Playoff Picture for 2021

[brewmann04]

NY /Boston WC go figure

[Patrick425]

I was at the Mariners game today, it was rough to lose that one after coming so close. Kind of felt like what would have happened if the Brewers had lost game 162 in 2008 and missed the postseason. Although in reality the Mariners are not even there yet, it’s more like if the 2006 Brewers had made a run before their competitive window was open.

 

For me it was good perspective…who am I to complain about the Brewers winning a division title and going on cruise control??? There’s a huge, huge gap between the Mariners and a true title contender like the Brewers. Time to take a couple days off from baseball and get ready to lean into this run on Friday.

 

That was a fun run for the Mariners this year. Jared Kelenic was 2 years behind my son at Waukesha West. My son played baseball at West, but never played with Kelenic as Kelenic chose to play travel baseball instead of playing for West. He played against my son once in a Fall Ball game (I believe Kelenic was in 8th grade at the time playing up for a HS varsity fall ball team). So it's been really fun to follow him this year and the impact he had on the Mariners September charge. We were really rooting hard for them Today.

[bork]

Seattle's playoff drought reaches 20 years. But I was surprised to see Philly reach 10 years. It seems like yesterday that they were a powerhouse.

[Patrick425]

I don't understand why they are unable to post game times for the NLDS and ALDS yet? I understand that the outcomes of the wild card games may determine some of those game times (although, since they know who the home teams are regardless of the WC game results, not sure why that really matters). However, I'm sure they determined the game time already based on different scenarios of wild card results. Why not just share those possible scenarios with the public? For now, based on geography and national interest, I'm going to assume the Brewers/Braves game will be an afternoon game on Friday. Do we really have to wait until after the WC game on Wednesday to get this information?

[Baldkin]

I don't understand why they are unable to post game times for the NLDS and ALDS yet? I understand that the outcomes of the wild card games may determine some of those game times (although, since they know who the home teams are regardless of the WC game results, not sure why that really matters). However, I'm sure they determined the game time already based on different scenarios of wild card results. Why not just share those possible scenarios with the public? For now, based on geography and national interest, I'm going to assume the Brewers/Braves game will be an afternoon game on Friday. Do we really have to wait until after the WC game on Wednesday to get this information?

 

It is completely ridiculous and once again proof that TV ratings drive everything.

 

SF vs NLWC will be the late game, no matter what.

Bos/NYY vs Tampa doesn't change the ratings at all.

The other two series are set.

Just schedule it already.

[BruisedCrew]

I don't understand why they are unable to post game times for the NLDS and ALDS yet? I understand that the outcomes of the wild card games may determine some of those game times (although, since they know who the home teams are regardless of the WC game results, not sure why that really matters). However, I'm sure they determined the game time already based on different scenarios of wild card results. Why not just share those possible scenarios with the public? For now, based on geography and national interest, I'm going to assume the Brewers/Braves game will be an afternoon game on Friday. Do we really have to wait until after the WC game on Wednesday to get this information?

 

I was just going to post the same thing.

 

I have tickets for Saturday and assume the game is going to be at 3:30. But, as a gift to her and as a birthday surprise for my wife, I would like to fly in one of our daughters who lives in Florida so she can go to the game and be here for her mother’s birthday. But, because of her work obligations, she would have to come in on Saturday morning, and we are reluctant to commit to the necessary arrangements until the game time is set. If they make a decision to start a game at noon to open a spot for a college football game or something later, our plans would go out the window.

 

IMHO, the game times could have been established last week when they knew that the hosts of the games would be the Brewers and a west coast team. Even in the AL, where they knew the hosts would be the Rays and either the White Sox or Astros I can’t see anything that would affect the times.

 

Failing to announce the start times to me shows complete disrespect for the fans who shell out the money and commit the time to attend the games in person.

[Underachiever]

Do you think they will wait until after the WC games to announce times? I assumed we would have seen game times listed today, for all the reasons spelled out so well in the previous post. Someone offered me four tickets for Saturday, and after extended negotiations with my wife, I can go, as long as I don't miss a wedding ceremony that we are supposed to attend (I can skip the reception).

