What a Time
With the NLCS starting tonight, my mind has obviously been rushing back to last October. That Padres/Phillies series, fresh off the NLDS win over the Dodgers, was as memorable of a stretch as I’ve ever had in my baseball life, and I’m guessing most of you feel the same way.
Obviously the contrast to this October is stark in Padre-land, but I’ve always felt it’s important to enjoy those kinds of memories. I think we all expect to see the team back in the NLCS (and beyond) at some point—hopefully as soon as 2024—but nothing in life or baseball is guaranteed and as you look around at the remaining postseason field, there are reminders everywhere that nothing is promised to anyone.
Along Those Lines…
Wow.
Deep down most of us probably knew that a Dodgers-Braves NLCS wasn’t a 100% certainty, but we also probably expected one of them to get there, right? Or at least for those two teams to win more than ONE SINGLE GAME in the NLDS.
Yeah, well, the D-backs and Phillies laughed at all that and steamrolled the two “powerhouse” teams to advance to the NLCS.
The talk about baseball in recent days has, of course, been about the playoff format, and “what can be done” to try and lead to more of the higher seeds advancing. Some of you have reached out asking for my thoughts, so here are some:
First and foremost, we should remember that this is only year two of this format, so any grand takeaways from 2022 and 2023 are probably of the small-sample variety.
Someone forgot to tell the Astros that having a bye through the Wild Card is a problem. They went all the way last year and didn’t have much issue with the Twins in their ALDS series this year.
Is there such a thing as a roster that’s built to win 100 (or so) games but that isn’t necessarily skilled at getting through a best-of-five (or seven) series? I mean, maybe? Tony and I kicked this around a bunch during the season and I’ve seen a lot of smart people write a lot of things about it. But it’s hard for me to say you have to choose one over the other.
As for “solutions” (if you think there’s a problem, of course) to the current playoff situation, some have argued to expand the Division Series to best-of-seven; others have said shrink the Wild Card or force the lower seed to win two games vs the higher seed only having to win one game. I certainly understand where that’s all coming from, but I do think we all have to accept that in baseball, there is just so much variance that even if you played a best-of-20-something, you’d still get a lot more “wonky” results than you would in, say, basketball. That’s just the nature of the game.
OK so what would I want to see done? Probably two things, neither earth-shattering or sexy. Also neither my original ideas. One would be to eliminate the day off between the end of the Wild Card series and the start of the Division Series. This would theoretically reward the teams with the byes because the team coming out of the Wild Card, if it goes to three games, would not be able to reset their rotation. Secondly, re-seed!! MLB locks in the bracket/matchups before the postseason begins, so no matter who advances, you know who they’ll play next. My understanding of this is that the league really does love the idea of a bracket. It’s easy to follow and uncomplicated, which I can appreciate. But! The Braves were far and away the best team in the NL over 162 games this year. And instead of playing the 6-seed D-backs in the NLDS, they got the 4-seed Phillies. Seems backwards to me. And look, the Snakes may have taken them out—they’re playing great baseball right now—but if we really want to reward the regular season in some way (and we really should—it’s a lonnnnnng haul), this would seem to be a fairly basic way to do so.
Last note on all this: MLB has been fairly open about its desire to expand to 32 teams once the TB and OAK stadium situations are fully resolved one way or another. And when we get to 32 teams, I think it’s fair to expect that there could be radical realignment in the league. And certainly more playoff teams. So…with the very real possibility of Major League Baseball in which 16 of 32 teams make it into the postseason, we should try and get as much right as possible now to lay the groundwork for the craziness of the future tournament.
How Crazy has it Been?
Some notes I’ve collected from the first couple weeks of October:
The Astros’ run is easy to take for granted (like the Braves in the ‘90s), but seven straight ALCS appearances is pretty wild.
The Orioles were swept in the ALDS by the Rangers. It was the only time they were swept this season.
The AL East finished 0-7 in the postseason. In addition to the O’s struggles, Toronto and TB were swept in their Wild Card series.
Through the four Division Series: teams that won 91 or more games in the regular season went 1-13. All eliminated, of course. The teams that won 90 or fewer went 21-9 and are all still alive. Further, the three 100-win teams (ATL, LAD, BAL) went 1-9.
As for the Dodgers, they never held a lead in their sweep at the hands of the Diamondbacks. It was the third straight year that they were ousted by a team with far fewer regular season wins than they had. And most famously: Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman combined to go 1-21 in the series.
Do You Even Remember this Newsletter?
I’m ashamed to even go back and look at the last time I sent one of these out. When I started it in Spring Training, my goal was to send one out at LEAST every other week in the regular season. But, as the baseball season tends to do, it just swallowed me whole. There were a bunch of times in the back-half of the year where I was sitting in some hotel somewhere, having done my work, staring at a blank newsletter screen, and just didn’t have it in me. So first: I apologize. But also, no further promises about frequency. I figure since I’m not charging for this (and never would), it’s probably better to just send when I can and whatever that turns out to be, I hope you enjoy.
I would love to get back into more of a rhythm in Spring Training, and should be able to. Plus, I want to get back to more regular Q&A stuff. So…stay tuned, check your spam, tell your friends, etc.
Finally, as always, the most heartfelt thank you to all of you who tuned in to the broadcasts this year. I know the games didn’t go the way we all thought they would, but I still consider this to be the best job in the world and working with Tony and Dave every night to bring you guys some baseball nonsense is an actual dream come true.
It feels early to send holiday wishes to you all, but just in case we don’t talk again before then, my best to you and your loved ones. Hopefully we’ll be in Peoria before we know it…