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Do You Like The MLB Playoff Format? · Kenny Wallace Media

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  Give us your thoughts. Why should I care about the
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  baseball play offs? Well, traditionally having the
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  first round buy has not been a huge advantage.
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  When you look at some of the previous champions, a lot of
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  them have come out of the wild card round.
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  So I, I guess for me, I'm just waiting because you have the
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  Phillies and you have the Dodgers who have the first round
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  buy in the National League. You have the Yankees and you
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  have the Indians. I'm sorry, the Guardians.
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  Whoa. Whoa, whoa, you can't say that
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  word in. The the Guardians, the Cleveland
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  Guardians who have a bye in the first round in the American
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  League. I personally think it's going to
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  be Philly or LA or New York coming out of the American
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  League. Those teams have kind of been
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  the best from start to finish. There isn't really any reason to
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  think that that won't continue in logical terms.
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  But baseball is very unpredictable.
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  I would say much like hockey or the NFL, it's a lot about
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  getting hot at the right time. In the NFL, if you have a heart
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  hot quarterback, you can make a run.
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  In the NHL, you get the hot goalie, you can make a run.
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  In baseball, if you get a pitcher that just is shutting
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  everybody down, you have a really good chance to go to the
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  World Series. I like the playoff format.
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  The best of three, then the best of five, then the best of seven
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  and then the World Series personally.
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  It, you know, it makes the regular season more exciting.
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  Less so in this one though. I think a lot of the playoff
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  teams, except in the National League for the Diamondbacks
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  being left out and the Mets, Braves having that doubleheader
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  that put them both in the playoffs on on Monday, you know,
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  we pretty much knew who the teams were going to be.
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  But that's kind of my mini playoff review.
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  I really like the Dodgers and I really like the Yankees.
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  I mean, how could you not though, with their roster
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  constructions and their pitching?
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  That doesn't mean that's who it's going to be, but that
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  that's who I like. Yeah, look, I'm not anywhere
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  close to the baseball fan you are, although in my youth it was
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  my favorite sport and I probably will TuneIn here or there.
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  But I totally disagree with you on the format.
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  I hate the format, and I think the proof is in the pudding.
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  The last few years you had the Phillies 2022 wild card team,
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  You had last year the Diamondbacks and the Rangers,
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  both wild card teams. That's what I'm saying.
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  I'm not saying a wild card team shouldn't.
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  I'm not saying it's automatically bad if a wild card
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  team makes the World Series. What I'm saying is there's not
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  enough correlation between the regular season success and the
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  postseason success. Now, some of that is for the
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  reasons you pointed out, baseball's of sport where short
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  series, often times the inferior team can win, right?
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  There's nothing, there's nothing you can do about that.
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  There's something to the hot pitcher thing.
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  So some of that unpredictability is good and fine, but I think
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  what has happened is they've erred too far on the side of
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  unpredictability. And the reason is because the
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  reason these wild card teams, I think are having so much success
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  isn't just the unpredict unpredictability.
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  I think it's because of the rustiness of the teams that get
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  the buy. And I think that is a major flaw
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  of this playoff format that in baseball, the rhythm is so
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  important. And I think teams have talked
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  about it. They're in fact, they're they're
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  trying to come up with all kinds of things.
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  Last year, one of the, I forget who it was, I think it was the
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  Braves. They try to do simulated games
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  while they had the break. I think it's it's a it it, it
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  was a fit. It was a thing they did to give
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  advantage to the teams of the two best records in each league.
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  Give them a buy. The problem is it's actually
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  potentially a disadvantage. I would like to see them go back
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  to a format that was closer to the older format where the wild
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  card teams had to play A1 game elimination.
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  Like make there make there be a big difference between winning a
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  division and a wild card. So if you're the wild card,
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  you're playing one game and if you lose, you're done.
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  And then if you win, you got to go play the top team in the
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  league. And and the top team in the
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  league's not sitting there for 5-6 seven days.
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  They're sitting there for two days.
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  So they're fresh too. I think that would be a better
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  system. I understand why baseball
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  doesn't do that. More teams, more games, more
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  money. I get it.
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  But if you want it's, it's a problem consistently when the
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  best teams and in many cases with the best players, not
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  always, sometimes the best teams, but not the best.
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  But you mentioned like the Dodgers with Shohei Otani, they
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  got one of the buys right. He is the most exciting player
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  in baseball, the best player in baseball.
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  They're one of the best teams clearly if they lose in that
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  first round. They could to a wild.
