
So what determines the "correct" opinion? Popularity? TV ratings?
As for the Super Bowl, it's not thee game for many, it's the only game they watch-if they watch it and not just the commercials or halftime show or it's background noise at their party. It's a TV spectacle.
What are the ratings for the NCAAF championship when it's a rematch vs when it's not?
Reality?
I'm not so sure Baseball popularity exceeded football in 1972. I'm relatively certain that football exceed baseball in the mid to late 60s. I would venture the correct opinion is based on popularity that is determined by the media, the focus of the majority, sales of paraphernalia, and obviously TV ratings.
I totally agree with what you say about the Super Bowl. I've no idea about your inquiry regarding the NCAA Football Championship, but I believe that college football's popularity rates 2nd to College Basketball., while the NBA has always trailed both the NFL & MLB. I think the NBA made a mistake in not following football's lead in not absorbing the entire NBA as the NFL did with the AFL. I believe the Super Bowl era is when pro football became King of the Hill. Part of that was having two major leagues pitted against each other that created a new excitement. The same thing actually occurred with MLB when the AL merged into MLB and the World Series era began. Of course, there was really only baseball and boxing that had mass appeal in 1903. But while there were prior World Series going back to the 19th century, they were upon agreement and not necessarily annual. Even the MLB World Series missed one season, but that never happened again due to public demand.
It's probably pretty entertaining as long as *your* team is winning, but it's a lot harder to care about series where they're not involved anymore. I used to enjoy watching LCS and World Series long after my Pale Hose had been eliminated (so, late August or so), because I had narratives to entice me. Ooh, are the Bash Brothers even the best slugging duo in the Bay Area, or have the Thrill and Kevin Mitchell surpassed them? Aah, the Twins and Braves both went worst to first, and let's see how each one's exciting young pitchers do against the other's veteran sluggers! We'd been hearing about those stories all summer, and they were finally coming to fruition.
There are still people who are paid good money to develop those narratives once it's announced that the Padres are playing the Phillies (the exciting young core in San Diego vs. the most majestic set of outfield statues this side of Monument Park), but our attention is more diffused so it seems forced. It'd be a hard job at the best of times because there are more playoff teams, but we're also not trying very hard to market players and narratives outside their home cities, and we're not putting the best vs. the best.
I suppose the best way for me to get into it would be to treat it like the Olympics. Every four years we turn on something we know nothing about and it's the announcer's job to give us the back story and tell us why we should care, and every four years a few stars break through and thrill us. I've always wanted the slow-building climax that baseball used to have, but I could try to get used to that (and maybe still get the slow-building climax if the couple of teams I follow closely happen to do well).
Play 162 games to determine the best teams, and then play a bunch of short series to undermine the 162-game schedule. Not entertained.