Ethan, the 2014 WS featured the 89 win Giants vs. the 88 win Royals. The 2006 Cardinals won 84 games. It has long been a part of baseball that the best regular season team doesn’t always win. None of the Giants 3 WS teams in the 2010s were they even close to being the best team in the regular season. Is your solution to go back to no wild card teams at all (basically pre ‘95)?
I really do think Nate and others are making this complaint because of the nature of the Rangers and D-Backs being in it and their relatively small fan bases, not that they are not “great teams”. [For instance, the Yankees and Giants stunk this year, but if they had snuck into the last WC like Arizona and went on a run, I highly doubt we are having this conversation.]
I would agree with this stuff about markets if I thought Nate Silver or anybody else who draws no revenue from the matchup had any reason to care about the size of the market of the teams. The Dodgers are an objectively great team the past few years. They won 106 games this year and got swept by the last team in the Wild Card. The season before they tied the record for most regular season wins at 111 games and won only one postseason game!
Ethan is right. Forget what anyone's opinion of the team is. The season is extremely long, each game is already low stakes, and the stakes are even lower in the current format, which is reinforced by the best teams losing early and the worst teams going to the World Series. That's a recipe for casual fans simply not caring about the regular season, which in turn means there just less investment to care about the postseason.
Baseball has always suffered from this more than other sports but I agree it was a bad move to go even further in that direction.
I don't agree with Nate (I'm on record with a counterpoint published last week https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/stop-whining-about-the-mlb-playoffs-format.html) but his point has value and the people who are freaking out are wrong for freaking out. There's a decent argument for MLB either cutting down on the number of regular season games or cutting down on the postseason. Nate is like Matt Y, a fairly liberal guy who invites great amounts of unhinged hatred because he doesn't tow the party line 100 percent of the time.
I also think it's weird people are complaining about this now. Both LCS' went 7 games! No one was rusty at that point. It's not the format's fault Houston and Philly lost two games in a row at home.
Yeah, my ultimate point is that Houston nearly went to the World Series (again) and great teams generally do find ways to navigate and win short series. The 1990s Yankees had to plow through a DS and CS before the WS. The Dodgers reached back to back WS in 2017 and 2018. It's doable. The Rangers are also genuinely great, and should've won 96 games based on their run differential.
But the complaints about the format would have held even had the Phillies won (and I say this as a still-reeling Philadelphian). For people who agree with Silver, the bug in the machine was the Division Series - with Philly beating Atlanta, Arizona beating the Dodgers, and Texas beating Baltimore after the losers all received byes - not which of the 85-90 win teams then beat each other to reach the World Series.
I'm an Orioles fan. Frankly I'm not shocked the Os didn't advance further. They're a very young team with no playoff experience. You have to get your heart broken at least once before you can fully climb the mountain that is the playoffs.
The Dodgers, aside from the pandemic year, are perpetual chokers. Something's broken there. And I think the Braves just got too cocky for their own good. That still leaves the Astros as the lone division winner that was properly built for this.
Some fair points, but 2021 was not a choke job. They won a wild card game after a 106-win season and beat a 107-win team in the first round. On the “60-game season doesn’t count” point. What is the rationale here? They went 43-17. Has a team since 1995 done that in a 60-game stretch and not made to the playoffs? They beat three NL teams who were tapped to make the playoffs when the season began and beat a very good team in the WS.
More playoff teams actually makes the regular season more compelling not less. A higher amount of teams in contention means more trades and races/meaningful games.
This isn't the 80s or 90s... there are way too many entertainment options out there for anyone to watch August and September baseball when your team has zero chance to make the playoffs. He may be right about the postseason but this playoff format definitely makes the regular season more interesting.
Also, Nate's a big boy and he seems to like playing the role of provocateur and relishes in the attention it brings him. He's no victim here.
Every team should make the playoffs to maximize entertainment value!
Surely it matters that the most popular sport in the world has no playoffs, yet creates stakes through relegation, regional tournament invites, and opportunities to beat each league’s handful of perennial super teams. Why does every sport have to be exactly the same?
Meh I think they are clearly leaving money on the table with no playoffs. I LIKE the no playoffs, but for TV/drama making money it is clearly the superior resolution of the season.
