Jump to content

There should only be 6 playoff teams


Greenpastures23

Recommended Posts

  • Greenpastures23 changed the title to There should only be 6 playoff teams

When I started following baseball, there were 8 teams, 4 from each league.  I was resistant to the second wild card addition in 2012, but it does make things more interesting and allow more teams to "go for it" at the deadline.  I did not care for what they did last year with 8 playoff teams, but thankfully, that was only due to COVID. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Greenpastures23 said:

The play-in game is a joke, but I don't count that as the playoffs since it's a game to get in the playoffs.

 

Were people complaining when it was 4 teams? To me that was the best because it really awarded the best

In 1989 the Blue Jays made the playoffs with 89 wins.  The Angels and Royals had more wins and stayed home.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let's face it.  The truest form was each division winner making the playoffs.  Before that, it was the best team from each league.   They keep letting more teams in to maintain fan interest and viewership.  It works.     The more teams you let in, the less reward for what you did in the regular season.   A team with 88 wins might knock out a team with 100 wins.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, RZNJ said:

Let's face it.  The truest form was each division winner making the playoffs.  Before that, it was the best team from each league.   They keep letting more teams in to maintain fan interest and viewership.  It works.     The more teams you let in, the less reward for what you did in the regular season.   A team with 88 wins might knock out a team with 100 wins.  

Yup.  When I was first a fan, there were two ten-team leagues and the winner of each league played in the WS, period.   Even when they went to having two six-team divisions, there were years like 1980 where the Orioles won 100 games but didn’t make the playoffs because the Yankees won 103. 

I kind of like the play-in game because it penalizes the team that didn’t win its division.   When there was only one wild card that team essentially stood on equal footing with the three division winners.   Now they risk being one and done, so there’s a huge incentive to win the division rather than being a wild card.  
 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

29 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

I'd rather they kill the division and let the best four teams from each league advance.

If it goes that route, I would prefer a return to the balanced schedule if it's going to be the four best records. Playing in a division with a team like the Orioles or Diamondbacks is a good way to boot win totals with the current scheduling format. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember one point late in the '84 season where the Orioles in the AL East had a better record than any team in the AL West, but were also farther out of first place than any team in the AL West. When the playoffs involved division winners only it seemed every year some deserving team was shut out of the post season due to the vagaries of geography (Atlanta Braves in the NL West?) or being the second best team in the league but having the best team in your same division. 

I like the current setup with two sudden death games to cull the wild card winners, and then the better division winners having home field advantage. At least it's not the NHL where every team with a winning record makes the playoffs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

If it goes that route, I would prefer a return to the balanced schedule if it's going to be the four best records. Playing in a division with a team like the Orioles or Diamondbacks is a good way to boot win totals with the current scheduling format. 

Sure.  Would probably make sense to redo the leagues as well to cut down on travel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No. It shouldn’t be easier for teams coming from a weak division. 

I think it’s fine as it is now.

Crazy to think if they added one more playoff team, right now it would be the Blue Jays, so all three wild card spots would come from the Al East.

Yeah, our division is that hard.

Maybe they could just ditch the divisions, balance the schedule and take two teams with the best record from each league.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