[markedman5]

Predictions all over the place for Brewers as you might expect.....for every writer that thinks the braves will beat us......somebody else thinks Brewers are going to the World Series......and a couple even predict a WS championship

https://theathletic.com/2866015/2021/10/04/2021-mlb-playoff-predictions-from-wild-cards-to-the-world-series-the-athletics-writers-pick-their-postseason-winners/

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Unpopular opinion but I'm glad it's NYY/BOS. I'd much rather watch that tomorrow than the Blue Jays.

[brewtank34]

The fact that MLB only scheduled one wildcard game on Tuesday and the other on Wed is a joke. The Crew shouldn't have to wait till Friday to play their game. Only one playoff game on Thursday? Both WC games should be on Tuesday with the 2 vs. 3 games being played on Wednesday and the 1-4 games being played Thursday. How did MLB screw that one up so royally?

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Not really a screw up. They want both on prime time TV.

[bm1090]

And there are two playoff games on Thursday. Four on Friday. Two on Saturday.

[owbc]

The fact that MLB only scheduled one wildcard game on Tuesday and the other on Wed is a joke. The Crew shouldn't have to wait till Friday to play their game. Only one playoff game on Thursday? Both WC games should be on Tuesday with the 2 vs. 3 games being played on Wednesday and the 1-4 games being played Thursday. How did MLB screw that one up so royally?

 

They need both Monday and Tuesday for tiebreakers, but I agree that both wild card games should be played on the same night, which would allow the playoffs to be moved up by a day.

 

The wild card slate it certainly unique this year with 4 juggernaut franchises going at it. As a Brewers fan it feels like this whole postseason is full of opportunities to cheer for teams/managers/players that I usually despise. Go Red Sox? Go Cardinals (or Dodgers)? Should I cheer for the cheaters or for Tony La Russa?

[Outlander]

The wild card slate it certainly unique this year with 4 juggernaut franchises going at it. As a Brewers fan it feels like this whole postseason is full of opportunities to cheer for teams/managers/players that I usually despise. Go Red Sox? Go Cardinals (or Dodgers)? Should I cheer for the cheaters or for Tony La Russa?

Ryan Braun is no longer on the Brewers so can cheer for the Brewers again. I kid, but a family member actually mentioned that to me.

[Patrick425]

Not asking anyone to feel sorry for the Dodgers. However, if my team won 106 games and had the 2nd best record in baseball, but had to play a one game winner take all to advance, I would not be too happy about that. Not a fan of the one game wild card for mostly this reason. In an ideal world, I would like to see the divisions eliminated and each team in each league have a balanced schedule against the entire league. Then, the 4 and 5 best records in each league play each other in the wild card. However, I know because of extra travel and other reasons, this will probably never happen. So, at the very least, I think it should be a 3 game series. Even if that means shortening the season by 3-5 games.

[sveumrules]

Not asking anyone to feel sorry for the Dodgers. However, if my team won 106 games and had the 2nd best record in baseball, but had to play a one game winner take all to advance, I would not be too happy about that. Not a fan of the one game wild card for mostly this reason. In an ideal world, I would like to see the divisions eliminated and each team in each league have a balanced schedule against the entire league. Then, the 4 and 5 best records in each league play each other in the wild card. However, I know because of extra travel and other reasons, this will probably never happen. So, at the very least, I think it should be a 3 game series. Even if that means shortening the season by 3-5 games.

 

Ideally the schedule/divisions (& revenue & payrolls) would be balanced somehow, but short of that, another option would be to maybe leave the last week open for flexible scheduling.

 

Have a bunch of team grouped together fighting for division &/or wild card spots? They play each other.

 

Could even do the same thing on the other end of the spectrum. Have the two worst teams play a series & the winner gets the better pick in the next year's draft.

