The 2022 MLB Postseason Thread

[Andy Brodie]

Quote

. . .those who make these decisions base their decisions primarily on maximizing profit . . .

Not that it's a new thing, but Rob Manfred's MLB is especially driven by this ethos.

The best we could hope for at this point is probably an officially recognized regular season title/trophy. 

As it is, we can simply take pleasure in such things as a fan if we choose to. The record books are always being written. I would love to see the Twins win another World Series (hell, even another post-season game!) but there are many reasons to watch and love baseball beyond wins/losses/titles. 

[Aggies7]

3 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

I know this topic has been discussed somewhere on these forums in the past, but the issue is finding the best balance between the regular season and the postseason. How many regular season games should there be? How many postseason teams should there be? How should teams qualify for the postseason? How many postseason games should there be? How many days should the postseason last? I expect that those who make these decisions base their decisions primarily on maximizing profit, and that may not necessarily result in the best team becoming champion.

As you said, it’s all about money and so what makes sense is unlikely to ever happen. What makes sense is to play a balanced schedule, do away with divisions and leagues and just take the top 2 teams and have them play best of 9 or something. Or just name the top team the winner. Or just name a regular season champ and then have a playoff. I’d be tickled pink if the twins won 87 games and won the World Series but I wouldn’t believe they were the BEST team in baseball 

[USAFChief]

Gleaned from the interwebs: in their last 55 postseason games against teams other than the Minnesota Twins, the NYY are 22-33.

[Nine of twelve]

3 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Gleaned from the interwebs: in their last 55 postseason games against teams other than the Minnesota Twins, the NYY are 22-33.

Interesting but I'm not sure if I should post a like. Here's hoping for 22-34.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Checking on who the Starting pitchers for NLCS Game 1 are..

aw, nuts!!!  

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Fun with numbers, 2022 free agent salaries:

Wheeler + Darvish = $46 million

Correa + Bundy + Archer (plus buyouts): $43.5 million 

[Squirrel]

 Wow, New York really should have put a roof on their stadium.

[wsnydes]

23 hours ago, USAFChief said:

Gleaned from the interwebs: in their last 55 postseason games against teams other than the Minnesota Twins, the NYY are 22-33.

I feel much better now!  Thanks!

[Vanimal46]

On 10/17/2022 at 11:24 AM, Aggies7 said:

As you said, it’s all about money and so what makes sense is unlikely to ever happen. What makes sense is to play a balanced schedule, do away with divisions and leagues and just take the top 2 teams and have them play best of 9 or something. Or just name the top team the winner. Or just name a regular season champ and then have a playoff. I’d be tickled pink if the twins won 87 games and won the World Series but I wouldn’t believe they were the BEST team in baseball 

There’s a book called The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. In the book, they attempted to establish how many games 2 playoff caliber teams would have to play against each other to determine with 95% confidence who was the better team. The answer they came to is a 269 game series. 

Best of 3, 5, 7, or 9. It wouldn’t matter. Randomness will take over.  

[Vanimal46]

If I were Rob Manfred, I’d trim down the regular season to 110-120 games starting mid-April and ending on August 31. Then have a March Madness style playoff tournament for the entire month of September. Baseball ending in early November is way too late in the year. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

What should the Twins do to improve? Gosh I don’t know but here are two free agents they were supposedly in on… 

 

[cHawk]

1 hour ago, wsnydes said:

I feel much better now!  Thanks!

I don't

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

What should the Twins do to improve? Gosh I don’t know but here are two free agents they were supposedly in on… 

 

The Twins talk forum is thataway ... ---> https://twinsdaily.com/forums/forum/6-minnesota-twins-talk/

Start a topic who you think the Twins should be in on so they can say we were in on them when we don't get them.

[LVTwinsfan]

On 10/16/2022 at 9:34 AM, Aggies7 said:

The only major sport where the playoffs make actual sense is the NFL since each team plays less than half of the other teams in the league and there are so few games. Don’t get me wrong I love the MLB playoffs, but you play 162 games over 6 months. The dodgers proved themselves a better team than the padres yet they’re going home. Same with the braves and Phillies. It’s a total crapshoot. You win 111 games out of 162, you’re the best. Best of 3s and best of 5s, while entertaining, aren’t a true test of who’s better IMO

There are great incentives to winning as many games as you can. Best record gets a bye, division winners get a 3 game home series. I’m not sure I understand the complaints about the playoffs. Should the best teams automatically win? If a lower ranked team beats the best team should we just dismiss the underdog as inferior or not deserving? Doesn’t make sense to me.  

[LVTwinsfan]

3 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

If I were Rob Manfred, I’d trim down the regular season to 110-120 games starting mid-April and ending on August 31. Then have a March Madness style playoff tournament for the entire month of September. Baseball ending in early November is way too late in the year. 

120 game season is a great idea.

[LVTwinsfan]

If the Guardians don’t pull this off, they will still have a winning record in this years playoffs

[Nine of twelve]

4 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

There’s a book called The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. In the book, they attempted to establish how many games 2 playoff caliber teams would have to play against each other to determine with 95% confidence who was the better team. The answer they came to is a 269 game series. 

Best of 3, 5, 7, or 9. It wouldn’t matter. Randomness will take over.  

Math does not lie. Math is always the truth.

[Nine of twelve]

Not the result I hoped for in the ALDS series that concluded just now. The good feeling of knowing that one of Hou and NYY will lose the next series is more than offset by knowing that one of them will advance to the WS. I'm already pulling for the NL to win it all.