Counter argument: expanded playoffs have improved importance of regular season. Who would turn out to see an 84 win Diamondbacks club in September under old format? But when you're team is in wild card contention, it means every game matters and attendance spikes.
Couldn't disagree more. My team was out of it this year, as well as the Yankees who are my lead hate-watch team, and I have thoroughly enjoyed these playoffs even with having about as low a rooting interest this year as any I can remember.
I don't think the outcomes have been all that wild year after year. This will be the first World Series without the Dodgers, Astros (or both) since 2016. Seems like a fairly stable rewarding of regular season success.
And I've seen a lot consternation about the Dodgers lack of World Series rings during this dominant run they've had. At this point the sample isn't all that small anymore. Maybe it's time to consider they have built their foundation on some legendary chokers. From their manager, to their ace, to Mookie Betts who even dating back to Boston has not had an impact with his bat in big games.
The Dodgers have definitely underperformed overall, but they also lost to the champion or won the WS from 2016-2021. This year, especially, was undeniably depressing, but I’m not sure there’s this bigger thing going on that you’re pointing to.
I like this year’s match-up, but Nate’s viewpoint is defensible and doesn’t deserve the vitriolic responses. Baseball used to be a sport in which it was very difficult to get in the playoffs (two teams until 1968 then four teams for many years). Allowing so many teams into the playoffs is a sign of the waning popularity of the sport. My favourite sport, hockey, has always had this challenge. In order to grow the sport allow as many teams into the playoffs as possible (and drag the playoffs into mid-June).
It’s a shame that college football will soon piss away one of its key differentiators (a meaningful regular season) so they too can chase the extra dollars of an expanded playoff.
The stark misalignment in American sports between what makes for the best product and what generates the most revenue is so frustrating. And I keep waiting for fans to revolt, but it never happens (except when Europeans crushed the soccer super league, bless their souls).
Just want to say that I 1 million percent agree with this take and I've been saying it since the playoff began, which inevitably would lead to an expansion.
The thing about college football is that it's not even supposed to be about the national championship. College football was always just about what happened on Saturdays in the fall. Win-great. Lose-bad. It didn't need national championship stakes. People loved it. All season, every Saturday. The focus on the playoffs detracts from what always made college football unique and awesome. And playoff expansion is just making it worse
Exactly. Most programs in college football aren’t going to sniff a national championship, but you can find meaning in beating your rivals, winning weird trophies, and finishing the season with a bowl win. Now, the bowl games are an irrelevant mess which the better players skip, and as soon as a team picks up a second loss they might as well be dead as far as ESPN is concerned.
Idk I’m into it 🤷♂️. Both of the series went 7 games man. The “better teams” in both series had home field and the chance to win. Those are the breaks.
The MLB easily has the best and IMO most interesting playoff format. MLB also allows the fewest teams into the playoffs of any of the major leagues. A baseball series is just more affected by an anomalous game than basketball series is.
You can try lengthening the wildcard or NLDS but unless you want to go the way of European soccer, where the best regular season record is the more prestigious title, teams need to show up in October!
The whining and fake tears are so annoying from both Ethan and Nate, it was a loser post. I’m a die hard dodgers fan, yes I think they should’ve kept the old format, since it does make the regular season more worthwhile, but the randomness of the baseball playoffs has always been around, like one of the comments above points out, but you know what teams win the WS most of the time, the best ones, just go thru all the recent winners, all first place teams, except the stacked WC nationals. Also a casual fan may not find interest in the rangers or d backs, but they’re not lacking star power. One of the five best position players in the NL and unanimous ROY, Corbin Carroll, is on the DBacks, their bullpen is sick, and Zac Gallen is a possible top 3 cy young guy. The rangers have max scherzer, Nate eovaldi, and the mvp runner up and former World Series mvp is in Corey seager. This entire article is complaining just to complain.
Also a depressed Dodgers fan, but the point of the article is not to end randomness or say there’s no star power remaining. It is about how much luck/“mediocre team gets hot” the league will facilitate through expanded playoffs and thus make regular season dominance pointless. No one who watched the D Backs in the regular season would conclude they “earned” a shot at the championship through consistent excellence. They look good now but were a sub-.500 team from June 1 on. They had the same record as the giants over that span. They were “just good enough” to make a tournament.
