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Thread: Playoffs

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Feb 2006
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    Playoffs

    The Giants are being referred to as a Dynasty. And perhaps in this era they are. I keep going back to how baseball was played in the 60's when I first started following it. You had one team in each league, the one with the most wins goes the World Series. Only in the case of a tie after 154 or later 162 games was their a playoff. The winner from each league played the same number of games against each other. Today you have the divisions. The Angles I believe had the best record in baseball. But a lot of this came from playing in a division against the Rangers and Astros which were both very poor teams. The playoffs reward a team from a weak division and penalize a team from a strong one. What you frequently have is not the best team in the World Series judging by its overall record during the year, as in in earlier years, but frequently a team that gets hot at the end of the year. We see instances of a poor team getting red hot for a few games and beating a good one during the regular season. But these short streaks by a poor team are evened out during the course of a season. In the playoffs getting hot at the end of the year is magnified. Under the old rules probably neither the Royals or the Giants would have been in the World Series.
    I understand that the playoffs, both in baseball and football, are to increase fan interest and attendance at the end of the year. Today teams are in the race for the World Series that would have been out of it under the old rules. And I understand that teams play by the rules we now have and have to compete in the playoffs. But there has always seemed to me to be something amiss for a team to play great all year and then be knocked off by a lesser team that gets red hot in the playoffs at the right time. Guess that's just how it works now.

  2. #2
    Senior Member
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    Re: Playoffs

    From 1961 (AL) and 1962 (NL) through 1968 there were ten teams and no divisions. Obviously, most teams weren't seriously in the running most of the season. Even when there were eight teams per league and 154 games, roughly half of the teams were rarely in the running each year. The old St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, and Philadelphia A's rarely gave the Yankees any competition. When the A's moved to KC, there were real potential conflict-of-interest situations between them and the Yankees that wouldn't be allowed these days. The KC A's made so many favorable trades with the Yankees in the 1950's that they were being called a farm team of the Yankees.

    Now with 30 clubs there's no way to avoid a playoff system. I would, however, prefer a more balanced schedule, as the divisions vary too much in strength.

    I hope dynasties are dead in baseball. The NFL moved ahead of baseball partly because they understood earlier the value of parity and of spreading the enjoyment around different parts of the country, as well as of playoff systems.

  3. #3
    Banned
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    Jul 2014
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    179

    Re: Playoffs

    cjlong,

    Good points, but the play-off system is probably going to stay as it is for quite some time. There is one aspect of it that is sickening and is directly associated with your great point of rewarding the teams with the weaker divisions while punishing the teams who come from strong competition. That would be the crazy "reward" of obtaining home field advantage because of winning an exhibition game.

    Selig is out, and out with him should go his insane "Home Field Advantage for the league who wins the All-Star game" ruling he came up with. It's just another way of rewarding a team who 50% of the time doesn't deserve it.

    All that aside, I do believe the Giants are a legitimate dynasty. 3 World Championships in 5 years with the core group intact sounds like they have earned that distinction, IMO.

  4. #4
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    Feb 2006
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    936

    Re: Playoffs

    I understand your point about spreading joy around to a number of cities and parts of the country. On the other hand, we have fewer really excellent teams over the years as we had in the past. More and more we see teams at the top with serious weaknesses. I understand people like the "competition" that parity brings. But I for me there was more enjoyment watching two really good teams go after each other than two mediocre ones fight it out as sometimes happens. But obviously the powers that be think differently and so be it.

  5. #5
    Senior Member
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    May 2006
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    374

    Re: Playoffs

    Quote Originally Posted by ShaimOnYou View Post
    cjlong,

    Good points, but the play-off system is probably going to stay as it is for quite some time. There is one aspect of it that is sickening and is directly associated with your great point of rewarding the teams with the weaker divisions while punishing the teams who come from strong competition. That would be the crazy "reward" of obtaining home field advantage because of winning an exhibition game.

    Selig is out, and out with him should go his insane "Home Field Advantage for the league who wins the All-Star game" ruling he came up with. It's just another way of rewarding a team who 50% of the time doesn't deserve it.

    All that aside, I do believe the Giants are a legitimate dynasty. 3 World Championships in 5 years with the core group intact sounds like they have earned that distinction, IMO.
    I agree and disagree. Agree that the Giants the past 5 years have to be called a dynasty. Any team that can make the playoffs, then win their way through them, then win the World Series 3 times in 5 years has done something very difficult and special.

    Disagree about the All Star winning league getting home field advantage in the WS not being a good idea. It used to be alternated every year, the AL generally had it in the odd years, the NL in even years. So you could say the same, that the "lesser" team got it 50% of the time. Doing it the current way, it adds at least a little more meaning to the All Star game.

 

 

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