Mathematics is just a weird subject when you get past first degree level.
I did an undergraduate mathematics degree at one of the world's top 5 universities but no, it's just not possible to explain Dr Frank Ryan's PhD in terms that I would understand.
It's a shame that they're not making Degrassi anymore. I always thought Joey Votto could have a brief guest spot on the show where he visits the school. Who knows for what reason, but they had a Jay and Silent Bob story line last for awhile... so anything's possible. This would obviously allow him to segue into his next career - acting!
Ultimately, I think it is up to everybody whether winning the World Series, or at least October success, is the end-all, be-all, or not. If you look at the way most fans are looking at it, at least people who are not fans of the teams involved, it isn't. The ratings show a collective yawn. Are we at the point where we're manufacturing the importance of the postseason? Moneyball's "my stuff doesn't work in the postseason, and the postseason is a crapshoot" maybe didn't attack a sacred cow, but certainly went to an uncomfortable place. Jerry DiPoto's comment that his goal was sustainable success, playing .550 ball over a period of time, was open to multiple interpretations, but contained some of the same stuff. DiPoto was excoriated, but again, how much of that was because he was wrong, and how much because feeling the same would have made most people, loving baseball as they do, uncomfortable? A sacred cow is a sacred cow for a reason. I sympathize with defenders of the World Series status quo, But at the end of the day, if the postseason is a joke, one can't get ignore the fact.
If postseason success and revenue went hand and hand, then teams would have a solid reason to dismiss the regular season. Then general managers who thought only in terms of winning the World Series would be acting rationally. But I think the motivation for winning the World Series again has a lot to do with this just being our common agreement, of being what we all sign up for. If you get to the World Series, is there much extra revenue value in winning in seven games versus losing in seven? Revenue certainly isn't everything. (Believing the opposite is a sacred cow in the other direction, a taboo. How would people react if an owner published his financial results, and said they took precedence over all else? How would people react if an owner revealed that he rejoiced more in securing a big local television contract than achieving a World Series win?) Because it isn't, I can't believe the value that teams are putting on the World Series isn't largely their choice.
That teams play to win, and that they are only worthy custodians of a sport if they do so, is essential to the intergrity of sports. But what is winning? That is not so clear. What Joe and I would like is for for winning the World Series to be a better barometer than it is right now. If you have enough short playoff rounds played under conditions unique to them, at a certain point people will reject the premise that the tournament winner is the overall winner. I don't think it's going too far to say that championships in baseball have already been tarnished.
I think we can all agree that baseball will never be like soccer in the Premier League. Even soccer in the US cannot be like the Premier League. USL has been trying for a while for a relegation system but then the reality of the economics kick in. However, baseball does have levers to increase competition and make the regular season matter if it wants.
You can even make it punitive. Finish last in your division, lose 10% of revenue share. Finish last in your league lose twenty percent. Finish last multiple years, compound, etc. People like Fisher do not field a legitimate team and can basically live off revenue share. Cut off his revenue share lifeline and he is either forced to compete or sell. There are ways to force relegation without relegation. Hit them in the only place where it matters, their wallet. Relegation in the US has to look at the owner not the team. New owner instantly gets a reprieve from those rules for a couple of years allowing them to rebuild the team (and maintain value for old owner to get out). Owners would need to make an investment choice that tanking is viable or not.
You can also try carrots. Finish first in the league, all playoff games until World Series are home games. Finish second, all home games until you meet somebody who finished higher than you, etc.
Finish first, get a big trophy plus draft picks plus extra gate receipts. Whatever.
Or you can do what baseball does which is nothing and in a sport where randomness has a big sway, incentivize teams to not try in the regular season and hope they get in the back door and get hot or not even try and suck in revenue share. Yay baseball.
Joe, why not create a series of polls around this issue to gauge what readers think? But if you do so, I’d suggest starting with some basic questions about how much change people are willing to see in both the regular season and the playoffs. How do people feel about changes that would affect the nature of historically important stats and records, for example?
I sat with my father on our couch in central Ohio for that 1964 Championship game, and let me tell you, the tension after that scoreless first half was nearly unbearable. And then, Ryan and TE John Brewer made an adjustment of some kind, Brewer started running a slant pattern just a little more slanted, and presto! he was open constantly. This began to open everything else up, as they had no real answer for that slant. Next thing you know, Collins is getting open for TDs and it's all over but the trophy presentation. 60 years. Sixty. Thanks, Frank - and R.I.P. - ya done good all your life.
It’s an interesting idea that teams would aim to sneak into the playoffs and hope to go all the way. But I actually don’t see that happening, not yet, not in its strongest forms.
If making the playoffs truly feels routine for top teams, what we would see is the best teams trading AWAY rental players at the trade deadline. The idea being, we’re already going to make the playoffs this year and probably the next several years. So let’s get some prospects so we’ll be in the game for the foreseeable future.
