Monday, March 5, 2012

ANOTHER BUDDY RYAN INNOVATION OTHER TEAMS HAVE FAILED TO SURPASS: Updates you probably already knew, to two sports stories we've been following:

  • The New Orleans Saints and Washington (football club) have admitted to maintaining a bounty pool under defensive coordinator Gregg Williams to reward players for inflicting game-ending injuries on their rivals. The NFL is still figuring out the proper discipline, but, yeah, this too does not make me feel better about being a football fan.
  • MLB did add the additional wild card teams, with the twist being that because of scheduling concerns the 2012 Divisional Series will give the seeded team home games 3-4-5, rather than 1-2-5.  As previously stated, this is one of the rare instances where adding playoff teams makes things fairer, because it gives some real advantage to winning one's division.

16 comments:

  1. If the Saints weren't involved, I'd bet that the NFL would lean very very hard on Snyder to sell the team.  Yes, many Cowboys fans hate Jerry Jones, but since he's been a winner, the relationship is much more complicated.  The Washington Football Club (they're ashamed enough of their name that the corporate title is simply "Pro Football, Inc.") possibly has the most hated owner in football even by their own fans.

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  2. Joseph J, Finn9:16 AM

    Yep, I'll be ignoring this silly play-in game.  Baseball had managed to have almost a perfect playoff system that only needed some tweeking.  It's only a happy accident that because they added the games so late that suddenly extraneous travel days were squeezed and home field was tweeked.

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  3. Duvall9:40 AM

    <span>As previously stated, this is one of the rare instances where adding playoff teams makes things fairer, because it gives some real advantage to winning one's division.</span>

    Well, it might make things fairer if there were balanced schedules or competitive balance between divisions.  But there isn't.

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  4. You're never going to get -- nor should one want -- wholly balanced schedules. I'd rather have more games in-division than have the Yankees play the Red Sox and Mariners the same number of games, though there's more than enough of the former on ESPN.  

    Is there a WC race in recent years to which one could point and say "the non-playoff team was clearly the better team, but its schedule was far worse"?

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  5. isaac_spaceman1:32 PM

    It won't be a perfect playoff system until they play the games every day, so that teams that are dominant in the regular season because of a deep starting rotation don't get picked off by teams that can run out their #1 and #2 starters four games out of a five-game series. 

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  6. Genevieve2:26 PM

    It took me a minute to understand why you said Washington (football club) -- thank you.  I will adopt that.

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  7. Joseph J. Finn4:12 PM

    And if I may say, this is the supposed improvement they come up with?  Not eliminating the designated hitter exemption the NL is stuck with?

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  8. The Pathetic Earthling4:21 PM

    Who's stuck with what?  I'm perfectly aware of the arguments for the DH.  Don't care.  Don't want it.

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  9. Adam C.4:38 PM

    I'm with you, TPE, even if I'm somewhat resigned to the notion that the move of the Astros (I mean HOUSTON BABIES) to the AL in 2013 will be the beginning of the end of pitchers batting.

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  10. isaac_spaceman5:13 PM

    That "like" is for the HOUSTON BABIES reference, not the agreement with this outdated idea that the DH is not great for baseball. 

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  11. Anonymous6:10 PM

    Is there a WC race in recent years to which one could point and say "the non-playoff team was clearly the better team, but its schedule was far worse"?

    Isn't the relevant comparison finding wild card teams that are better than the winner of the weakest division?  That's seems to be the standard state of affairs in the AL, at least for the last decade.

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  12. The Pathetic Earthling6:22 PM

    My "like" is unequivocal.

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  13. Speaking as a fan of a team in the AL East that is neither the Yankees nor the Red Sox, yes, I do want a completely balanced schedule.

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  14. BeeFan11:10 PM

    With a "balanced" schedule, does it make any sense to have divisions at all?  Why? 

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  15. Adam C.11:07 AM

    Not that anyone's still checking here, but Rob Neyer (today) and Tom Verducci (yesterday) both have pieces on the DH issue....

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  16. BeeFan12:17 PM

    I like this one: 

    http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/3/5/2841998/mlb-expanded-playoffs-wild-card-tiebreakers/in/2528394

    Here's to all teams finishing 81-81 and truly making the regular season meaningless!

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