[owbc]

Not asking anyone to feel sorry for the Dodgers. However, if my team won 106 games and had the 2nd best record in baseball, but had to play a one game winner take all to advance, I would not be too happy about that. Not a fan of the one game wild card for mostly this reason. In an ideal world, I would like to see the divisions eliminated and each team in each league have a balanced schedule against the entire league. Then, the 4 and 5 best records in each league play each other in the wild card. However, I know because of extra travel and other reasons, this will probably never happen. So, at the very least, I think it should be a 3 game series. Even if that means shortening the season by 3-5 games.

 

A 162 game regular season needs to be worth something, especially given the randomness of baseball in small samples. The high-stakes wild card game had the Giants and Dodgers fighting like crazy all the way to game 162. It was great for the fans. In the end, the Dodgers lost. They finished in 2nd place.

 

And then you have the AL wild card race which was thrilling up to the final day. The Blue Jays had 6 straight sellouts to end the season (30K capacity limit) and the Mariners had three straight sellouts. The fans are buying into the current system. There was a ton of casual/neutral fan engagement and cheering for 'chaos' scenarios.

 

As for making the wild card a 3-game series...I don't see a good reason to do it. The single-elimination format is made-for-TV excitement. The winner of the first game is going to win a best-of-3 most of the time anyway.

 

I get that they will probably go to a different playoff system that lets more teams in, which will probably be a net win because playoff baseball is usually fun and exciting. Although the 8-seed Brewers were not any fun to watch last year.

[Thurston Fluff]

Not asking anyone to feel sorry for the Dodgers. However, if my team won 106 games and had the 2nd best record in baseball, but had to play a one game winner take all to advance, I would not be too happy about that. Not a fan of the one game wild card for mostly this reason. In an ideal world, I would like to see the divisions eliminated and each team in each league have a balanced schedule against the entire league. Then, the 4 and 5 best records in each league play each other in the wild card. However, I know because of extra travel and other reasons, this will probably never happen. So, at the very least, I think it should be a 3 game series. Even if that means shortening the season by 3-5 games.

 

A 162 game regular season needs to be worth something, especially given the randomness of baseball in small samples. The high-stakes wild card game had the Giants and Dodgers fighting like crazy all the way to game 162. It was great for the fans. In the end, the Dodgers lost. They finished in 2nd place.

 

And then you have the AL wild card race which was thrilling up to the final day. The Blue Jays had 6 straight sellouts to end the season (30K capacity limit) and the Mariners had three straight sellouts. The fans are buying into the current system. There was a ton of casual/neutral fan engagement and cheering for 'chaos' scenarios.

 

As for making the wild card a 3-game series...I don't see a good reason to do it. The single-elimination format is made-for-TV excitement. The winner of the first game is going to win a best-of-3 most of the time anyway.

 

I get that they will probably go to a different playoff system that lets more teams in, which will probably be a net win because playoff baseball is usually fun and exciting. Although the 8-seed Brewers were not any fun to watch last year.

 

I don't think the format is what caused the excitement. As you pointed out, the teams fighting for the wildcard spots were what caused the interest in the AL while the NL was all about the top two teams. How does that change with a top five league wide format? The only real difference is the one division/balanced schedule approach eliminates the advantage of being the only good team in a weak division has.

[A Swing and A Drive]

Eliminating Divisions will never happen. Also, a one game, winner takes all Wild Card is more exciting then and probably almost as fair as a 3 game series.

 

As we found out with the Pandemic 2020 Postseason format, whatever team loses the first game of a 3 game series has there backs against the wall immediately.

 

One game, ACE vs ACE is more exciting IMO.

[owbc]

Not asking anyone to feel sorry for the Dodgers. However, if my team won 106 games and had the 2nd best record in baseball, but had to play a one game winner take all to advance, I would not be too happy about that. Not a fan of the one game wild card for mostly this reason. In an ideal world, I would like to see the divisions eliminated and each team in each league have a balanced schedule against the entire league. Then, the 4 and 5 best records in each league play each other in the wild card. However, I know because of extra travel and other reasons, this will probably never happen. So, at the very least, I think it should be a 3 game series. Even if that means shortening the season by 3-5 games.

