World Series

[Boondock Saint]

Originally Posted by cub killer

Um no, there's a big difference between the playoffs and regular season games. HUGE difference. How long have you been following this sport?

The playoffs are not about luck, they are about mettle, and they're not "just a tourney", they define MLB for that given year.

Really, you're gonna compare a Astros-Sox regular season series to a playoff series? Do you follow sports at all?

Read the race analogy, that's usually told to newcomers to the game.

This is just math and science here, really. You do not get a more accurate result or come to a more clear conclusion in seven or fewer tests than you do with 252 tests. Just because the Giants and Tigers "got there" does not automatically make them better than everybody else, and negate the entire six months that preceded the World Series. The simple fact is that the best team doesn't always win the championship, and the the team that wins the championship isn't the best by default. You can't just say "It's the postseason, it's different, and the better team always does better in the postseason" and expect it to fly.

In 2005, the Cardinals were far superior to the Astros, but they lost in the NLCS. The 8 seed Warriors beat the 1 seed Mavs in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. The Mavs beat the Heat in the finals two years ago despite Miami being the team of the future with three all stars in their prime, and the Mavs being too old, only having one star, and having a reputation as a choker in the postseason. In 2011, the 102 win Phillies, who had a dream team rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt, got beat in five games by the Cards who had to rely on Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson and Jaime Garcia after Chris Carpenter, not to mention that the Phillies had a lineup that featured Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez, while the Cards could only counter that with Albert Pujols, Rafael Furcal, Yadier Molina and Lance Berkman. Upsets happen all the time. It's not because the underdog was just better after all, and we just didn't know it, it's just that the underdog happened to win that time.

It's not that playoff baseball is different. It's that baseball in itself is crazy, and nobody can say for certain who's going to win on any given day. That's why you have to take the entire season into consideration when you say who's best.

[cub killer]

Originally Posted by Boondock Saint

This is just math and science here, really. You do not get a more accurate result or come to a more clear conclusion in seven or fewer tests than you do with 252 tests.

It's not either/or, it's a combination of the 2, which was already said. If you can't follow, then we can't continue the discussion.

The explanation for the WS's weight in the comparison, was already explained. It's not just 7 vs 252 or 7 + 252.

Just because the Giants and Tigers "got there" does not automatically make them better than everybody else, and negate the entire six months that preceded the World Series. The simple fact is that the best team doesn't always win the championship, and the the team that wins the championship isn't the best by default. You can't just say "It's the postseason, it's different, and the better team always does better in the postseason" and expect it to fly.

In 2005, the Cardinals were far superior to the Astros, but they lost in the NLCS. The 8 seed Warriors beat the 1 seed Mavs in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. The Mavs beat the Heat in the finals two years ago despite Miami being the team of the future with three all stars in their prime, and the Mavs being too old, only having one star, and having a reputation as a choker in the postseason. In 2011, the 102 win Phillies, who had a dream team rotation of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels and Roy Oswalt, got beat in five games by the Cards who had to rely on Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson and Jaime Garcia after Chris Carpenter, not to mention that the Phillies had a lineup that featured Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez, while the Cards could only counter that with Albert Pujols, Rafael Furcal, Yadier Molina and Lance Berkman. Upsets happen all the time. It's not because the underdog was just better after all, and we just didn't know it, it's just that the underdog happened to win that time.

It's not that playoff baseball is different. It's that baseball in itself is crazy, and nobody can say for certain who's going to win on any given day. That's why you have to take the entire season into consideration when you say who's best.

The purpose of the playoffs is to determine who is the best team among the playoff teams, and thus, best, period. I don't care how great the 05 Cards, 07 Mavs and 11 Phils looked in the playoff-qualifying round (regular season). None of those teams have a single excuse for failing when it really mattered.

The purpose of the reg season is to qualify for the playoffs. That is it. It is not, nor will it ever be, to determine the best team, or order of who is best.

Again, if a runner is ahead during most of a race, it doesn't mean he is best unless he is ahead at the end of that race.

Playoffs are that last stretch of a race. If a team eliminates you, they leapfrogged you.

