Other Teams Playoffs Thread

[Uli2001]

Houston has just eliminated Minnesota 3-1, into the ALCS against Texas.

Braves down 1-2 to the Phillies, Dodgers down 2-0 to Diamondbacks.

Regrettably, this could be Houston's WS to lose if Braves and Dodgers are out.

[Uli2001]

Dodgers, 100-game winner, swept by a 84-win Diamondbacks team. There you go.

[Nite]

I feel like MLB is going to be pressured to tweak the playoffs should Atlanta go down tomorrow. 

The top 3 teams all getting ambushed and looking flat after a week off isn't a good look. 

[Ridgway22]

1 hour ago, Nite said:

I feel like MLB is going to be pressured to tweak the playoffs should Atlanta go down tomorrow. 

The top 3 teams all getting ambushed and looking flat after a week off isn't a good look. 

Cannot disagree with this. As of tonight, top three regular season teams in baseball are 1-8, including 1-5 at home. Something ain't right.

You play 5+ months under one set of rules that gives rare days off, then in the postseason, completely different scheduling, where teams sitting around for a week are suddenly forced into a best of 5 with a team that just won, at a minimum, 2 of 3. If they're going to keep this format, get rid of the days off before and after the best of 3.  Hunger games!

[Yossarian]

They just got to get rid of leagues, go to a balanced schedule and take the top 8 teams for the playoffs.  The first round is a best of 5 series with 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5 match-up.  The second round would match the highest versus lowest remaining seeds in a best of 7 series. Then the World Series.

For that matter,  you could have 16 teams in the playoffs with a best of three opening round.

[baltfan]

Houston somehow figured out this 5 day break, but it seems like everyone else is having an issue.  It can’t be a coincidence. 

[glenn__davis]

38 minutes ago, baltfan said:

Houston somehow figured out this 5 day break, but it seems like everyone else is having an issue.  It can’t be a coincidence. 

Houston also got to play arguably the weakest of the AL playoff teams.  No disrespect meant to MIN, they did end their season well but against very weak competition.

[Jagwar]

No tweaking necessary. It's baseball, weird things happen to the best teams. 

Seeing the Dodgers get swept, and the Braves on the brink of elimination, helps me understand that the O's getting swept isn't necessarily an outlier. It doesn't make me feel better about the O's getting swept, but it does give me context.  

[bpilktree]

2 hours ago, baltfan said:

Houston somehow figured out this 5 day break, but it seems like everyone else is having an issue.  It can’t be a coincidence. 

Houston also is the only team that was still playing important games the final weekend of the season.  The 5 days off is huge but you add in clinching days or week in advance your basically playing spring training games to finish out the season and then 5 days off. 

[maybenxtyr]

6 minutes ago, bpilktree said:

Houston also is the only team that was still playing important games the final weekend of the season.  The 5 days off is huge but you add in clinching days or week in advance your basically playing spring training games to finish out the season and then 5 days off. 

Yep...not counting the bats going cold for a couple of weeks towards the end, the Boston series wasn't really a max effort looking weekend. This was a pretty big disappointment for a lot of us but it'll be ok.

[baltfan]

53 minutes ago, bpilktree said:

Houston also is the only team that was still playing important games the final weekend of the season.  The 5 days off is huge but you add in clinching days or week in advance your basically playing spring training games to finish out the season and then 5 days off. 

This is an excellent point.

[baltfan]

2 hours ago, Jagwar said:

No tweaking necessary. It's baseball, weird things happen to the best teams. 

Seeing the Dodgers get swept, and the Braves on the brink of elimination, helps me understand that the O's getting swept isn't necessarily an outlier. It doesn't make me feel better about the O's getting swept, but it does give me context.  

It suggests that there isn't sufficient advantage of winning your division.  

[bpilktree]

3 hours ago, baltfan said:

It suggests that there isn't sufficient advantage of winning your division.  

I think there are lot of factors one less series is advantage but like Smoltz was saying if the wild card team wins there series quick in two games they get some rest too.  Especially if they were not tested and didn’t use bullpen much.   They need to cut down the number of games in between series as well.  The wild card teams had day off then they played 2 games and had two days off.  They were all able to pitch their ace in game 2 of this series because of the two days off and may have even been able to pitch their ace in game 5 if it came down to it.  If you move up the first game from Saturday to Friday it forces their ace to have to wait til game 3 and not given them opportunity to pitch 2 times in a series.  You don’t need a travel day after each series.  If you win your series in 2 you get rewarded but if it takes 3 you get on plane and play next day.  

[dtk9119]

There should be no break bw WC and DS. If WC goes 3 the winner should be forced to play 2 more days. Smoltz made this same point.

As for Houston, they have been to 7 straight ALCSs and played a weak MIN team so its not surprising they are the only ones of the top teams to advance. Experience means something.

Will be interesting to see how they fare against a red hot TEX team.

[Uli2001]

All of the suggested chances sound good, until the Orioles are the WC.

I think this format doesn't work for baseball. Go to eight teams in the playoffs in each league, same rest for all teams.

For the first (WC) round, have 5-game series, but make the WCs play all games in the higher seed stadiums.