2025 MLB Thread

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

If I remember correctly, the possibility of rain outs delaying things further was an issue. Then if both teams are in the playoffs anyway, what's the point? And plus, they didn't want teams with a bye sitting around getting rusty, since timing is so important.

As I'm reasonably certain a very large amount of people could attest, the Mets are not "in the playoffs anyway" and would doubtless prefer giving Cincy a long-delayed chance to right Steve Parris's wrongs to this.

You could even juggle the schedule so that the Dodgers are the final team to start the postseason, allowing sufficient time to be ready to play game #163 in Cincinnati on Monday, survive a rainout pushing that game back to Tuesday, and be in Chavez Ravine on Wednesday night anyhow.

And yes, should a series of torrential downpours make play impossible in Southern Ohio for several days, it would play havoc with the schedule, going forward. But such rains would likely funk things up in Northern Ohio , too, so I don't see why said hypothetical justifies having the Mets (and their fans) take it in the neck. JMO.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

As I'm reasonably certain a very large amount of people could attest, the Mets are not "in the playoffs anyway" and would doubtless prefer giving Cincy a long-delayed chance to right Steve Parris's wrongs to this.

You could even juggle the schedule so that the Dodgers are the final team to start the postseason, allowing sufficient time to be ready to play game #163 in Cincinnati on Monday, survive a rainout pushing that game back to Tuesday, and be in Chavez Ravine on Wednesday night anyhow.

And yes, should a series of torrential downpours make play impossible in Southern Ohio for several days, it would play havoc with the schedule, going forward. But such rains would likely funk things up in Northern Ohio , too, so I don't see why said hypothetical justifies having the Mets (and their fans) take it in the neck. JMO.

There is a reason why I said "if".

Other sports have tiebreakers to decide division titles & WC spots, I don't get why baseball fans are so whiny about it. MLB is the sport that should have extra games the least. There were enough times out of 162 games where teams had chances in their hands & blew it. There's the game somebody came in hung over. The game someone didn't listen to the scouting report. The one they didn't hustle around the bases. They don't need a frikkin' 163rd chance to make it right. Especially the Mets. You can't beat a team w/nothing to play for in a win or die moment, then just die.

[Déjà Bru]

Originally Posted by low

Seattle vs. Milwaukee is the only acceptable World Series for me.

Actually, I wouldn't mind this, either. I have had vibes for both of these teams this season.

[CONN CHRIS]

My heart is, of course, with Detroit, but that seems unlikely. Some combination of Mariners, Jays, Brewers, and Padres would be my choice for the WS.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Other sports have tiebreakers to decide division titles & WC spots

And that's why other sports suck. There's baseball…and then there's everything else. You could argue that baseball being the only sport where you settle it on the field is part of what made the sport so special.

(Before Manly Manfred mangled and murdered it, of course…)

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

And that's why other sports suck. There's baseball…and then there's everything else. You could argue that baseball being the only sport where you settle it on the field is part of what made the sport so special.

(Before Manly Manfred mangled and murdered it, of course…)

If other sports suck, why do you watch them?

Delaying the progression of the playoffs to watch 2 mediocre teams w/mediocre records battle it out to cheer "We're #6!" is asinine to me. When only league or division winners got to play in the postseason it made sense. If a club can't solidify themselves in the top 40% of their half of the league, I don't feel sorry for their imminent vacations. They were fortunate to still have meaningful games past summer.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by CONN CHRIS

My heart is, of course, with Detroit, but that seems unlikely. Some combination of Mariners, Jays, Brewers, and Padres would be my choice for the WS.

I've always said every fan should get to see their team win it all at least once in their lifetime. So I'm pulling for some kind of combo w/the M's, Guardians, Brewers & Padres.

[Cobra Mgr]

Bob Melvin fired from Giants

[Hrycaj]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

If other sports suck, why do you watch them?

Delaying the progression of the playoffs to watch 2 mediocre teams w/mediocre records battle it out to cheer "We're #6!" is asinine to me. When only league or division winners got to play in the postseason it made sense. If a club can't solidify themselves in the top 40% of their half of the league, I don't feel sorry for their imminent vacations. They were fortunate to still have meaningful games past summer.

It is not simply about the #6 seed in the AL. Both Toronto and New York finished even. It’s the difference between the bye and playing in the wild card round. I would agree that too many teams make the playoffs but that isn’t changing and you will see two more very soon in each league. I’m wondering the more teams you add if there is a greater chance of even records at the end of the season. To base positioning off of a season head to head seems very anti-climactic.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

If other sports suck, why do you watch them?