72-10 don't mean a thing without a ring. And neither does 162-0.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Yeah, the 3rd best team in the NL beating the 7th best team in the AL in a 7-game series basically proves nothing, but hell if people want to believe the NL is even near the AL, it is their right as an American to be completely wrong.

I mean, for arguments sake, if the Sox got to play in the NL how many games would they have won this season? 100? 110? 120? I'm being conservative.

You are being ridiculous. The White Sox had a .500 record against NL teams in 2012. So maybe they would have won only 81 games had they played in the NL. That is without considering what impact the lack of a DH would have on the White Sox offense. For that matter, only half of the AL teams this year had a winning record against the AL in 2012.

Your argument only works in the vacuum of rhetoric and it falls apart when you consider the implication that the the best team in the AL would have been able to handle the third best team in the NL. The best team in AL, according to the standards that define the Tigers as the seventh best in the league, was totally outclassed by the Tigers in the ALCS, which was totally outclassed by the Giants in the World Series.

The baseball postseason isn't just a tournament, the results of which you can dismiss if the results run counter to your prejudices. You watched the World Series, no doubt, and you saw that the Tigers were totally outclassed by a team that looked a heck of a lot better. Two years ago the Giants totally outclassed the Rangers. Just as seven years ago the White Sox totally outclassed the Astros.

To make the assumption that the NL is the lessor league because the AL held the edge in interleague play ignores the fact that the interleague games were played before the All-Star break with teams playing wildly different interleague schedules. The best teams grow as the season progresses, even the wire-to-wire championsip teams. Interleague play for the Giants ended with the A's hitting a game-ending two-out, two-strike three-run homer against a closer who wasn't closing when the Giants season ended with Miguel Cabrera looking at strike three.

The AL probably is (was, when it had just 14 teams) the overall the better league. The bottom teams in the AL in 2012 were better than the bottom teams in the NL. The difference between the top and bottom teams in the AL wasn't as great, and I think the AL had more balance. I think that was apparent in the division races. The NL races weren't close. While the AL races were still undecided in the last couple of weeks, everything in the NL was decided but for the second wild card.

But I thought all of the teams that made the NL postseason were clearly better than all of the teams that made the AL postseason.

[Tragg]

The Astros won 1 road series before September: at the Cell.
I think the AL is a lot better and consider our 12-12 record in effect a losing record and a reason we lost the division.

[Boondock Saint]

Originally Posted by cub killer

It's not either/or, it's a combination of the 2, which was already said. If you can't follow, then we can't continue the discussion.

The purpose of the playoffs is to determine who is the best team among the playoff teams, and thus, best, period.

Just because that's the purpose of the playoffs doesn't mean that it succeeds at it. "Best" is a subjective term. There will never be a way to determine who is best. All I'm saying is that the postseason is no be-all, end-all litmus test. It determines who the champion is. It can't determine who's best. I would rather rely on the regular season to say who the best is, rather than accept that for some reason, playoff baseball is different from regular season baseball, and that whatever happens in the postseason carries more weight because of "pressure".

Also, dial back the attitude some. There's no reason to let a debate devolve into "You disagree with me, you must be stupid".

[cub killer]

Originally Posted by Boondock Saint

Just because that's the purpose of the playoffs doesn't mean that it succeeds at it. "Best" is a subjective term. There will never be a way to determine who is best. All I'm saying is that the postseason is no be-all, end-all litmus test. It determines who the champion is. It can't determine who's best. I would rather rely on the regular season to say who the best is, rather than accept that for some reason, playoff baseball is different from regular season baseball, and that whatever happens in the postseason carries more weight because of "pressure".

Also, dial back the attitude some. There's no reason to let a debate devolve into "You disagree with me, you must be stupid".

Fair enough, we can agree to disagree.

The thing is, as someone who lives and breathes sports, and has since the 1980s... it's impossible for me to not consider the postseason to be the be-all, end-all litmus test. That theme is central to pro sports fandom. It is reinforced all the time by the media, players and coaches every single year.

Day in, day out, the goal is to get to the playoffs, not to gain the best reg season record. When the playoffs arrive, there is an atmosphere that is diametrically different than reg season. Hell, some Sox WS tickets were selling for thousands. It is incomparable. The pressure is palpable, and exists for the reasons that I keep mentioning.

