I suppose, in a way, the playoffs are MLB's way of evening things out for the teams that can't spend as much money as everyone else. Over 162 games, the Yankees and the Phillies are simply better than everyone else. But to win the title, they will have to be better in just one game. That fact adds a bit of randomness that makes it very hard for any team to dominate baseball the way the Yankees did back in the 1950's. It's not fair, but it can be very entertaining. So far I have really enjoyed the New York/Detroit and Philadelphia/St. Louis series, and I am quite excited about these game fives.
National League Divisional Series (Best of 5):
Philadelphia and St. Louis are tied 2-2
Milwaukee and Arizona are tied 2-2
American League Divisional Series (Best of 5):
New York and Detroit are tied 2-2
Texas has beaten Tampa Bay 3-1
It's not fair only if you buy the notion that the ability/willingness to spend more money than another team should put you in better position to win the title. Again, I think baseball has a pretty good system that its fans mostly respect ... the regular-season dominators get a lot of love, but so do the teams that are able to catch lightning in a bottle and win a World Series. Hockey is the one that's problematic for me personally, because it sets itself up with a baseball-type structure that teams appear to simply ignore and compete as though they are in a UCFC/NASCAR system.
ReplyDeleteI think that the purpose of a competition among professional sports teams is to identify the team most worthy of being the champion. I don't think MLB's method succeeds in that regard. The Phillies were 12 games better than St. Louis even though they played a tougher schedule, and even though they coasted through the last month of the season. They have definitively proven themselves to be better than St. Louis, and they shouldn't have to beat them again.
ReplyDeleteI actually think the NHL's method works much better. There are goofy results in the NHL playoffs, but a lot of that is because hockey is a goofy game that gives too much power to hot goalkeepers.
And, again, I think MLB does a good job of identifying and celebrating its best team while putting on an exciting and important championship tournament. The late '80s/early '90s A's are highly regarded, but that Kirk Gibson clip is one of the most exciting things in baseball history.
ReplyDeleteNHL, on the other hand: Good tournament but meaningless regular season.
NFL: Everything points to the tournament, and everything matters toward the tournament. Home-field advantage, earned during the regular season, tends to be tremendously important in the tournament. Consequently, it doesn't matter how good you were during the regular seasons (or even the tournaments before the Super Bowl); all that matters is whether you're champion.
ReplyDeleteThe Braves are not the Bills.
College basketball all points to the tournament, too. This is why it definitely needs a more open process for its tournament seeding.
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