I don’t know what the answer is -- especially because I enjoy watching the dodgers in the regular season (it’s the best time, evidently) -- but something about “just good enough” after such a long grind seems so lame.
Yeah I agree with this. I guess it’s just the bar for entry has been lowered now, but the doesn’t necessarily make it more random in any given series, it’s always had randomness, that’s just the nature of baseball. And I love the regular season too, attended over 10 games home and ventured to Dallas for a road game too, maybe missed 15 games altogether on TV, I’ll always watch the regular season. They just have to hit, the stars always forget how to hit now and idk how to fix it lol
In the end, I would like to go back to the old pre Covid setup, but I think this year is just one of those random years where a wild card team made the championship, more often than not it’ll be one of the best teams
I’ve long accepted that Twitter is a cesspool I’m glad I’ve avoided.
But I’d like to hear how the people who made the over-the-top responses to Nate Silver feel about it. Rather than theorize, is there chance you could ask them? Did they think it was a proportionate response? That it isn’t a big deal to speak like that about someone publicly? That it helps their career?
I was a child of the late 80's and 90s. Sports didn't change that much. People argued about the DH for decades, the exception that proved the rule. If anything sports always seemed to get better. That is no longer the case.
Twitter is a cesspool to be sure, but there is a vocal unorganized backlash to nerds meddling in our stuff that was perfectly fine. Every day new tweaks are suggested. Fixes to fix the fixes. And so every time a Nate Silver pops his head up and says something like the NBA should adopt the Elam ending, he gets all the accumulated abuse of the unheard. Not that I'm defending abusive behavior.
As a Rangers fan who is thrilled that we finally got back to the World Series, I 100% agree with Silver. In my view, we should go back to the 1969–1993 format, with an LCS and World Series. I’d even be okay with just the World Series. And I’m in my 20s, and I can tell you others my age agree with me. Maybe not the majority, but we exist.
Baseball was at its most popular when 2 teams made the playoffs. It isn’t even close to compare. There are many factors in the decline of MLB popularity (for me - the 1994 strike was when I stopped caring as much) but if baseball is going to be a regional sport - the playoffs should ensure it is the 4 best teams. I would also kill inter league play. Just my opinion but the all star game used to matter and wining your division meant everything back in the day.
I don't think the low number of playoff teams had anything to do with the popularity. And going with that old format today probably wouldn't fly now with more entertainment options. Maybe decades ago people would keep following the regular season with 75% of the teams out of it by labor day, but I think that would be really bad for the league if they tried that today.
I guess enough time has passed that many people have never experienced a real pennant race where a great team misses the playoffs. I was in elementary school, but I grew up on Mets-Cardinals from 85 to 88. 4 seasons of 2 really good teams grinding every day in meaningful games all year. That was great. But it happened over a long period of time and required a lot of attention.
I'm not saying it's necessarily right and other ways are wrong. But it was great, and at least to me, it's what baseball is about
(And it get that the race wasn't close every year, but the teams and fans knew who the real contenders were and crushing the Cardinals in 86 was awesome)
What I object to is the word "random." It wasn't tossing dice or flipping coins that produced this matchup. There are clearly explicable reasons: both teams had hot starts, struggled mightily during the dog days, held on despite their deficiencies (in the case of the D-Backs they overcame theirs by rebuilding their bullpen at the deadline), and found their games again at the right time. I hate the new playoff format, and I totally understand thinking that there isn't proper advantage given to dominant regular season teams. But don't fall back on the cliche of it all being a crapshoot, just because Billy Beane said it as a means of covering his own ass.
The problem for the MLB (and to a similar extent the NBA) for that matter, I think, is that a seasons of that length made much more sense when there were far fewer entertainment options out there. Back when there was only network TV and radio, you watched or listened to what was on when it was on, as did everybody else. And the games were affordable to go to in person. 162 low stakes kinda random outcome games was fine to invest time and money in when there aren't as many other more exciting things to spend time on, and it wasn't that much money. Now sports are competing with so much more real time and on demand entertainment, and with tickets, parking and concessions, you're not getting out of any pro sports game for less than a 100 dollars a person bare minimum. Oh and don't forget shelling out cash to get access to more games on TV.