I think the reason we don’t yet see this behavior is actually because teams aren’t willing to be that cold-hearted. They’re human like the rest of us. If you keep making the postseason and falling short, there’s a feeling that you need to do *something* I.e. become a better “postseason” team. Really, there’s not much difference between that and simply being a good team, so the most rational thing to do in this case would be to keep being a good team, make the playoffs every year, and see where the chips fall.
Joe's dad was correct. Even the verb form "quarterback" means nothing more than someone who plays the quarterback position. It doesn't tell us if they took most of the snaps directly behind the center, from a pistol formation or from a shotgun formation. It doesn't tell us if they were run first, pass first or RPO style dual threat. As the Oxford Language dictionary says in its definition of "verb",
"use (a word that is not conventionally used as a verb, typically a noun) as a verb.
"any English noun can be verbed, but some are more resistant than others". Quarterback is just such a word.
As a fellow Pirate fan I have come to admire Votto. I intensely dislike the Reds, but I almost always find a player on hated teams to like. Donny Baseball would be the prime example. Respect - goes without saying. Good luck in your retirement Joey.
I happened to be living in Cleveland in 1964/65. There was a Christmas Light celebration in the square outside the old terminal building (and Higbees), and Frank Ryan was throwing footballs into the crowd - they came in faster than I wanted to get in front of (I was 11 at the time).
The one thing that players respond to is money and more of it. And some better way to tie regular season results to post-season success.
1. Reserve a certain amount of money for teams in first place in each division in each month.
2. Those 1st place teams can earn ‘points’ that are worth something TBD in the post-season. Maybe a point is worth .5 run on the scoreboard starting the post-season game. So the Braves start with 3 runs for leading the division for 6 months vs the D-Backs 0 because they never won a month.
Unless you make the regular season worth SOMETHING more than just making playoffs what Joe describes is sure to happen
Mathematics is just a weird subject when you get past first degree level.
I did an undergraduate mathematics degree at one of the world's top 5 universities but no, it's just not possible to explain Dr Frank Ryan's PhD in terms that I would understand.
Joe, more Joey Votto, please. What wonderful insights he brings!
It's a shame that they're not making Degrassi anymore. I always thought Joey Votto could have a brief guest spot on the show where he visits the school. Who knows for what reason, but they had a Jay and Silent Bob story line last for awhile... so anything's possible. This would obviously allow him to segue into his next career - acting!
Ultimately, I think it is up to everybody whether winning the World Series, or at least October success, is the end-all, be-all, or not. If you look at the way most fans are looking at it, at least people who are not fans of the teams involved, it isn't. The ratings show a collective yawn. Are we at the point where we're manufacturing the importance of the postseason? Moneyball's "my stuff doesn't work in the postseason, and the postseason is a crapshoot" maybe didn't attack a sacred cow, but certainly went to an uncomfortable place. Jerry DiPoto's comment that his goal was sustainable success, playing .550 ball over a period of time, was open to multiple interpretations, but contained some of the same stuff. DiPoto was excoriated, but again, how much of that was because he was wrong, and how much because feeling the same would have made most people, loving baseball as they do, uncomfortable? A sacred cow is a sacred cow for a reason. I sympathize with defenders of the World Series status quo, But at the end of the day, if the postseason is a joke, one can't get ignore the fact.
If postseason success and revenue went hand and hand, then teams would have a solid reason to dismiss the regular season. Then general managers who thought only in terms of winning the World Series would be acting rationally. But I think the motivation for winning the World Series again has a lot to do with this just being our common agreement, of being what we all sign up for. If you get to the World Series, is there much extra revenue value in winning in seven games versus losing in seven? Revenue certainly isn't everything. (Believing the opposite is a sacred cow in the other direction, a taboo. How would people react if an owner published his financial results, and said they took precedence over all else? How would people react if an owner revealed that he rejoiced more in securing a big local television contract than achieving a World Series win?) Because it isn't, I can't believe the value that teams are putting on the World Series isn't largely their choice.
That teams play to win, and that they are only worthy custodians of a sport if they do so, is essential to the intergrity of sports. But what is winning? That is not so clear. What Joe and I would like is for for winning the World Series to be a better barometer than it is right now. If you have enough short playoff rounds played under conditions unique to them, at a certain point people will reject the premise that the tournament winner is the overall winner. I don't think it's going too far to say that championships in baseball have already been tarnished.
I think we can all agree that baseball will never be like soccer in the Premier League. Even soccer in the US cannot be like the Premier League. USL has been trying for a while for a relegation system but then the reality of the economics kick in. However, baseball does have levers to increase competition and make the regular season matter if it wants.
Revenue share is actually a fairly modern concept in baseball. Here is an article talking about requiring revenue share to be used only on player salaries. https://www.blessyouboys.com/2021/12/16/22831008/mlbs-revenue-sharing-problem-and-how-to-solve-it.
