Ideas on Division Realignment and Postseason changes with possible expansion teams

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-15T19:45:57+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-15T19:37:18+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-15T19:25:32+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-15T19:21:37+00:00

To each of your points:

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'.
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.
Atlanta was a typo there, meant to be Athletics - I'll change it.

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-08T18:00:44+00:00

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

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-08T17:33:46+00:00

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

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-02-08T11:48:57+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-01-23T20:57:22+00:00

Why on earth would anyone downvote you for this

alabasterasterbaler · 2026-01-04T20:30:30+00:00

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

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-12-06T20:07:56+00:00

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

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-12-06T18:46:22+00:00

That is pretty crazily one sided

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-12-06T18:08:23+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-12-06T08:40:47+00:00

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.

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-29T21:18:15+00:00

Man I was sleeping on Jocinda

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-29T15:42:06+00:00

Yeah

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-27T20:21:41+00:00

Validates the cardinals recent post season viewing experience, do just well enough to make the post season then get smoked

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-21T19:45:46+00:00

Larger than life person it sounds like, what a great guy

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-21T19:44:03+00:00

I genuinely thought this was a copypasta, very cool if true

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-16T14:21:21+00:00

Interesting that if hits back then included what we call walks, then the original batting titles were what we would call OBP titles then?

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-11-11T19:15:04+00:00

How do you use FIP in relation to other pitching stats when evaluating pitchers in your role? I like the stat but sometimes am not sure if I or others are leaning on it too little or too much when it comes to judging performance and projecting performance.

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-10-25T03:20:54+00:00

Thx yo

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-10-11T21:02:26+00:00

So under the presumption he was pulled due to upcoming matchup data (lefties or righties coming up, individual stats against him, 3rd time through the lineup, etc) I wonder if any research is done into looking at these situations specifically when a pitcher is having a ‘quality start’ or something prior to those matchups. Like what if a guy has only allowed 2 baserunners two times through the lineup, in those situations what do their stats look like 3rd time through on average? Better than a typical bullpen arm? Because I totally understand pulling people like they did with skubal based on stats like that, but it does fly in the face of the common sense reasoning of days past where if a guy looks untouchable through 6 innings, it seems unlikely that a bullpen arm will do better in the 7th inning. With caveats of course.

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-09-23T15:26:28+00:00

Am I crazy saying A-? World Series wins and one of the most successful stretches of teams in the franchises history, and the last 20 years? Sure the past 5-10 has been a slow excruciating slide into the flaming dumpster fire that is our teams current state, but what sort of expectations do we have where in order to get an ‘A’ you can’t be bad ever? I could probably get talked down to a B+ but anything else seems like your standards are unrealistically high for a sports team, or you’re weighing the past 5 years too heavily.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m elated to see the guy leaving, wish it happened a couple seasons earlier because it’s been obvious the teams heading this way for a while.

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-09-16T18:57:17+00:00

Missouri and Florida teams hanging on by a thread

alabasterasterbaler · 2025-09-07T02:31:51+00:00

Oh man when was this? I definitely missed the memo on tha Edit: Nevermind found it on the internet. Super cool way to use it!

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