I don't know how old you are, but if you watch sports as much as I do, you will eventually agree one day. The playoffs=endallbeall theme is inescapable. It's central to pro sports, kind of like a Prime Directive.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by Boondock Saint

Just because that's the purpose of the playoffs doesn't mean that it succeeds at it. "Best" is a subjective term. There will never be a way to determine who is best. All I'm saying is that the postseason is no be-all, end-all litmus test. It determines who the champion is. It can't determine who's best. I would rather rely on the regular season to say who the best is, rather than accept that for some reason, playoff baseball is different from regular season baseball, and that whatever happens in the postseason carries more weight because of "pressure".

Also, dial back the attitude some. There's no reason to let a debate devolve into "You disagree with me, you must be stupid".

Major league baseball does a better job of finding the best team in its championship playoff system than any other team sport.

I find the idea (not necessarily yours) that a team that swept another team four games in a best-of-seven World Series, beating the American League champion who swept the team with the best record in the American league in a best-of-seven series is just the third-best team in the inferior league to be ridiculous and sounding like the ramblings of a sore loser.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by cub killer

Um no, there's a big difference between the playoffs and regular season games. HUGE difference. How long have you been following this sport?

The playoffs are not about luck, they are about mettle, and they're not "just a tourney", they define MLB for that given year.

Really, you're gonna compare a Astros-Sox regular season series to a playoff series? Do you follow sports at all?

Read the race analogy, that's usually told to newcomers to the game.

Yes, they're still just baseball games. And yes, there is A LOT of luck in a 5 or 7 game series

[cub killer]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Yes, they're still just baseball games. And yes, there is A LOT of luck in a 5 or 7 game series

What's wrong with you, man? "just baseball games"? Luck?

You're obviously just a casual fan. You'll need to immerse yourself in the sport in order to understand.

If there is a such thing as luck (and I know that many of my fellow Chicagoans here were raised by the mantra that there's no such thing as luck, or you make your own), then it goes both ways and balances itself out, leaving talent as the deciding factor.

Follow the sport intently, then get back to me in a coupla years. You won't be saying "just baseball games" or "luck" anymore.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by cub killer

What's wrong with you, man? "just baseball games"? Luck?

You're obviously just a casual fan. You'll need to immerse yourself in the sport in order to understand.

If there is a such thing as luck (and I know that many of my fellow Chicagoans here were raised by the mantra that there's no such thing as luck, or you make your own), then it goes both ways and balances itself out, leaving talent as the deciding factor.

Follow the sport intently, then get back to me in a coupla years. You won't be saying "just baseball games" or "luck" anymore.

There is very little luck over the course of a 162-game season. The individual variances over the course of a game get ironed out over a 6-month marathon so the cream generally rises to the top.

But yeah, in a 7-game series, luck is a huge factor, if for nothing else the way you're able to line your pitchers up. But in the game play, what's the difference between a HR and a weak pop out to RF? We're talking millimeters on the bat or milliseconds, distances and times essentially imperceivable to the human eye. In terms of the actual gameplay, yes, there is a lot of luck in baseball.

You can rally your bull**** "rah rah" winners make their own luck! buzzword garbage all you like, I suspect at this point you're just goofing around because there is absolutely no way anyone could have watched the American League in 2012 and at any point of the year declared the inept, underperforming Tigers the legitimate team to represent the league in the championship series. They were awful for most of the season, barely finished in the top half of the league, and really, only did so because they play in such a god damn awful division that somebody had to be the least bad in.

So no, the idea that the World Series in which the AL was represented by a horrendously mediocre Detroit team that barely had any business being in the postseason at all paints a picture representative for the league as a whole is a completely asinine opinion. I'd be willing to give the Series more credibility if it truly was a champion vs. champion affair, but the watered down playoffs have made that all but impossible. I honestly can't think of the last time the World Series was really a matchup of the league's two best teams. 1998?

[TDog]

Originally Posted by doublem23

... So no, the idea that the World Series in which the AL was represented by a horrendously mediocre Detroit team that barely had any business being in the postseason at all paints a picture representative for the league as a whole is a completely asinine opinion. I'd be willing to give the Series more credibility if it truly was a champion vs. champion affair, but the watered down playoffs have made that all but impossible. I honestly can't think of the last time the World Series was really a matchup of the league's two best teams. 1998?

