1/30/12

Mack and Company and... PLAYOFFS!!!?


Mack:  Bud Seliq said today that "10 out of 30 teams will make the playoffs". Is baseball starting to move a little too close to hockey?

Conrad Youngren:   Well, there aren’t enough fights, :-)

I do think the one-game play-off (if that’s still the plan) between the two WC candidates per league to see who enters the fray with the Division Winners is actually an improvement over the single WC entry.

The hockey (and NFL, NBA) scenario is basically a season long quest to qualify.  Winning your division is nice (particularly in the NFL with a HFA for a single game round), but not paramount.  Over a 162 game season, it is hard to argue that a division winner isn’t the best team, and that deserves a distinct award in the post season.  With the risk of a single game elimination for a WC, there will be a significant emphasis on winning the division and not settling for a WC.

Charles Thompson  - Well, I don't have a problem with it.  The Cardinals, in their last two championships, have shown that the best regular season teams don't always make for the best short series contenders.  Now, those few teams that might be on the fringes of greatness, have a chance to prove that over a short span of games, their built for greater success.  The best teams don't always win.  This is baseball, where on any given day, the underdog wins.  Tell you what, say the Mets squeak into the playoffs with that last spot; I wouldn't complain.  Pretty sure, with this new way of setting up the post season, the Mets would have made the playoffs in '07 & '08.  That might have added a championship to this franchise.  I'm all for it.  What I don't want, is interleague play every day, which come 2013 seems like a reality.  That, to me, defeats the whole purpose of having separate leagues.

Michael Freire - I don't mind a few more playoff teams, but I am not a fan of the one game playoff between the first and second wildcard team(s).   Both squads will throw their ace since it is a win or go home game.   It just weakens the winner a little bit, since they have to open with the best team in a longer series, a few days later, without their best pitcher.
On the plus side, the Mets would have made a bunch more playoff appearances, if this system were in place from the middle 1980's forward, to include the "collapse" year(s).   Overall, I like more playoff teams, I wish the wildcard playoff game, was more of a series.


Christopher Soto - As a Mets fan I think its great!! Solely because of how difficult our division has become. As a baseball fan I am also pleased. Baseball has always been the most difficult sport to get into the playoffs for. Before these changes the playoff acceptance rate was a meager 26.66% of the teams. With the 2 additional  WC's  the new rate is 33.33% of the teams.

When you compare this to other major sports, the MLB will continue to be the most difficult sport to enter the playoffs for however it gives fans of other teams more hope that they will get a chance. I still personally think that a suitable game format for playoffs would be 1-3-5-7 (1 WC play-in, 3 divisional games, 5 league championship games, 7 World Series games) that way we're not playing in November anymore.

Baseball      10 of 30 teams    33.33%
Football       12 of 30 teams    40%
Basketball   16 of 30 teams    53.33%
Hockey        16 of 30 teams    53.33%

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