You can even make it punitive. Finish last in your division, lose 10% of revenue share. Finish last in your league lose twenty percent. Finish last multiple years, compound, etc. People like Fisher do not field a legitimate team and can basically live off revenue share. Cut off his revenue share lifeline and he is either forced to compete or sell. There are ways to force relegation without relegation. Hit them in the only place where it matters, their wallet. Relegation in the US has to look at the owner not the team. New owner instantly gets a reprieve from those rules for a couple of years allowing them to rebuild the team (and maintain value for old owner to get out). Owners would need to make an investment choice that tanking is viable or not.
You can also try carrots. Finish first in the league, all playoff games until World Series are home games. Finish second, all home games until you meet somebody who finished higher than you, etc.
Finish first, get a big trophy plus draft picks plus extra gate receipts. Whatever.
Or you can do what baseball does which is nothing and in a sport where randomness has a big sway, incentivize teams to not try in the regular season and hope they get in the back door and get hot or not even try and suck in revenue share. Yay baseball.
Joe, why not create a series of polls around this issue to gauge what readers think? But if you do so, I’d suggest starting with some basic questions about how much change people are willing to see in both the regular season and the playoffs. How do people feel about changes that would affect the nature of historically important stats and records, for example?
I sat with my father on our couch in central Ohio for that 1964 Championship game, and let me tell you, the tension after that scoreless first half was nearly unbearable. And then, Ryan and TE John Brewer made an adjustment of some kind, Brewer started running a slant pattern just a little more slanted, and presto! he was open constantly. This began to open everything else up, as they had no real answer for that slant. Next thing you know, Collins is getting open for TDs and it's all over but the trophy presentation. 60 years. Sixty. Thanks, Frank - and R.I.P. - ya done good all your life.
Count me as exactly one of the Braves fans that Joe describes here
It’s an interesting idea that teams would aim to sneak into the playoffs and hope to go all the way. But I actually don’t see that happening, not yet, not in its strongest forms.
If making the playoffs truly feels routine for top teams, what we would see is the best teams trading AWAY rental players at the trade deadline. The idea being, we’re already going to make the playoffs this year and probably the next several years. So let’s get some prospects so we’ll be in the game for the foreseeable future.
I think the reason we don’t yet see this behavior is actually because teams aren’t willing to be that cold-hearted. They’re human like the rest of us. If you keep making the postseason and falling short, there’s a feeling that you need to do *something* I.e. become a better “postseason” team. Really, there’s not much difference between that and simply being a good team, so the most rational thing to do in this case would be to keep being a good team, make the playoffs every year, and see where the chips fall.
Of course Joey belongs to this group. Have you two played chess yet?
Joe's dad was correct. Even the verb form "quarterback" means nothing more than someone who plays the quarterback position. It doesn't tell us if they took most of the snaps directly behind the center, from a pistol formation or from a shotgun formation. It doesn't tell us if they were run first, pass first or RPO style dual threat. As the Oxford Language dictionary says in its definition of "verb",
"use (a word that is not conventionally used as a verb, typically a noun) as a verb.
"any English noun can be verbed, but some are more resistant than others". Quarterback is just such a word.
Here's the regular season fix:
1. Best records in each league play in the "world series" right after the season. They get a trophy.
2. There is also an "mlb playoffs" tournament starting the same time. 2 world series teams get a bye for the first week or so.
3. I don't care how many teams are in the playoffs, but it culminates in the "MLB finals" which has a different trophy.
So the really good teams get their moment, regardless of what playoff randomness happens, but playoff excitement is still there.
Red Sox fan here. If the Braves want Sale to pitch in the postseason they should sit him down until August. And keep him away from bicycles.
Man, I love that Votto is on here. I'd like to take this time to point out that Pirates fans still can't stand him.
But #Respect off the charts.
Fair enough?
As a fellow Pirate fan I have come to admire Votto. I intensely dislike the Reds, but I almost always find a player on hated teams to like. Donny Baseball would be the prime example. Respect - goes without saying. Good luck in your retirement Joey.
I happened to be living in Cleveland in 1964/65. There was a Christmas Light celebration in the square outside the old terminal building (and Higbees), and Frank Ryan was throwing footballs into the crowd - they came in faster than I wanted to get in front of (I was 11 at the time).
The one thing that players respond to is money and more of it. And some better way to tie regular season results to post-season success.
1. Reserve a certain amount of money for teams in first place in each division in each month.
2. Those 1st place teams can earn ‘points’ that are worth something TBD in the post-season. Maybe a point is worth .5 run on the scoreboard starting the post-season game. So the Braves start with 3 runs for leading the division for 6 months vs the D-Backs 0 because they never won a month.
Unless you make the regular season worth SOMETHING more than just making playoffs what Joe describes is sure to happen