 

A 162 game regular season needs to be worth something, especially given the randomness of baseball in small samples. The high-stakes wild card game had the Giants and Dodgers fighting like crazy all the way to game 162. It was great for the fans. In the end, the Dodgers lost. They finished in 2nd place.

 

And then you have the AL wild card race which was thrilling up to the final day. The Blue Jays had 6 straight sellouts to end the season (30K capacity limit) and the Mariners had three straight sellouts. The fans are buying into the current system. There was a ton of casual/neutral fan engagement and cheering for 'chaos' scenarios.

 

As for making the wild card a 3-game series...I don't see a good reason to do it. The single-elimination format is made-for-TV excitement. The winner of the first game is going to win a best-of-3 most of the time anyway.

 

I get that they will probably go to a different playoff system that lets more teams in, which will probably be a net win because playoff baseball is usually fun and exciting. Although the 8-seed Brewers were not any fun to watch last year.

 

I don't think the format is what caused the excitement. As you pointed out, the teams fighting for the wildcard spots were what caused the interest in the AL while the NL was all about the top two teams. How does that change with a top five league wide format? The only real difference is the one division/balanced schedule approach eliminates the advantage of being the only good team in a weak division has.

 

If you give up the divisional format, or go to 4 divisions instead of 6, it does open up a wide variety of options for playoff formatting. I guess it's hard for me to envision that happening. If anything, the amount of travel is going to be reduced, not increased.

 

I just think the Dodgers got unlucky this year and there is no need to change the format based on a one-off result.

[tmwiese55]

Well, in the old format the Dodgers/Giants wouldn't have really cared the last few weeks as both were in so division didn't really matter. That was one of the problems they were trying to fix, a bunch of years of Sox/Yanks cruising to playoffs but neither caring who won the division. So the format did matter there.

 

In addition, in the old format the race that at least lasted until STL got on fire would've never mattered. All those teams would've been eliminated due to LA/SF being so far in front. Yes, last week it didn't matter but it got about 5 extra weeks of meaningful games for STL, Cin, SD, etc.

 

The AL I guess would've had the same drama even if fighting over one spot instead of two.

 

I guess all I'm saying is, in general, the 5th team being added has been doing exactly what they hoped it would. One can disagree if you personally want that, but MLB did and it's doing what it was designed to do. If they still want that, they shouldn't let one oddball year change it. The NL West situation this year is a huge outlier and will only happen rarely.

[sveumrules]

I just think the Dodgers got unlucky this year and there is no need to change the format based on a one-off result.

 

Pretty sure the largest gap between WC1 & WC2 in the two Wild Card era was six wins prior to this year, so generally the teams have been more evenly matched.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

They lost their division and have to beat a clearly inferior team to truly get in as a result. That's fine. There's always something about the format that someone doesn't like. It'll always be that way.

[A Swing and A Drive]

Those saying the Dodgers "got unlucky" this season seem to forget that the Nationals traded the returning World Series Champion Dodgers both a NL MVP Candidate (Trea Turner) and NL CY Young Candidate (Max Scherzer) for a bag full of magic beans.

[tmwiese55]

Right. previously a complaint would've been it was very common for a low to mid 90s win team to not make the playoffs. I recently went down that rabbit hole talking about Seattle's playoff drought being since their 116 win record year, so question was how did they win 116 and not make the playoffs the next year. Answer was they won 93 games the next two years and it wasn't good enough either time. One year the 2nd place in their division won 99 games. Obviously that's not the only example, but in general those are very good teams not getting a chance. By adding one more in each side it will really help that problem. Trade off is it involves a one game playoff and what happened this year in the NL West.

 

It's basically impossible to have a perfect system if you have to set it before the season, there's no way to change it on the fly based on how the season goes. Can't let 3 in some years, 7 other years. The one game aspect of it makes it tough but going to 3 games (or 6 team with 2 byes) creating long delays for some teams, and expanding to 8 teams seams too big of a stretch too.