Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Boring doesn't mean "bad"


I'm going to do something unheard of in the world of sports blogging. I'm going to call out Peter "Gandalf" Gammons. He states in a recent article that a pair of extra playoff teams in the baseball playoffs would make September more interesting. Half naked cheerleaders would also make baseball more interesting. Why isn't that a proposal?
He gives the example of the National League wild card race, where the Rockies are 5 games in front. If there were two wild car teams, that would mean a competitive race between the Braves, Giants, Marlins and Cubs. Heck, in the American League, 4.5 games separate the Rangers, Mariners and Twins. Why? Because the bell curve of baseball records means as you go towards .500, you will find more teams. More teams are mediocre than there are good, essentially. You find more teams fighting for second because you don't have to be as good to be second as you do to be first.
The problem with this September race for the 5th spot in the playoffs is that you would have lesser teams struggling for these spots. The race would be more like the won right now in the AL Central, which is only competitive because the Tigers have collapsed; A battle to figure out who is the least bad.
Let's say we did add that 5th team to the playoffs. How would the structure work? Depending on your ideas, 1-3 teams could have a bye in the first or even second round of the playoffs. Baseball is one of few games where time off actually hurts the team. Sure one or two days of rest can help out, but time on the diamond can't be replaced. A week or two away from the game would mean tough times trying to get back in the zone. It would really be an unfavorable advantage to the wild card teams who barely made it in.
In the end, though this year's regular season is ending with a fizzle, it will make the playoffs better. We know that the 8 best teams in the league are going to be there with very few duds. The playoff series will feature excellent baseball between the elite squads of MLB, and that's what we really want.

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1 Comments:

Blogger thisisbeth said...

For the record, naked cheerleaders would not make the game more intersting to me. Just sayin'.

8:09 AM  

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