Seeing the Cards whip up on the Nats this week has really given me heartburn. In part because it isn't my beloved Braves doing the whipping, but mostly because a mockery is being made of my favorite sport. This one and done wildcard game is a joke and if Bud Selig can't see that then he's even worse at his job than I thought.
There's no justification for having clubs play 162 regular season games made up of three and four game-stands to arbitrarily have their postseason come down to a single wildcard game. It makes more sense to scrap the wildcard altogether and only allow the division winners into the playoffs, even though that would have made the Braves ineligible this year. At least teams will have earned their way into the postseason and you haven't bitch slapped the entire regular season in the process.
With all due respect to the Cardinals (not really), they weren't able to scratch together ninety wins in the regular season but were somehow good enough in one crapfest of a game to win the wildcard. *SCREAM* And now with the help of a completely inept Washington Nationals GM, they're laying pipe and are marching their way to the World Series...again. Lucky bastards.
I hope this ridiculous postseason has been a wake up call for Bud Selig. Expanding the playoffs to allow more teams in may have seemed like a great idea, but this one and done shit sandwich he cooked up in order to do it sure is hard to swallow.
Go Braves!
There's no justification for having clubs play 162 regular season games made up of three and four game-stands to arbitrarily have their postseason come down to a single wildcard game. It makes more sense to scrap the wildcard altogether and only allow the division winners into the playoffs, even though that would have made the Braves ineligible this year. At least teams will have earned their way into the postseason and you haven't bitch slapped the entire regular season in the process.
With all due respect to the Cardinals (not really), they weren't able to scratch together ninety wins in the regular season but were somehow good enough in one crapfest of a game to win the wildcard. *SCREAM* And now with the help of a completely inept Washington Nationals GM, they're laying pipe and are marching their way to the World Series...again. Lucky bastards.
I hope this ridiculous postseason has been a wake up call for Bud Selig. Expanding the playoffs to allow more teams in may have seemed like a great idea, but this one and done shit sandwich he cooked up in order to do it sure is hard to swallow.
Go Braves!
Well said. At the very least it should have been two out of three but preferably three out of five. This isn't football. It's baseball. The dynamics of the game can change completely from day to day based on who's pitching. Takes more than one game to determine which team is really better. And that's not even counting idiotic rule interpretations by umpires.
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of the "one and done" game. I read a proposal somewhere this week that suggested something radical for the Wild Card Games and beyond:
ReplyDeleteWC round is best of 3. Played at home (all 3 games) for the team with the best record. First 2 games are a day/night double header. Game 3 is next day, if needed. This reduces the travel, gives 162 game record a bigger advantage, and brings depth of roster and pitching staff into play. One bad game or bad call (*cough* Braves *cough*) or one hot ace doesn't entirely decide things.
For the LDS best of 5, I would be in favor of a heavy weighting of home games there, too. Either all 5 at home for the team with the best 162 game record, or a 2-1-2 split, giving the "home" team potentially 4 games there. We need to put more emphasis on the results of the regular season.
Well done Angie and I agree 100%. And not because my team lost. I've been saying from the beginning it was a bad idea. Sadly, Bud won't learn from it and we'll see the same thing play out again next year for two lucky teams that bust their butts to get in, only to go home after one sorry game.
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