The Sports Fix : MLB Postseason

In this edition of The Sports Fix we focus on the format and scheduling of the Major League Baseball Postseason.  About two weeks ago the NBA re-formatted their playoffs and it made me think that baseball should also re-think how they do things in the postseason.  The NBA playoffs make a ton more sense now, but the way they did it makes no sense (Top 8 teams in conference make the playoffs regardless of division.  Great for getting the best teams in, but why have divisions now?).  Okay, that is WAY too much NBA discussion.

Anyway, let me start by saying the double Wild Card in baseball is silly.  And yes, I realize that last year the 2^nd Wild Card team, San Francisco, went on to win the World Series, but that isn’t changing my opinion.  You have 162 regular season games for a reason, if you can’t get into the Top 4 in your league, then you probably don’t deserve to be in the playoffs.  There is no need for the Wild Card Game except to sell an extra playoff game to owners and add it to the TV contract.  So even though there are about 7,851 reasons not to have the Wild Card Game, money talks and it ain’t going away any time soon.

My first change to the MLB Postseason is changing the idea of the “wild card” team as an automatic road team in their 1^st series.  Why punish a team for finishing with a better record than a division winner?  Or maybe the better question, why reward a division winner for winning a bad division?  This is the 4^th year of the Wild Card game and it will be the 3^rd time in 4 years that one of the winners of that game will have a better record than one of the division winners.  With my format, I would simply seed the remaining teams AFTER the Wild Card Game 1 through 4 based on their regular season record.  This still give the division winners a pass into series play, but now it rewards the wild card team for what they did in the regular season.  This gives the wild card winner a chance to avoid the top team and if they were really good in the regular season, it would give them the ability to host a divisional series.  If the goal is to get the best two teams in the World Series, this is the best way to do that.

And if the goal is to get the best two teams into the World Series, one can assume that it is also to crown the best team as World Champion.  To do that there must be a change to the scheduling in the playoffs.

We saw last year with Madison Bumgarner and his amazing post season run that a pitcher can dominate an entire postseason simply because the schedule allows it.  That shouldn’t be the case.  Teams play 3 and 4 game series with a 5 man rotation all season only for that to change in the postseason, when teams play 2 (sometime 1) games before getting a day off.  The Giants played 17 playoff games (including the Wild Card Game) and Bumgarner was able to start 6 of them and pitch a 7^th.  This wasn’t because Bruce Bochy rushed his ace out there on short rest either.  Bumgarner had his normal rest between every one of his 6 start.  That was because the Giants played those 17 games over 29 days.

Here is how we change things.  This season the playoffs begin on October 6^th with the AL Wild Card Game.  Game 7 of the World Series is scheduled for November 4^th.  I am fine with the mid-week wild card games, I like it actually.  I also am fine giving a day off after the wild card game before the start of the divisional series.  That travel day is needed for the winner of the Wild Card Game.  That is about all that I like about the current schedule.

In the Divisional Series you should play the 1^st 4 games without a day off.  Yes I realize that there is a travel day between games 2 and 3, but guess what? Both teams make the same trip, there is absolutely no advantage for 1 team over another.  This gives the 2 teams a true 4-game series.  If the series is still tied after 4 games, I would give 1 day off before game 5.  This is for both travel and to allow the aces for each team to pitch in the deciding game.

I use the same idea when scheduling the League Championship Series too.  However, this series goes 5 games before either team has a day off.  That forces teams to use their entire rotation (just like they would in the regular season) and it eliminates 1 travel day.  There would be no day off between games 2 and 3 even though the series moves cities.  An off day for the 2^nd travel day once again gives each team a breather and allows both coaching staffs to get their pitching staff in order for the final 2 games.

The World Series would be identical to the LCS’s.  Also the World Series would NOT be determined by the mid-season exhibition that baseball likes to call the All-Star Game (sorry Bud Selig).  I would just rotate back and forth between leagues like it was done for 100 years before Bud screwed things up.

This scheduling doesn’t eliminate November baseball (that is for another Sports Fix at another time), but it does force the teams to play the playoffs the same way they played the 162 games that earned them a spot in the postseason.

These changes may seem minor, but they would certainly help baseball from dragging the season out any longer than it already has to.  It would also help crown a true champion that would be determined using the same standards and methods as teams use from April through September, rather than changing them for the most important part of the season. 

Week 3 Review

I was on vacation last week, sorry there was no Week 2 Review. Family first!

Ok, so here are my thoughts both from week 3 and through the 1^st 3 weeks of the college football season.

Ohio State looks a whole lot like Florida State did last year as the defending champions.  The Buckeyes were sluggish in their opener and trailing at the half on the road against Virginia Tech.  It wasn’t until after knocking out the Hokies starting QB that Ohio State took control.  Then in week 2, the Buckeyes shutout a bad Hawaii team, but even in that game they were less than impressive.  Speaking of less than impressive, starter Cardale Jones has now thrown more interceptions than touchdowns this season and if you believe him, has been demoted.  In week 3 the Buckeyes were held to just 1 offensive touchdown against Northern Illinois.  Nothing against NIU, but even the best MAC teams shouldn’t be able to hang around with the team most think is the most talented in the country.  I hope that the pollsters are willing to look at the weak schedule and the weak conference that stands in front of Ohio State when they fill out their weekly ballots.  The defending champion Seminoles dropped to #4 last year by playing the same way as Ohio State has started this season.