[weitz41]

Well there went my mlb post season guess..Just had to be the Yankees that blew it up..curses..

[Aggies7]

1 hour ago, LVTwinsfan said:

There are great incentives to winning as many games as you can. Best record gets a bye, division winners get a 3 game home series. I’m not sure I understand the complaints about the playoffs. Should the best teams automatically win? If a lower ranked team beats the best team should we just dismiss the underdog as inferior or not deserving? Doesn’t make sense to me.  

Because it’s a “who’s hot this week/month” tournament. Why play for 6 months and then cram the most important part of the season into 3-4 weeks? It seems wacky.

And baseball, seemingly more than any other sport, is a sport of streakiness due to the complexities of hitting a baseball (also some arguments are being made about the layoff for bye teams this year and what that did to the hitters). Twins looked like legitimate contenders for April and most of May and then were the worst team in the AL the final four months. The dodgers win 111 games over 6 months and the offense slumped over the 4 games with SD. Yet, those two teams played 19 times at various points during the season and LA won FIFTEEN times. It’s just simply not a sport that lends itself to a reasonable postseason.

Games need to be shaved off of the regular season regardless. The season should end on Labor Day weekend. That would free up more space to have longer series, but then teams would play eachother less.

I think part of the angst about the playoffs comes from the added teams. I think it was fine with 4 per league. Now it’s just too many.

[mnfireman]

To those arguing the best teams should win the post-season, the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins had the 9th best record in MLB, defeating the MLB best Tigers in the ALCS and the NL best Cards in the WS.

That is why they play the games.....

[USAFChief]

24 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Because it’s a “who’s hot this week/month” tournament. Why play for 6 months and then cram the most important part of the season into 3-4 weeks? It seems wacky.

And baseball, seemingly more than any other sport, is a sport of streakiness due to the complexities of hitting a baseball (also some arguments are being made about the layoff for bye teams this year and what that did to the hitters). Twins looked like legitimate contenders for April and most of May and then were the worst team in the AL the final four months. The dodgers win 111 games over 6 months and the offense slumped over the 4 games with SD. Yet, those two teams played 19 times at various points during the season and LA won FIFTEEN times. It’s just simply not a sport that lends itself to a reasonable postseason.

Games need to be shaved off of the regular season regardless. The season should end on Labor Day weekend. That would free up more space to have longer series, but then teams would play eachother less.

I think part of the angst about the playoffs comes from the added teams. I think it was fine with 4 per league. Now it’s just too many.

What angst?

 

 

[Vanimal46]

For all of the “angst” about the postseason results, the AL has been pretty much chalk so far. Yankees and Astros were the top 2 teams all season long in the AL. 

[Aggies7]

34 minutes ago, mnfireman said:

To those arguing the best teams should win the post-season, the 1987 World Champion Minnesota Twins had the 9th best record in MLB, defeating the MLB best Tigers in the ALCS and the NL best Cards in the WS.

That is why they play the games.....

Yes, and they’re unfortunately known as one of the weakest world champs ever for that reason. They would have been FIFTH in the AL east that season. Things have gotten more fair as far as making sure some teams don’t get shafted 

[Aggies7]

20 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

What angst?

 

 

I used the wrong word come to think of it lol. Griping would be the better word. There has been more discussion this year with the added team

 

[mnfireman]

Sounds to me like somebody is transposing his feelings onto everyone, kind of along the lines of he who argues loudest and longest wins the argument. All sports play six month seasons to determine the champion, and routinely it is not the "best" team from the regular season. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

4 hours ago, Squirrel said:

The Twins talk forum is thataway ... ---> https://twinsdaily.com/forums/forum/6-minnesota-twins-talk/

Start a topic who you think the Twins should be in on so they can say we were in on them when we don't get them.

I wanted both those guys, and said so. Do you know how hard it is to wait 4-plus years to feel vindicated for my take on Darvish?  

Anyway, you are right, we shouldn’t confuse Twins talk with Postseason talk here! lol

[Aggies7]

18 minutes ago, mnfireman said:

Sounds to me like somebody is transposing his feelings onto everyone, kind of along the lines of he who argues loudest and longest wins the argument. All sports play six month seasons to determine the champion, and routinely it is not the "best" team from the regular season. 

Lol it’s not that serious man, it’s a message board to have discussions. We’re all twins fans here. MLB plays twice as many games as the NBA/NHL so that argument is a bit irrelevant. I think the #1 goal of every league should be to have the best team be the champion. It doesn’t always work that way but it’s worth discussing when teams that win 60-70% of its games gets knocked out before they can play at least for a pennant 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

That Schwarber ball went a little ways..

[Vanimal46]

39 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Lol it’s not that serious man, it’s a message board to have discussions. We’re all twins fans here. MLB plays twice as many games as the NBA/NHL so that argument is a bit irrelevant. I think the #1 goal of every league should be to have the best team be the champion. It doesn’t always work that way but it’s worth discussing when teams that win 60-70% of its games gets knocked out before they can play at least for a pennant 

The only league that achieves that more often than not is the NBA. Personally I find that league extremely boring. Part of it is because of the sport itself. The other part is because stars play such a pivotal role in the league where if you don’t have 3 or more stars on your team, you have no chance. These days I could name 15-20 NBA players total. Yet I know if Steph Curry is healthy, the Warriors will make the NBA finals and likely win it all again.