This has been a trend in all sports - they've really catered to the premium spending and/or super-fan consumer, but the casual / average spender keeps getting squeezed out. That's fine as a shorter term strategy, but if you run out all the regular people, how many premium spenders will you have in 5, 10, 15 years? I'd argue this is where fracking the pie started.
The playoff format is another example of a conflict of short vs long term strategy. You get more revenue today off of more playoff games. But you've made the playoffs closer to meaningless, and the regular season is extra meaningless. So, interest in the sport overall falls. The NBA's new in season tournament is really kind of admitting defeat on this point.
But it's one of those situations where they made their bed years ago, and now they have to lie in it. What do you do? If I knew the answer I would probably be a very rich sports executive. I mean what they really need to do is what nobody in the business wants to do, which is reduce the number of regular and/or postseason games, and this might be an intractable problem that is the basis of a long term decline unavoidably.
But I have one or two suggestions about the playoff format.
1. No team, in any sport, can qualify for the postseason if they were not at least .500. Going to the playoffs with a losing record is inherently bullshit. The team you would have faced gets a bye.
2. In MLB they could add a new qualification for the Wild Card - you have to have a record equal to or better than the worst division winner.
3. NBA: Make divisions great again! More than half the teams going to the postseason is bullshit! Meaningful divisions would increase interest and fun for several reasons. First, playing for a division championship is something to root for even if you know your team is not a league champ. Second, division dynasties and rivalries are make rooting for and against teams more fun. Third, division dynamics add more dimension to postseason qualification, which adds drama and speculation. Fourth, teams that play each other a lot within a division tend to play more competitively against each other even when one team is generally better than an another, because they know each other very well. In this way maybe you can make games more meaningful without shortening the season.
Ethan, the 2014 WS featured the 89 win Giants vs. the 88 win Royals. The 2006 Cardinals won 84 games. It has long been a part of baseball that the best regular season team doesn’t always win. None of the Giants 3 WS teams in the 2010s were they even close to being the best team in the regular season. Is your solution to go back to no wild card teams at all (basically pre ‘95)?
I really do think Nate and others are making this complaint because of the nature of the Rangers and D-Backs being in it and their relatively small fan bases, not that they are not “great teams”. [For instance, the Yankees and Giants stunk this year, but if they had snuck into the last WC like Arizona and went on a run, I highly doubt we are having this conversation.]
I would agree with this stuff about markets if I thought Nate Silver or anybody else who draws no revenue from the matchup had any reason to care about the size of the market of the teams. The Dodgers are an objectively great team the past few years. They won 106 games this year and got swept by the last team in the Wild Card. The season before they tied the record for most regular season wins at 111 games and won only one postseason game!
Ethan is right. Forget what anyone's opinion of the team is. The season is extremely long, each game is already low stakes, and the stakes are even lower in the current format, which is reinforced by the best teams losing early and the worst teams going to the World Series. That's a recipe for casual fans simply not caring about the regular season, which in turn means there just less investment to care about the postseason.
Baseball has always suffered from this more than other sports but I agree it was a bad move to go even further in that direction.
I don't agree with Nate (I'm on record with a counterpoint published last week https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/10/stop-whining-about-the-mlb-playoffs-format.html) but his point has value and the people who are freaking out are wrong for freaking out. There's a decent argument for MLB either cutting down on the number of regular season games or cutting down on the postseason. Nate is like Matt Y, a fairly liberal guy who invites great amounts of unhinged hatred because he doesn't tow the party line 100 percent of the time.
I also think it's weird people are complaining about this now. Both LCS' went 7 games! No one was rusty at that point. It's not the format's fault Houston and Philly lost two games in a row at home.
Yeah, my ultimate point is that Houston nearly went to the World Series (again) and great teams generally do find ways to navigate and win short series. The 1990s Yankees had to plow through a DS and CS before the WS. The Dodgers reached back to back WS in 2017 and 2018. It's doable. The Rangers are also genuinely great, and should've won 96 games based on their run differential.
But the complaints about the format would have held even had the Phillies won (and I say this as a still-reeling Philadelphian). For people who agree with Silver, the bug in the machine was the Division Series - with Philly beating Atlanta, Arizona beating the Dodgers, and Texas beating Baltimore after the losers all received byes - not which of the 85-90 win teams then beat each other to reach the World Series.