Really, it was a champion-vs.-champion affair. The Giants were clearly the best team in the West and emerged from two hard-fought postseason rounds. The Tigers won the Central and were were less mediocre than the Yankees, who had the best record in the AL despite being a horrendously mediocre team, which lost its season series to the White Sox. The Tigers were even less mediocre than the A's, who split their season series with the White Sox. The A's were less mediocre than the Orioles, which finished behind the Yankees. And all of those teams were less mediocre than Texas, Tampa Bay and the White Sox. That is why the Tigers got to the World Series. The mediocrity of the top teams in the AL was why the divisional races were so tight. It is why the White Sox contended. The top teams in the American League were mediocre compared to the top teams in the National League, where the divisional races were sett;ed much earlier. Whichever team was going to win the National League title was likely going to win the World Series.

Concluding that the top teams in the American League are better than the top teams in the National League because the American league held an interleague edge is flawed logic. Even if you believe that a seven-game series is ruled by luck that evens out over a 162-game schedule (although such statistical logic would have to naturally include a margin of error in the standings), interleague campetition was a succession of three (and home-and-home six) game series. Only half of the American League teams had a winning record against National League teams. The AL didn't dominate, and it wasn't a challenge with teams going up against teams positioned similarly in the standings.

Only the Rangers, Yankees and Angels won more than 11 games. The Rangers won five of six from the last-place Astros and swept the Padres in a three-game series. They beat the Giants two out of three in early June and also won two of three from the the Diamondbacks and last-place Rockies. The Yankees swept the Nationals in a three-game series in June, missing Strasburg (as every team did in the postseason, allowing the wild card to get past the first round), but they lost two of three to the Reds. Their 13 wins were aided by winning five of six from the Mets. The 12-interleague-win Angels were swept by the last-place Rockies. The Tigers were one of three AL teams with 11 interleague wins, splitting six with the Pirates and taking two of three from four other teams, including the Cubs. A three-game series in June is more vulnerable to luck because teams you can miss the other team's best pitchers or hit a Sunday where the other team is resting regulars because they are headed out on a roadtrip against league rivals.

Luck had nothing to do with the Tigers beating/sweeping the Yankees in the ALCS. You would have seen that when you watched the series. The Tigers certainly had more business representing the AL in the World Series than they Yankees. Luck had nothing to do with the Giants beating/sweeping the Tigers. If you want to argue that the Mariners and Twins were better than the Astros and Cubs, I won't argue. I think the AL is stronger overall, weaker at the top and stronger at the bottom. But that is different from labeling a team unworthy after it spent six months overcoming the challenges of a baseball season, emerging as the best team in the NL West, battling to win six elimination games to go to the World Series before sweeping it.

But when you watched the World Series, you saw the better team win and win easily, not because they were lucky, but because they played superior baseball. Arguing otherwise reeks of denial.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by TDog

But when you watched the World Series, you saw the better team win and win easily, not because they were lucky, but because they played superior baseball. Arguing otherwise reeks of denial.

Who is making the argument the Giants weren't better than the Tigers? The argument is whether or not the Tigers were an appopriate representative of the American League in the World Series, which I would assume anyone who paid any attention to the AL all season long would know they were not. They were a ****ing miserable team for most of the year who were lucky enough to play in such a miserably bad division that they weren't essentially eliminated by August. They finished #7 in wins in the AL but spent the majority of the season around #8 or #9. They were essentially a second division AL team for almost the entire season who happened to get moderately hot at the end of the year and win their pathetically bad divison and displacing two far better entrants to the postseason (TBR and LAA) on the pure luck of geography. Bully for them.

And yes, they got lucky that baseball's new, even more watered down play-off system meant better teams in better divisions, like the Yankees and Rangers, had to exhaust themselves in wild divisional chases while a miserable underachieving **** team like the Tigers gets to sneak in to the playoffs and run those teams over because they spent essentially 5 1/2 months not having to try. The system itself is flawed in choosing a champion, the Tigers were better than the Yankees for 1 week in the middle of October, but for basically April-September, the Yankees were clearly the better team. Clearly. If you had actually paid attention to the season as it progressed, you'd have clearly seen this.