Speaking of Ohio State, has Urban Meyer outsmarted himself?  He had 3 talented and experienced quarterbacks returning this season and he picked the one with the least amount of experience and the one that fits his style of offense the worst.  Not that Cardale Jones isn’t a fantastic QB, one that would probably be starting for about 80% of the schools in the country, but he should be #1 at Ohio State. Not this year.  Moving Braxton Miller to wide receiver has been a great move so far for the Buckeye offense.  But not playing JT Barrett at QB from day 1 is inexcusable.  Barrett accounted for almost 3,000 yards through the air last year and nearly 1,000 yards on the ground, scoring 45 touchdowns last year.  That after not being named starter until a week before the season, when Braxton Miller was injured.  Meyer is an outstanding coach, one of the best, but he played this one wrong.

Sticking with the Big Ten, how about Northwestern?  3-0 this season, while holding those 3 opponents to just 16 total points.  2 of those 3 teams are Stanford, who just dropped 41 on USC and Duke, who had scored 92 in their 1^st 2 games.  The last time the Wildcats started this well on defense was 1948.  That year, they went on to claim their only bowl victory in school history, beating Cal 20-14 in the Rose Bowl.

George O’Leary, you remember him, the guy who lied on his resume and was forced to resign as head coach at Notre Dame after just 5 days, yeah, now he wants to be the AD at Central Florida.  He stated at the beginning of the season that he wanted the position and that he was willing to make this be his final season as head coach at UCF.  Well, he is going to the extreme to get that AD gig.  Central Florida is now 0-3 this week after losing to Furman at home.  Furman is an FCS team that has now won just 2 of their last 13 games.  I think the administration at UCF may be hiring a new head coach this year no matter if O’Leary is the new AD or not.

Notre Dame has been bit by the injury bug as badly as anyone this season, but losing a player due to celebration makes their newest injury that much tougher.  Notre Dame defensive back Drue Tranquill will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury after breaking up a pass in the endzone during Saturday’s win over Georgia Tech.  This isn’t the 1^st time something like this has happened and it won’t be the last.  It was a completely innocent action and ended in terrible luck for Tranquill and the Irish, but it is ridiculous how national media pundits are criticizing this kid.  He is a college kid having fun, playing a game he clearly loves, let’s not take that away from college athletics.

By the way, in case you missed it, Notre Dame is now 3-0 beating three Power 5 conference teams.  Yes, Texas is no good and Virginia is one of the worst teams in the ACC, but Georgia Tech is one of the best in that conference and the Irish took it to them on Saturday.  I’m still not sold that ND is a serious playoff contender (they will need to go undefeated for that to happen), but it is still impressive.  Notre Dame gets a breather this week against UMASS before going to Clemson the following week.

What has happened to Jeremy Johnson and the Auburn offense?  After a quick start out of the gate this season in the opener against Louisville, the Auburn offense has been flat out bad.  Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn is supposed to be an offensive genius, but they have been everything but through 3 games this year.  His starting quarterback, Johnson, has thrown for just 5 touchdowns and 6 interceptions this season.  He has also run for just 59 yards, and that includes a 65 yard run Saturday (yeah, you do the math).  Things don’t get easier for the Tigers as they continue their SEC schedule this week against Mississippi State.  Don’t be surprised if you see Johnson on the bench if things don’t go the Tigers way on Saturday.  Behind Johnson on the depth chart is a very highly regarded recruit, Sean White.

Auburn wasn’t the only team from Alabama to take a tough L on Saturday, as their rival Alabama also lost their SEC opener, falling to Ole Miss for the 2^nd straight season.  The loss snapped the Tides 17 game home winning streak and completely through a wrench into the SEC West standings just 3 weeks into the season.  LSU and Mississippi seem to be the front runners after big wins on Saturday, but Texas A&M and Mississippi State have also looked good this season.  With the new playoff format, 1 more slip up for teams like Auburn, Alabama or Mississippi State and their playoff chances are gone.  Should be an interesting final 10 weeks in the SEC West.

As we look at teams from the SEC that can’t afford another loss, what should we make of the PAC-12?  Does anyone want to win that conference, and even if so, should we already eliminate them from playoff contention?  Just 3 weeks into the season and only 4 PAC-12 teams are still undefeated, and only Cal out of the PAC-12 North.  No offense to Cal, but they aren’t running the table this year.  Their 3 wins have come against Grambling, San Diego State and a 1-point win over Texas, because they missed an extra point with a minute to go in the game.  As a matter of fact, Cal could lose 5 of their next 6 and nobody would be surprised.  Arizona, Utah and UCLA are the remaining undefeated teams from the PAC-12 South.  UCLA has looked the best of those 3 teams.

As we continue to look at how strong each of the Power 5 conferences are, this past week the Big Ten and the ACC went head-to-head in 5 games.  None of the games featured top teams from their respective conference, but that might be for the better.  5 teams from the middle of each conference probably give us a better idea at how strong each conference actually is.  In those 5 games, the ACC won 3, while the Big Ten won 2.

I mentioned earlier that I thought that Notre Dame would have to go undefeated to get into the playoff this season.  That being the case, why are teams still playing as Independents with this current format?  We saw last year that the lack of a championship game hurt the Big XII.  Independents don’t only not have a championship game, they have no real base for comparison.  BYU also plays as an Independent, and I now after 3 weeks they are basically playing for nothing after their 24-23 loss to UCLA on Saturday.  Credit to BYU for scheduling such a tough slate, which included road games at Nebraska, UCLA and Michigan and a home game against Boise State to open the season.  The schedule eases up after that, but that is a brutal start for any team.  Notre Dame might be able to afford a loss more than BYU because of their challenging schedule, but even a 1-loss Irish team is not a shoe-in for the playoff.

We are 3 weeks in and should have a decent grasp on what we have seen to this point in the season, so here are my Top 4 teams as of today (and a few that are just on the outside looking in).
1. Mississippi
2. LSU
3. Ohio State
4. Oklahoma
Next 4 (in no order)… Notre Dame, Clemson, UCLA, Georgia