I'm an Orioles fan. Frankly I'm not shocked the Os didn't advance further. They're a very young team with no playoff experience. You have to get your heart broken at least once before you can fully climb the mountain that is the playoffs.
The Dodgers, aside from the pandemic year, are perpetual chokers. Something's broken there. And I think the Braves just got too cocky for their own good. That still leaves the Astros as the lone division winner that was properly built for this.
The dodgers have made three World Series and choked three times (WSH, SD, and ARI) since 2017.
Framed another way, you could say that since 2019, the Dodgers have:
- Lost in the Division Series to a Wild Card team with 13 fewer wins
- Won the World Series in a 60-game season with no fans all year and very limited stadium capacity through the playoffs
- Lost in the NLCS to a team with 18 fewer wins
- Lost in the Division Series to a Wild Card team from their own division with 21 fewer wins
- Lost in the Division Series to a Wild Card team from their own division with 16 fewer wins
Some fair points, but 2021 was not a choke job. They won a wild card game after a 106-win season and beat a 107-win team in the first round. On the “60-game season doesn’t count” point. What is the rationale here? They went 43-17. Has a team since 1995 done that in a 60-game stretch and not made to the playoffs? They beat three NL teams who were tapped to make the playoffs when the season began and beat a very good team in the WS.
More playoff teams actually makes the regular season more compelling not less. A higher amount of teams in contention means more trades and races/meaningful games.
This isn't the 80s or 90s... there are way too many entertainment options out there for anyone to watch August and September baseball when your team has zero chance to make the playoffs. He may be right about the postseason but this playoff format definitely makes the regular season more interesting.
Also, Nate's a big boy and he seems to like playing the role of provocateur and relishes in the attention it brings him. He's no victim here.
Every team should make the playoffs to maximize entertainment value!
Surely it matters that the most popular sport in the world has no playoffs, yet creates stakes through relegation, regional tournament invites, and opportunities to beat each league’s handful of perennial super teams. Why does every sport have to be exactly the same?
Meh I think they are clearly leaving money on the table with no playoffs. I LIKE the no playoffs, but for TV/drama making money it is clearly the superior resolution of the season.
But relegation is GREAT. Adds so much.
Counter argument: expanded playoffs have improved importance of regular season. Who would turn out to see an 84 win Diamondbacks club in September under old format? But when you're team is in wild card contention, it means every game matters and attendance spikes.
Also does a team that's headed for low 80's win total go out and trade for a closer at the trade deadline under the old format? Probably not.
Couldn't disagree more. My team was out of it this year, as well as the Yankees who are my lead hate-watch team, and I have thoroughly enjoyed these playoffs even with having about as low a rooting interest this year as any I can remember.
I don't think the outcomes have been all that wild year after year. This will be the first World Series without the Dodgers, Astros (or both) since 2016. Seems like a fairly stable rewarding of regular season success.
And I've seen a lot consternation about the Dodgers lack of World Series rings during this dominant run they've had. At this point the sample isn't all that small anymore. Maybe it's time to consider they have built their foundation on some legendary chokers. From their manager, to their ace, to Mookie Betts who even dating back to Boston has not had an impact with his bat in big games.
The Dodgers have definitely underperformed overall, but they also lost to the champion or won the WS from 2016-2021. This year, especially, was undeniably depressing, but I’m not sure there’s this bigger thing going on that you’re pointing to.
Yup. The Dodgers are the 90s Braves all over again, so there's precedent for this.
I like this year’s match-up, but Nate’s viewpoint is defensible and doesn’t deserve the vitriolic responses. Baseball used to be a sport in which it was very difficult to get in the playoffs (two teams until 1968 then four teams for many years). Allowing so many teams into the playoffs is a sign of the waning popularity of the sport. My favourite sport, hockey, has always had this challenge. In order to grow the sport allow as many teams into the playoffs as possible (and drag the playoffs into mid-June).
NFL expanded to 14 playoff teams recently (more than MLB) and their sport is doing okay.
It’s a shame that college football will soon piss away one of its key differentiators (a meaningful regular season) so they too can chase the extra dollars of an expanded playoff.
The stark misalignment in American sports between what makes for the best product and what generates the most revenue is so frustrating. And I keep waiting for fans to revolt, but it never happens (except when Europeans crushed the soccer super league, bless their souls).