  • Posts

    • Yeah the amenities are pretty outdated at the yard and they seem to do nothing year over year to improve them. The touchscreens have been banged on to death to the point they barely function, so you can't accurately fill out your order at the kiosks, and they don't have a way for the people behind the counter to ring you up at many of the food places. The sound is low to non-existent in certain sections of the club level, like around 218. Seems like there should be speakers that reach there but they might have been damaged by rain, etc. and they are too lazy to fix them. If you go to a game that's even slightly busy, you will wait forever to get into the bathroom, and the sink will be an absolute mess with no soap or paper towels. It's even worse on the club level where they have one sink that's right by the door. Nearby businesses don't care, either. The Hilton parking garage reeks of decay, pot and human waste. They don't turn on the air circulation fans, even if cars are waiting for an hour and a half to exit from P3, filling up the air with carbon monoxide. They only let you enter the stadium with one 20 oz bottle of water. It's so expensive to buy a drink or water in the stadium, but with all the salty food, 20 oz of water isn't enough, especially on a hot day. Vegetarian food options are poor to none, other than things like chips, fries, hot pretzels and the occasional pizza. Vida Taco is better, but at an inconvenient location for many seats. The doors on the club level are not accessible. They're anti-accessible. Big, heavy doors you have to go through to get to/from the escalators, and big, heavy doors to get to your seats, none of them automatic (or even with the option to be automatic with a button press). Makes it hard to carry food out to your seats even if not handicapped. The furniture in the lounges on the club level seem designed to allow as few people as possible to sit down. Not great when we have so many rain delays during the season. Should put more, smaller chairs in and allow more of the club level ticket holders to have a seat while waiting for thunderstorms to pass. They keep a lot of the entrance/exit gates closed except for playoff/sellout games, which means people have to slowly "mooooo" all the way down Eutaw St to get to parking. They are too cheap to staff all the gates, so they make people exit by the warehouse, even though it would be a lot more convenient for many fans to open all the gates. Taking Light Rail would be super convenient, except that if there's at least 20k fans in attendance, it's common to have to wait 90-120 minutes to be able to board a non-full train heading toward Glen Burnie. A few trains might come by, but they are already full, or fill up fast when folks walk up to the Convention Center stop to pre-empt the folks trying to board at Camden Station. None of the garages in the area are set up to require pre-payment on entry (reservation, or give them your card / digital payment at the entrance till). If they were, emptying out the garage would be very quick, as they wouldn't need to ticket anyone on the way out: if you can't get in without paying, you can always just leave without having to stop and scan your phone or put a ticket in the machine. They shut down the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Station in 2015 because the Maryland Stadium Authority was too greedy. That place was a fun distraction if you were in the area when a game wasn't about to start, like if you show up super early on Opening Day or a playoff day. Superbook's restaurant on Eutaw is a huge downgrade from Dempsey's in terms of menu and service quality. Dempsey's used to be well-staffed, you could reserve a table online, and they had all kinds of great selection for every diet. Superbook seems like just another bar serving the same swill that the rest of the park serves, with extremely minimal and low-quality food. For that matter, most of the food at the stadium is very low quality these days. A lot of things we used to love are made to a lower standard now if they are served at all. These are gripes about the stadium and the area that haven't changed my entire adult life. Going to an O's game requires one to tolerate many small inconveniences and several major inconveniences, any number of which could easily be fixed by the relevant authorities if they gave a damn about the people who pay to come see the team play. You would think a mid-market team would be able to afford to invest in the fan experience. You would think the city and partnering organizations like garages, the Stadium Authority and MTA would at least try to do their part to make the experience enjoyable and free of kinks. You would think they would put some thought into handling the "growing pains" of the fanbase due to recent renewed interest after the dark years. Instead, all we get is the same indifference and the same annoyances year in and year out. The whole area is overdue for a revamp. Not sure if $600 mil will get it done, but at least it's a start. Hopefully they can start to patch up some of the many holes in the fan experience. If you're not going to invest in Burnes, at least make it so paying customers have an easier, more enjoyable time getting to/from the stadium and having some food while we're there.
    • Elias has only been in rebuild mode with the O's so there's not much to speculate on there.  Houston, where he spent his formative years, doesn't seem to like to be on the hook for more than a couple of big long-term contracts at any given time.  I can see that as being Elias' choice as well, albeit with a lower overall cost - Houston runs a big payroll.  But it's all guesswork.  I really don't know. If Elias takes the 2025 payroll to $150 million it will creep up to $200 million or so by 2028 just from keeping the core together.  That's where I start to wonder about sustainability due to market size, economic forces, etc., etc., etc... If it were up to me, I would add a couple of free agents this offseason even if the contracts were longer than ideal and be conservative about extensions elsewhere until the prospects establish themselves a little better.  I think there's a competitive opportunity that the team is already into that's worth exploiting. I think ownership is very happy to have Elias on board and they're not inclined to force him to do anything.  I also think Rubenstein's demonstrated business prowess is great enough to assume that he has had plenty enough time to come to a mutual understanding with Elias as to goals.
    • We need a RH O’hearn…in addition to Westburg. At least 3 batters that will push up the pitch count and cause damage in the top 5 of the lineup.
    • Boy,  that Jackson Merrill is a good young player that is playing his best ball down the season stretch and in the playoffs.   He's only 21.  I guess some young guys are able to play up to the pressure.   Who could have guessed that?
    • I’m aware.   You are arguing something im Not.
    • What agreement? The agreement you are talking about happened as a result of the move.  The MASN agreement would not have existed if Angelos had gone to court to block the move.
    • I’m saying the Os had an agreement with MLB and that should have held up.  Been pretty clear about that. 
  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...