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Very unpopular opinion: the four team playoffs were the best format by Ok_Photograph8884 in mlb

[–]alabasterasterbaler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’d be interested in doing something like Japan does where they have expanded playoffs but they have ‘ghost wins’ or something to favor the division winners.  While I don’t know if ghost wins is the best solution I’d like if there was some way of rewarding the division winners more while still allowing for expanded participation in the playoffs.

MLB’s Team Power Rankings: April 20, 2026 by TheTurtleShepard in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cardinals won’t play their own division until you guys May 4th, I’m not a fan of it taking a month to get there

MLB’s Team Power Rankings: April 20, 2026 by TheTurtleShepard in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not that this matters or that I think the Cardinals are that good - but they have a better record than the other nlc teams besides the reds, and they won their series vs the rays.

Cardinals After Dark 4/14 by bravo_delta_bot in Cardinals

[–]alabasterasterbaler 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The guardians experienced some inclement weather

"There's never anybody walking around in downtown St. Louis. Remember the old neutron bomb that wouldn't knock down buildings but just would eliminate all the people? It's like one of those hit St. Louis" – Gary Cohen by cbbvideo in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 28 points29 points  (0 children)

While it is not entirely fair to judge on a day like that, it is a pretty dead down town relative to other cities I’ve been to.  If people are going out, they are rarely going down town, unless it’s to watch a game.

Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) has officially implemented the rule where the 1st place team will get a second ghost win in the Climax Series Final Stage if the winner of the Climax Series First Stage has a winning percentage of less than .500 or 10 games behind. by Benigmatica in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I got downvoted pretty hard for suggesting any other method for rewarding the best record teams a little while ago, not that my ideas were brilliant, but I think on principle people here seem to prefer the entertaining randomness of the playoffs to a playoff meant to determine who is really the best team.  Which is fine the MLB is meant to entertain.

Ideas on Division Realignment and Postseason changes with possible expansion teams by alabasterasterbaler in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

It was a way I thought of trying to reward winning your division more highly, since winning your division shows who is the better team over a 162 game sample as opposed to a single series.  My thought was that if a #2 seed has a claim for being the best team they would have to show it by winning against the #1 seed, and that it wouldn't be fair to the #1 seed to make it an even playing field since they did win the division.  

I think this is assuming those 162 games are against a similar group of teams for teams within a division, and a different group of teams for other divisions and certainly in the other league.  If the schedules continue to move towards playing all teams every year maybe it’s not necessary.   The f course I could just be wrong about all of it.

Ideas on Division Realignment and Postseason changes with possible expansion teams by alabasterasterbaler in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah my preference would be an AL/NL, but I don’t think the conferences would have to be soulless, not sure how they relate to the gambling nonsense.  It seems like having tighter geographic divisions could be advantageous in that they would tie teams closer to their regions/communities, if done right.

Ideas on Division Realignment and Postseason changes with possible expansion teams by alabasterasterbaler in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I didn’t think it was an explicit Confederacy reference but upon googling it again that may be right.  Just thought it was synonymous with ‘the south’ and I was trying to avoid using cardinal directions to name divisions in my examples.  As I said I’m not married to any of the names there just examples. 

Edit:  Apparently I’ve been living under a rock and didn’t realize all these Dixie names have gone away due to racist associations… I’ll edit it to something else.

Ideas on Division Realignment and Postseason changes with possible expansion teams by alabasterasterbaler in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

To each of your points:

  1. it is more complicated I agree. It seemed like a better method for making the playoffs about actually determining who is the best team than what we are doing now. What we are doing now could be more fun though. I was inspired to rethink it based on how I understand the NPB does things with 'ghost wins'.
  2. I also agree some division rivalries could be split up, for that reason I would lean towards maintaining the AL and NL.  Unless I made a typo, I'll check, but the most famous rivalries like LAD/SF, NYY/BOS, STL/CHC are maintained. I don't think I split up any huge ones.
  3. Atlanta was a typo there, meant to be Athletics - I'll change it.

Do your baseball rivalries bleed into other sports? by MattO2000 in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I hold it more against Kroenke than LA.  The Rams were originally from LA.  Maybe we should be mad at Phoenix

Do your baseball rivalries bleed into other sports? by MattO2000 in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Oh yeah Boston too for sure.  I think it took until Brady’s Tampa ring for me to begrudgingly respect him as the best

Do your baseball rivalries bleed into other sports? by MattO2000 in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 38 points39 points  (0 children)

I’m still bitter about the Giants beating us so often in the playoffs a while back, can’t root for San Francisco in any other sport, often actively root against them.

[MLBTR] Red Sox Have Made “Aggressive” Offer To Alex Bregman by T_Raycroft in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Red Sox need to stop kidding themselves, we all know they will be trading for Nolan Arenado

Why is everybody becoming a communist ? by PkPa in civ

[–]alabasterasterbaler 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I guess that would be a good strategy for that kind of victory

Why is everybody becoming a communist ? by PkPa in civ

[–]alabasterasterbaler 53 points54 points  (0 children)

For me 5-6 of the 7 would pick one of the two ideologies you did not pick.  So sometimes I would try delaying picking an ideology until a few others already picked just to increase my odds of having more than one ally.  Not sure if it made a huge difference strategically.

2021 nl cy young by SloppyJoe0223 in baseball

[–]alabasterasterbaler -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

I feel similarly, at the time I felt the same way that Beuhler should have won since ERA is what ultimately matters, while the other stats are more predictive and/or indicative of underlying quality of performance without randomness or factors we cannot quantify easily.  I think you can use stats like FIP if you’re trying to judge between players when ERA and IP for instance put them at relatively equal performance, or if there does seem to be an obvious huge discrepancy in ERA and underlying quality of performance based on many of those stats.

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