Just want to say that I 1 million percent agree with this take and I've been saying it since the playoff began, which inevitably would lead to an expansion.
The thing about college football is that it's not even supposed to be about the national championship. College football was always just about what happened on Saturdays in the fall. Win-great. Lose-bad. It didn't need national championship stakes. People loved it. All season, every Saturday. The focus on the playoffs detracts from what always made college football unique and awesome. And playoff expansion is just making it worse
Exactly. Most programs in college football aren’t going to sniff a national championship, but you can find meaning in beating your rivals, winning weird trophies, and finishing the season with a bowl win. Now, the bowl games are an irrelevant mess which the better players skip, and as soon as a team picks up a second loss they might as well be dead as far as ESPN is concerned.
Idk I’m into it 🤷♂️. Both of the series went 7 games man. The “better teams” in both series had home field and the chance to win. Those are the breaks.
I for one, as a Giants fan with no skin in the game, found both of these series incredibly compelling
The MLB easily has the best and IMO most interesting playoff format. MLB also allows the fewest teams into the playoffs of any of the major leagues. A baseball series is just more affected by an anomalous game than basketball series is.
You can try lengthening the wildcard or NLDS but unless you want to go the way of European soccer, where the best regular season record is the more prestigious title, teams need to show up in October!
The whining and fake tears are so annoying from both Ethan and Nate, it was a loser post. I’m a die hard dodgers fan, yes I think they should’ve kept the old format, since it does make the regular season more worthwhile, but the randomness of the baseball playoffs has always been around, like one of the comments above points out, but you know what teams win the WS most of the time, the best ones, just go thru all the recent winners, all first place teams, except the stacked WC nationals. Also a casual fan may not find interest in the rangers or d backs, but they’re not lacking star power. One of the five best position players in the NL and unanimous ROY, Corbin Carroll, is on the DBacks, their bullpen is sick, and Zac Gallen is a possible top 3 cy young guy. The rangers have max scherzer, Nate eovaldi, and the mvp runner up and former World Series mvp is in Corey seager. This entire article is complaining just to complain.
Also a depressed Dodgers fan, but the point of the article is not to end randomness or say there’s no star power remaining. It is about how much luck/“mediocre team gets hot” the league will facilitate through expanded playoffs and thus make regular season dominance pointless. No one who watched the D Backs in the regular season would conclude they “earned” a shot at the championship through consistent excellence. They look good now but were a sub-.500 team from June 1 on. They had the same record as the giants over that span. They were “just good enough” to make a tournament.
I don’t know what the answer is -- especially because I enjoy watching the dodgers in the regular season (it’s the best time, evidently) -- but something about “just good enough” after such a long grind seems so lame.
Yeah I agree with this. I guess it’s just the bar for entry has been lowered now, but the doesn’t necessarily make it more random in any given series, it’s always had randomness, that’s just the nature of baseball. And I love the regular season too, attended over 10 games home and ventured to Dallas for a road game too, maybe missed 15 games altogether on TV, I’ll always watch the regular season. They just have to hit, the stars always forget how to hit now and idk how to fix it lol
In the end, I would like to go back to the old pre Covid setup, but I think this year is just one of those random years where a wild card team made the championship, more often than not it’ll be one of the best teams
I also wouldn’t be completely opposed to the pre wild card days lol
I’ve long accepted that Twitter is a cesspool I’m glad I’ve avoided.
But I’d like to hear how the people who made the over-the-top responses to Nate Silver feel about it. Rather than theorize, is there chance you could ask them? Did they think it was a proportionate response? That it isn’t a big deal to speak like that about someone publicly? That it helps their career?
Doubt they’d comment but this is a good idea. Becauss it’s hard for me to imagine doing what they’re doing
I was a child of the late 80's and 90s. Sports didn't change that much. People argued about the DH for decades, the exception that proved the rule. If anything sports always seemed to get better. That is no longer the case.
Twitter is a cesspool to be sure, but there is a vocal unorganized backlash to nerds meddling in our stuff that was perfectly fine. Every day new tweaks are suggested. Fixes to fix the fixes. And so every time a Nate Silver pops his head up and says something like the NBA should adopt the Elam ending, he gets all the accumulated abuse of the unheard. Not that I'm defending abusive behavior.