Delaying the progression of the playoffs to watch 2 mediocre teams w/mediocre records battle it out to cheer "We're #6!" is asinine to me. When only league or division winners got to play in the postseason it made sense. If a club can't solidify themselves in the top 40% of their half of the league, I don't feel sorry for their imminent vacations. They were fortunate to still have meaningful games past summer.

The other sports are entertaining in their way. "Suck" is somewhat relative, I admit.

But as OOTP22 told us that Bryant Gumbel once said: "The other sports are just sports. Baseball is a love."

And of course a #6 spot is a pathetic joke and abomination. But if you're going to treat it as something of value, there's no point into turning it into a worse joke.

To quote Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (in a letter to his son, March 10, 1746), "Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well."

This caterwauling about expanding the schedule by one game, an increase of a whopping 0.62%, on a day where no games are scheduled in the first place, seems silly in the extreme. If you can't stand ONE more baseball game, don't watch. But don't wreck for those of us who do care.

Competitions should be settled between competitors. It's not a strange concept, I wouldn't think.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Competitions should be settled between competitors. It's not a strange concept, I wouldn't think.

It was decided by competition. Reds beat the Mets 4 games to 2. That's why they owned the tiebreaker. If the Mets had won more game vs Cincy there would have been no tie, no tiebreaker & crying from you.

Jays beat the Yanks 8 wins to 5. That's why they owned the tiebreaker. If the Yanks had won more game vs Toronto there would have been no tie, no tiebreaker & crying from Yankee fans.

Guardians won 8 and lost only 5 to the Tigers. That's why they owned the tiebreaker. If Detroit had won more game vs Cleveland there would have been no tie, no tiebreaker & crying from Tiger fans.

It was all decided on the field.

[Amazin69]

You know that's not the same. Every team tries to win every game, but over the course of 162 games, variations occur. Hot streaks and cold streaks, trades and injuries all affect the outcome of any one game. This isn't the NFL; nobody is going to go 162-0. The idea is to simply win as many games as you can and we'll add them up at the end.

Had the Mets known back in…whenever, that their postseason chances were going to be decided by how they did head-to-head against Cincinnati (as opposed to against the Scrubs or the Dodgers or whomever) then yes, they would have gone balls-to-the-wall Game 7 of the World Series mode in those games. But of course they had no way to know that THOSE games would decide the post-season months after the fact, so they more logically worked to maximize their total wins for the season rather than be willing to risk injuries and ****ing up the rotation just to win some random game back in the spring.

There's a difference between a regular season game and a playoff. To deprive the Mets/Yankees/Tigers/1951 Giants/1978 Red Sox/1999 Mets of the chance to settle things in a playoff just because of the results of random games from long-ago is mind-bogglingly unfair.

(It's even stupider if the tie is for a WC; you can at least argue that the teams should concentrate on their divisional rivals. But I can't even recall when the Reds came to Queens this season, much less what happened. And you want those random games and the ones in Cincy in August to invalidate the other 156?

I've got two words, and the second is 'that".)

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

You know that's not the same. Every team tries to win every game, but over the course of 162 games, variations occur. Hot streaks and cold streaks, trades and injuries all affect the outcome of any one game. This isn't the NFL; nobody is going to go 162-0. The idea is to simply win as many games as you can and we'll add them up at the end.

Had the Mets known back in…whenever, that their postseason chances were going to be decided by how they did head-to-head against Cincinnati (as opposed to against the Scrubs or the Dodgers or whomever) then yes, they would have gone balls-to-the-wall Game 7 of the World Series mode in those games. But of course they had no way to know that THOSE games would decide the post-season months after the fact, so they more logically worked to maximize their total wins for the season rather than be willing to risk injuries and ****ing up the rotation just to win some random game back in the spring.

There's a difference between a regular season game and a playoff. To deprive the Mets/Yankees/Tigers/1951 Giants/1978 Red Sox/1999 Mets of the chance to settle things in a playoff just because of the results of random games from long-ago is mind-bogglingly unfair.

(It's even stupider if the tie is for a WC; you can at least argue that the teams should concentrate on their divisional rivals. But I can't even recall when the Reds came to Queens this season, much less what happened. And you want those random games and the ones in Cincy in August to invalidate the other 156?