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  Card team, in part because they had the BI, which was supposed
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  to be an advantage but made them rusty, and then they lose to a
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  team that comes in hot and now Shohei Otani and the Dodgers are
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  out in the first round and that and that continues to happen
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  year after year. I just think that's bad for
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  baseball. I think it's better in general
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  to have your best teams and your biggest stars advance in the
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  postseason, and I think this format makes that less likely
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  than it should be. To your point, I like the one
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  game series in the first round and then seven game series
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  moving forward because it lessens the randomness of it.
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  I think if you put the Oakland A's in the playoffs and you
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  shook this thing up in a simulation, they would win a
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  World Series out of 100 times. And I mean, that's part of the
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  problem, right, Is because like I said, it's baseball.
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  Like, there's a lot of randomness in baseball that
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  makes it very. What What about the White Sox?
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  Do you think they could win a World Series in a simulation?
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  Oh my God, that's such a great question.
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  The losing his team in the history of baseball It seems
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  unlikely but I wouldn't rule it out.
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  How about? That 4041 and 121 that.
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  If you look at baseball this year, not a single team won 100
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  games. Yeah, the White Sox lost 121,
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  but no one else lost more than 100.
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  Yeah, it it, which is strange cause in recent years that has
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  not been the case, right? You've had tankers and you've
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  had three or 400 win teams. In fact, the Dodgers had the
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  best record in baseball, 98 and 64.
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  Oh, Speaking of the Dodgers in baseball, I did I so I didn't
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  have a chance to read this, but Nate Silver, who I love, did his
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  newsletter today. And one of the questions someone
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  asked him, what he answered, I haven't read.
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  His response is, is Shohei Otani the best baseball player of all
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  time? Now, I kind of hate these
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  arguments in a way, because it's so weird to compare Babe Ruth
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  and Shohei Otani with everything that's different now with
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  nutrition and sports science. And I mean, it's just, but it is
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  a fun debate if, and I just think I will say this, I can't
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  imagine there has been a better baseball player than Shia Atani.
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  Would you consider the value that he provides?
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  I mean, he had one of the best offensive seasons we've seen
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  this year. He's going to win.
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  What is this, his 3rd or 4th MVPA win?
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  I've lost count and he didn't even get the pitch, which by the
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  way, he's one of the best pitchers in the league.
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  I mean, to have a guy who at the same time as one of the elite
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  hitters and elite pitchers in baseball to do that year after
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  year after year. I mean, I think you certainly
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  can make the argument he's the best player ever.
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  He's not a better hitter than Barry Bonds.
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  Well, he's not. No.
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  He's not. He's a better pitcher.
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  Though Well, obviously I mean that that's the unique thing,
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  right? I think I like, look, forgive me
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  for having some perspective, but I like to wait until a person's
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  career over before I start really making that conversation
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  valid. Otani could get hurt next year
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  and you know the Los Angeles Dodgers would still owe him a
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  bazillion dollars and he'd be fine.
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  But would he be better than Babe Ruth?
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  I don't want to nerd out on this too much 'cause no one cares.
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  But look back at how Babe Ruth was better than the entire
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  league. He hit more home runs than teams
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  than teams. Like we need to like just
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  comment, is Otani hitting more at home runs than teams?
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  He's not like, that's the remarkable part about Babe Ruth.
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  It wasn't just his singular production.
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  It was his singular production relative to everyone else who
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  played baseball. And yes, they were plumbers and
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  firemen. And, you know, the Yankees had a
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  short porch and Forbes Field was 490 feet to center field.
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  And there's a lot of things that we can talk about that make it
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  different, but I'm just talking about his production relative to
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  everyone else who played the game.
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  The gap between him and everybody else is not the same.
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  Oh, Tawny. I mean, Aaron Judge is great.
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  I mean, you know he. He had.
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  An amazing well, I I would say you're mostly right, but I think
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  if you go back and look at Lou Gehrig, his teammate stats, they
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  were they were pretty comparable in a lot of years.
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  Like Garrett Ruth hit more home runs, but their overall stat
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  lines were pretty comparable. But you're right, Babe Ruth was
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  was a dominant player, way better than I mean in.
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  The amount that's more of sports, Babe Ruth is on it and
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  show hey Tony is not. So how about that's true?
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  Let's say this Babe Ruth was better than the average player
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  of his day by a margin that is hard to even calculate his
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  world. Would be 50,000.
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  Right.