If the Rangers slapped around the Brewers in the World Series, nobody would be trying to paint broad outcomes of that, as everyone would be in agreement that the Rangers were a good AL team for most of the year while the Brewers were terrible to awful. It'd be expected.

If the Giants played a good AL team and beat them, that would be something to note. Beating a team that had no business in the postseason? Meh. Good for the Giants, they deserved to win, but hardly qualifies as anything extraordinary.

[TDog]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Who is making the argument the Giants weren't better than the Tigers? The argument is whether or not the Tigers were an appopriate representative of the American League in the World Series, which I would assume anyone who paid any attention to the AL all season long would know they were not. They were a ****ing miserable team for most of the year who were lucky enough to play in such a miserably bad division that they weren't essentially eliminated by August. They finished #7 in wins in the AL but spent the majority of the season around #8 or #9. They were essentially a second division AL team for almost the entire season who happened to get moderately hot at the end of the year and win their pathetically bad divison and displacing two far better entrants to the postseason (TBR and LAA) on the pure luck of geography. Bully for them.

And yes, they got lucky that baseball's new, even more watered down play-off system meant better teams in better divisions, like the Yankees and Rangers, had to exhaust themselves in wild divisional chases while a miserable underachieving **** team like the Tigers gets to sneak in to the playoffs and run those teams over because they spent essentially 5 1/2 months not having to try. The system itself is flawed in choosing a champion, the Tigers were better than the Yankees for 1 week in the middle of October, but for basically April-September, the Yankees were clearly the better team. Clearly. If you had actually paid attention to the season as it progressed, you'd have clearly seen this.

If the Rangers slapped around the Brewers in the World Series, nobody would be trying to paint broad outcomes of that, as everyone would be in agreement that the Rangers were a good AL team for most of the year while the Brewers were terrible to awful. It'd be expected.

If the Giants played a good AL team and beat them, that would be something to note. Beating a team that had no business in the postseason? Meh. Good for the Giants, they deserved to win, but hardly qualifies as anything extraordinary.

The Tigers were lucky that the Yankees were a mediocre team, by Yankees standards and by division-winning standards. If the Tigers had no business being in the postseason, neither did the Yankees because the Tigers beat the crap out of them.

If the Yankees had made it tot he World Series, the Giants would have beaten them, just as they beat the Tigers. The top teams in the National League are better than the top teams in the American League. No matter how the league division series would have worked out, you would have had an elite NL team against an overmatched American League team.

Major league baseball isn't nearly as inclusive in its postseason as the NBA or NHL. With the exception of a play-in game for the wild card, it isn't single elimination as is the NFL. Baseball teams in different divisions play wildly different schedules. If you want to go by regular-season records, the White Sox had a very strong record against the AL West and played only .500 in interleague play. The White Sox had a clear winning record against the Rangers and a dismal record against the Tigers , so maybe they would have had a better record in the West if the travel hadn't taken its toll.

I paid attention to the season. I watched how it played out. I was not at all surprised that the Tigers beat the Yankees having watched the way the season played out. If the Rangers had made it to the World Series after their historic collapse, they would have been slapped around by the Giants -- again. Look at how much better the NL postseason teams were at all-around aspects of baseball than the AL teams. Maybe the Rangers would have slapped around the Brewers, but the Brewers didn't make it to the postseason.

But last year the NL wild card beat the Rangers, even if it wasn't what you expected. You obviously haven't been paying attention.

[cub killer]

Originally Posted by doublem23

There is very little luck over the course of a 162-game season. The individual variances over the course of a game get ironed out over a 6-month marathon so the cream generally rises to the top.

Yes, and that cream gets to sort itself out in the playoffs.

But yeah, in a 7-game series, luck is a huge factor, if for nothing else the way you're able to line your pitchers up. But in the game play, what's the difference between a HR and a weak pop out to RF? We're talking millimeters on the bat or milliseconds, distances and times essentially imperceivable to the human eye. In terms of the actual gameplay, yes, there is a lot of luck in baseball.