I've got two words, and the second is 'that".)

I know it ain't the same. But the claim it wasn't decided by competition is a falsehood. Post all the words & paragraphs you want, it was decided on the field.

I know you will deny it.

And the "if they had known" is a bull crap excuse. Bills & Ravens opened the season together. And you know what they were talking about? That this game could matter for home field & be the diff in a SB appearance. You stay ready, you don't have to get ready. If the Mets had known......looks like the Reds knew.

[monkeyman576]

Mets, Yankees, and Dodgers think they can just buy world series titles. That's just not the case anymore obviously.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

I know it ain't the same. But the claim it wasn't decided by competition is a falsehood. Post all the words & paragraphs you want, it was decided on the field.

I know you will deny it.

And the "if they had known" is a bull crap excuse. Bills & Ravens opened the season together. And you know what they were talking about? That this game could matter for home field & be the diff in a SB appearance. You stay ready, you don't have to get ready. If the Mets had known......looks like the Reds knew.

In case you missed it, the NFL is not MLB. As Bill James wrote back before WWE's Class of 1985 (Reigns, McIntyre, Cody, the Usos) was born, "If baseball teams only played 16 games per season, Steve Carlton would start every game for the Phillies." The frequency of the schedule is a huge influence on the tactics involved. The violent contact of the 1890s went away once baseball teams realized it was unsustainable over a longer schedule.

And no, the tie was not resolved on the field. It was resolved by over-prioritizing old data. I'm sorry the idea of a game 163 has you ****ting your boxers ("NOOOOO! Not more baseball! I can't takes no more!") but that's a you problem, not a me problem.

(And BULL-FREAKIN'-SPIT at the idea that the Reds won those games in July [I looked it up] because they were all "hey, we might tie the Mets for a Wild Card…we'd better bring it!" while the Mets were all "la-la-la, we're retiring David Wright's number, who cares about some game?"

All that happened that the random schedule happened to bring the Reds to New York while the Mets were fighting through a larger [10-20] skid. If the Reds had shown up five weeks later, when they were dropping 8 of 9 near the end of August, the Mets' [hypothetical] whacking of them wouldn't have been about the Reds not "staying ready" or any similar horse-hockey…and the scuffling Reds of late Aiugust wouldn't have been any more relevant to the teams' overall capabilities than the stumbliing Mets of the previous month and should not be the sole determinant of the pennant any more than any other random 1/27th of the whole. FFS.)

[monkeyman576]

Mariners are one of the deeper teams in baseball so I have no problem with more games.

[Westheim]

The bother spot for me is the *second* tie-breaker, in-division record. Teams in different divisions can easily finish 3-3 against each other, and then it comes down to "oh yes, Team A had the Dumbos and Sludges in their division, who lost 211 games combined, and have the better in-division record than Team B, so they get the final wild card".

Of course, even better would be a tie-breaker game. To heck with Rob Numbfred's carefully curated schedule. I don't respect your crap, especially if you have the pants so full that above all else we can't have a World Series game on a Sunday against a regular-season game of the Broncos and Jaguars, or something like that. And they plan EVERYTHING from that ONE condition, backwards.

[CONN CHRIS]

MLB should absolutely go back to using a game 163 as the tie-breaker. After 162 games, the 3.7% of those games played at various times over the season between the Astros and Tigers fade into near-meaninglessness. Houston should have been in Detroit yesterday to decide who would be playing in Cleveland today.

[CONN CHRIS]

Originally Posted by Westheim

The bother spot for me is the *second* tie-breaker, in-division record.

Absolutely. Because there are tie breakers used, you need to have a list of tie-breaking mechanisms that eventually, have to lead to a coin toss.

Bring back game 163!

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

And no, the tie was not resolved on the field. It was resolved by over-prioritizing old data. I'm sorry the idea of a game 163 has you ****ting your boxers ("NOOOOO! Not more baseball! I can't takes no more!") but that's a you problem, not a me problem.

Knew you were too small to admit it. It was decided on the field. My not be the way you want it decided on the field. But it was decided on the field.

And lol @ your last "point". The Reds didn't beat the Mets. The Architect & the Oracle manipulated the program so that the Mets would go in a slump while playing Cincy & all would accept the Matrix. Get real.

Once again, you've managed to get me to debate the sky is blue while you maintain it is polka dot. "Ignorance is bliss" and I wish you to remain happy.

End of my participation in the debate.........