As a Rangers fan who is thrilled that we finally got back to the World Series, I 100% agree with Silver. In my view, we should go back to the 1969–1993 format, with an LCS and World Series. I’d even be okay with just the World Series. And I’m in my 20s, and I can tell you others my age agree with me. Maybe not the majority, but we exist.
Baseball was at its most popular when 2 teams made the playoffs. It isn’t even close to compare. There are many factors in the decline of MLB popularity (for me - the 1994 strike was when I stopped caring as much) but if baseball is going to be a regional sport - the playoffs should ensure it is the 4 best teams. I would also kill inter league play. Just my opinion but the all star game used to matter and wining your division meant everything back in the day.
I don't think the low number of playoff teams had anything to do with the popularity. And going with that old format today probably wouldn't fly now with more entertainment options. Maybe decades ago people would keep following the regular season with 75% of the teams out of it by labor day, but I think that would be really bad for the league if they tried that today.
I guess enough time has passed that many people have never experienced a real pennant race where a great team misses the playoffs. I was in elementary school, but I grew up on Mets-Cardinals from 85 to 88. 4 seasons of 2 really good teams grinding every day in meaningful games all year. That was great. But it happened over a long period of time and required a lot of attention.
I'm not saying it's necessarily right and other ways are wrong. But it was great, and at least to me, it's what baseball is about
(And it get that the race wasn't close every year, but the teams and fans knew who the real contenders were and crushing the Cardinals in 86 was awesome)
What I object to is the word "random." It wasn't tossing dice or flipping coins that produced this matchup. There are clearly explicable reasons: both teams had hot starts, struggled mightily during the dog days, held on despite their deficiencies (in the case of the D-Backs they overcame theirs by rebuilding their bullpen at the deadline), and found their games again at the right time. I hate the new playoff format, and I totally understand thinking that there isn't proper advantage given to dominant regular season teams. But don't fall back on the cliche of it all being a crapshoot, just because Billy Beane said it as a means of covering his own ass.
Exactly.
The problem for the MLB (and to a similar extent the NBA) for that matter, I think, is that a seasons of that length made much more sense when there were far fewer entertainment options out there. Back when there was only network TV and radio, you watched or listened to what was on when it was on, as did everybody else. And the games were affordable to go to in person. 162 low stakes kinda random outcome games was fine to invest time and money in when there aren't as many other more exciting things to spend time on, and it wasn't that much money. Now sports are competing with so much more real time and on demand entertainment, and with tickets, parking and concessions, you're not getting out of any pro sports game for less than a 100 dollars a person bare minimum. Oh and don't forget shelling out cash to get access to more games on TV.
This has been a trend in all sports - they've really catered to the premium spending and/or super-fan consumer, but the casual / average spender keeps getting squeezed out. That's fine as a shorter term strategy, but if you run out all the regular people, how many premium spenders will you have in 5, 10, 15 years? I'd argue this is where fracking the pie started.
The playoff format is another example of a conflict of short vs long term strategy. You get more revenue today off of more playoff games. But you've made the playoffs closer to meaningless, and the regular season is extra meaningless. So, interest in the sport overall falls. The NBA's new in season tournament is really kind of admitting defeat on this point.
But it's one of those situations where they made their bed years ago, and now they have to lie in it. What do you do? If I knew the answer I would probably be a very rich sports executive. I mean what they really need to do is what nobody in the business wants to do, which is reduce the number of regular and/or postseason games, and this might be an intractable problem that is the basis of a long term decline unavoidably.
But I have one or two suggestions about the playoff format.
1. No team, in any sport, can qualify for the postseason if they were not at least .500. Going to the playoffs with a losing record is inherently bullshit. The team you would have faced gets a bye.
2. In MLB they could add a new qualification for the Wild Card - you have to have a record equal to or better than the worst division winner.
3. NBA: Make divisions great again! More than half the teams going to the postseason is bullshit! Meaningful divisions would increase interest and fun for several reasons. First, playing for a division championship is something to root for even if you know your team is not a league champ. Second, division dynasties and rivalries are make rooting for and against teams more fun. Third, division dynamics add more dimension to postseason qualification, which adds drama and speculation. Fourth, teams that play each other a lot within a division tend to play more competitively against each other even when one team is generally better than an another, because they know each other very well. In this way maybe you can make games more meaningful without shortening the season.