2021 Blue Jays Season Thread

[Skaloper]

Originally Posted by fleury

No system is perfect. I’d like it opened up personally, but sometimes teams fall between the cracks. I’m hockey and basketball there are arguably too many teams at times.

Hockey is enough of a team sport that it's perfectly fine where it's at. It's always exciting to see some of the underdogs that barely make it in make some noise. Basketball on the other hand with just a few players you can pretty much safely assume some teams are definitely going to lose.

[Jiggy_12]

The problem with prioritizing playoff standing based on division is that some teams, many teams, actively try to lose. Dividing teams geographically is fine to cut down on travel a bit, but why base the standings off that?

Let the best 5 teams in, period.

Or, how about if you win the division but have a worse record than a team that missed playoffs, then you have to play a play-in game for that spot against that team?

There are easy ways to fix this. But they won’t because baseball craves tradition.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

The problem with prioritizing playoff standing based on division is that some teams, many teams, actively try to lose. Dividing teams geographically is fine to cut down on travel a bit, but why base the standings off that?

Let the best 5 teams in, period.

Or, how about if you win the division but have a worse record than a team that missed playoffs, then you have to play a play-in game for that spot against that team?

There are easy ways to fix this. But they won’t because baseball craves tradition.

Well I don't disagree with the fact there are lots of things to fix in MLB, especially their playoff format (DO YOU NOT LIKE MONEY MLB OWNERS?? EXPAND IT FFS), however I don't think the divisional aspect is something to complain about. Right now the divisional approach (1 winner advancing) makes sense given the divisional scheduling. You play so many games against those teams, it makes sense to tie playoff births to it. If you had a really strong or really weak division, the number of wins/losses may not really correlate to "the best 5 teams". I would agree if you had no divisions and faced each AL opponent the same # times, then for sure pick the 5 best, but as long as you're scheduling a tonne of divisional games, you need to tie it to playoffs. (Which is partly why every major N.A pro sports league does this).

But again, I think its laughable that in the NBA, 20 teams now make the post-season, while only 10 do in MLB. 16 is the happy place.

[Enoch Root]

merge the two leagues, 32 teams, 4 divisions, 16 teams make the playoffs

[Enoch Root]

or 12 teams make it, with the 4 division winners getting a bye

[The Big Chill]

I’m not that bothered about the number of teams that make playoffs, but i really disagree with these short series. The whole season is about having deep pitching, and then these one game series’ can be won by a single good outing by a pitcher. It just doesn’t make sense.

[ben voyonsdonc]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

or 12 teams make it, with the 4 division winners getting a bye

I think this is my preferred option.

[Jiggy_12]

I did some quick math the other day, and the proportion of baseball playoff games relative to regular season games is far lower than the other sports leagues.

NFL playoff games are about 4.8% compared to reg season
NHL playoff games are between 4.5%-8% compared to reg season
MLB playoff games are between 1.07% to 1.77% compared to regular season

They have this drastically long drawn out exhausting play every day season, then rush the playoffs when people actually tune in and the players care.

It’s totally bizarre

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

I did some quick math the other day, and the proportion of baseball playoff games relative to regular season games is far lower than the other sports leagues.

NFL playoff games are about 4.8% compared to reg season
NHL playoff games are between 4.5%-8% compared to reg season
MLB playoff games are between 1.07% to 1.77% compared to regular season

They have this drastically long drawn out exhausting play every day season, then rush the playoffs when people actually tune in and the players care.

It’s totally bizarre

Baseball is different than other sports and I like that part of it. If it were me, 4 teams would make the playoffs in each league and every series is best of 7.

8 of 32 teams in the PO's is fine by me. I only want a one game playoff if two teams tie.

[mrkajz44]

Of all the things wrong with the playoffs in the all of the major sports in North America, the division series being only 5 games is easily number one.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Wild card game should be 3 games. DS 7 games. Seems like an absolute no brainer. Fans get more playoff baseball, owners get more revenue, companies can buy more ad space. It’s not like much else is happening right now. NHL hasn’t started, NFL season still at the start of the season, no NBA, no golf, no tennis.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

They have this drastically long drawn out exhausting play every day season, then rush the playoffs when people actually tune in and the players care.

It’s totally bizarre

Its absurd, and they seem to be happy with it (beats me). I think the argument is the long season is akin to having more playoffs, or better put, the long season ensures the best teams are making the playoffs (since there is a much larger sample size). Not sure I agree with it, but thats the argument.

Im hopeful the long awaited 2022 revamp will happen with a new CBA, but who knows. The proposed 14 team playoff is almost as wacky & absurd as the current one, but at least it allows for 2 more team to make the playoffs and still gives the 'traditionalists' their enhanced value to the regular season (1st round bye for best team and 'selection of opponent' for the other 2 division winners).

[flamingred89]

Originally Posted by flames_fan_down_under

Wild card game should be 3 games. DS 7 games. Seems like an absolute no brainer. Fans get more playoff baseball, owners get more revenue, companies can buy more ad space. It’s not like much else is happening right now. NHL hasn’t started, NFL season still at the start of the season, no NBA, no golf, no tennis.

It's so true. Squeeze in more meaningful games when the NHL and NBA haven't started and really try and showcase your sport.

[GirlySports]

You guys would be running into very cold November games

[Skaloper]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

Baseball is different than other sports and I like that part of it. If it were me, 4 teams would make the playoffs in each league and every series is best of 7.

8 of 32 teams in the PO's is fine by me. I only want a one game playoff if two teams tie.

Without a salary cap to ensure all teams are competitive this would return things back to they were prior to 2013. I feel like with the extra chance more teams are willing to try and field competing teams (ie giving AL East a chance to compete and still have Red Sox/Yankees in almost every year). Just change the wildcard series to 3 games and make the regular season 160 games.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Well, spring training starts late february, they play 25 games. They could either push that back a few days earlier, or cut it down to 21 or 22 games and start the regular season earlier, most stadiums in cold areas have roofs, they could have scheduled double headers throughout the year, there are options to find time for what would really be at most 4 extra playoff days to be scheduled.

[SuperMatt18]

I think an adjusted schedule is easy.

Play each division team 16 times (16 games x 4 other teams - 64 games)
Play each other league team 6 times. (6 games x 10 other teams - 60 games)
Play each other interleague team two times (2 games x 15 other teams - 30 games)

That's a 154 games schedule - which is the same as prior to 1962.

Then you have a 16 team playoff with 4 best of 7 series.

Trade 8 regular season games for up to 9 more playoff games potentially and a better chance at making the playoffs. Plus for the interleague game you can alternate road and home each year, so every team goes to every city at least once every two seasons.

[flamingred89]

Or get rid of the all-star break and move the game to after the season. So you can celebrate the actual All-stars and not just the players who got hot to start the season. Alternate it through sites in the Caribbean, South East Asia, and North America to showcase how global the sport has become.

[GirlySports]

Most? I think there are less than 10 domes in MLB. Only Toronto and Milwaukee up north.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Most? I think there are less than 10 domes in MLB. Only Toronto and Milwaukee up north.

You're right. Up north it's only Seattle, Toronto, Milwaukee. My point still stands mostly, there is room and flexibility in the schedule to find room for 4 extra days of playoff baseball.