Well, for one thing, these hitters are trained to hit so that they don't pop it up. They're not just swinging at the ball like T-ballers. There's a lot of nuance involved. More often than not, it's their own fault that they popped it up rather than gotten a hit.

Yes, there are factors such as wind, field condition, a fan in the stands reaching his hands out, etc. But as I said, it usually balances out and affects both teams. I haven't seen a series where there were so many "lucky" occurrences happening to the same team that it nullifies their series victory. That definitely did not happen this year.

As for the pitching match-ups... yeah, there are instances where a team can't set up their rotation the way they want because they had a tougher previous series, or a tougher division to qualify from. And their opponent had ample time to set up their rotation. But the thing is, the same people who will complain about "bad luck" would say the same thing if their team was the one with ample time, except this time the excuse will be "we had too long of a lay-off!"

So which excuse is acceptable? I say neither. Sometimes teams still win despite tougher qualifying, tougher previous series, injuries, etc. The excuses are unacceptable, unless there's an extremely serious circumstance, in which case I'm sure MLB would step in and delay the series so that there wouldn't be so much of a disadvantage.

You can rally your bull**** "rah rah" winners make their own luck! buzzword garbage all you like, I suspect at this point you're just goofing around because there is absolutely no way anyone could have watched the American League in 2012 and at any point of the year declared the inept, underperforming Tigers the legitimate team to represent the league in the championship series. They were awful for most of the season, barely finished in the top half of the league, and really, only did so because they play in such a god damn awful division that somebody had to be the least bad in.

So no, the idea that the World Series in which the AL was represented by a horrendously mediocre Detroit team that barely had any business being in the postseason at all paints a picture representative for the league as a whole is a completely asinine opinion. I'd be willing to give the Series more credibility if it truly was a champion vs. champion affair, but the watered down playoffs have made that all but impossible. I honestly can't think of the last time the World Series was really a matchup of the league's two best teams. 1998?

Sometimes there are 2010 Seattle Seahawks situations. But divisions are necessary, travelling isn't free or quick. The Tigers deserved to be there, they were the best of the Central. Then they proved they were best in the league.

You may say the poor Yankees were so worn out from having to qualify out of the East. Those poor babies. Ditto for the A's and West. I say bollox. Suck it up and fight on, you'll have 3.5 months to rest after that.

So yes, the Kitties were representative of us. Not as much as pre-1969 pennant winners, but representative nonetheless.

If you think that 1998 was the last time the 2 leagues' best faced off, then you might as well stop watching. Nobody's thinking of the reg season anymore in October. Put it out of your head, not just so that you'll enjoy the playoffs again, but because in October, the reg season truly now is ancient history. If I had a dime for every time a player/coach/broadcaster said that... But they say it because it is true.

M. Jeff & Co. said it much better than any poster here could, back in 1996. They even made hats and shirts to pronounce pro sports' Prime Directive.

The Tigers' crappy reg season didn't mean a thing, because they got that pennant ring.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by TDog

But last year the NL wild card beat the Rangers, even if it wasn't what you expected. You obviously haven't been paying attention.

Yes, THAT'S THE ****ING POINT I'm making, nobody in their right mind could have looked at the 2011 Cardinals and thought they even deserved to be on the same field as the Rangers, but in the baseball playoffs, **** HAPPENS and they happened to win 4 games before Texas did. IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. There is absolutely no rhythm or logic to the MLB Play-offs. Plenty of well paid, knowledgeable baseball men agree the point is to just make the postseason and just see what happens. It's almost a guarantee that a worse team will beat a better team 2-3 times in the postseason. There's just too much variance in the day-to-day, game-to-game routine of baseball. It's how the AL Pennant winners can get swept, at home, in a doubleheader to the worst team in the league in the middle of a September pennant race. Does that mean the Twins were better than the Tigers for the whole 2012 season? No, of course not, they just happened to be better that one day. It's baseball.

You can go ahead and pat yourself on the back for "calling the World Series" (a real gutsy call a month after it occurred), but I would suspect anyone who actually does pay some attention to the game knows deep in their gut that the playoffs rarely, if ever, match up the two best teams in the league for the World Series. It's almost always just two teams that just happen to still be standing.