For fair ball, postseason baseball format needs tweak

[cboy4]

By Christine Brennan, USA TODAY

The collapse in Chicago is complete, while, in Southern California, the Angels have fallen. It's nearly mid-October, and Major League Baseball is down to four teams with compelling story lines and enticing tales of redemption.

But what if they aren't the right teams?

The teams with the two best records in baseball this season are no longer playing. After storming through their leagues for a full six months, from late March through the end of September, the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Angels were summarily dismissed in the division series, which should henceforth be known as baseball's lightning round.

It was fast and almost painless: the Angels were gone in five days, the Cubs were put out of their misery in little more than 72 hours. For the Angels, 100 wins were rendered meaningless in less than a week. For the Cubs, 97 victories became invisible in the space of three pathetic days.

The Cubs — called the "Chicago Flubs" by the Chicago Sun-Times— played far worse in their series than the Angels did in theirs, making enough mistakes in three games to get a running start on another 100 years of futility.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/brennan/2008-10-08-baseball-playoff-format_N.htm

[Iggo]

1. But they ARE the right teams.

They're the teams that won the games they had to win. I still don't know why the first round is best of five. That seems kind of lame. But the Cubs did not win a game...not ONE game...against the Dodgers. You're damned right the right teams advanced to the second round.

EDIT: Almost forgot -- THINK BLUE. GO DODGERS.

[Awsi Dooger]

4. I don't care about regular season baseball

But the playoffs are intense theater, and best 3 of 5 in the first round is idiotic. The NBA finally got away from that, and it's more legit in the NBA than baseball to rely on only 3 of 5.

[hughee99]

2. Why have a world series, then

if the regular season needs to hold so much importance, why not just give the MLB title to the Angels, who won 100 games. In the old days, the Angels would have played the Cubs. Well, the Angels won more games than the Cubs, but over the span of a few short days (5 with an off day) those 100 victories could have become invisible.

If you want to put all your stock into the regular season, why play the world series at all? If you're willing to accept playoffs, you have to be willing to accept that sometimes the team with fewer wins (and usually not that many fewer) may win a series.

[TZ]

5. Hmm where would the Red Sox be now if the ALCS was 3 of 5

In 2004, they would have LOST to the Yanks 3-0. And yet, they ended up coming back and winning the WS...
I think there is a legit case to be made that the first round should be best of seven.

[hughee99]

6. I don't have a problem with doing it.

But the suggestion that 3 out of 5 is unfair and anyone could win, but that 4 out of 7 maintains the integrity of the regular season seems a little ridiculous to me.

The article suggests that the best teams did not win, and that in a 7 game series they would have stood a better chance, but it determines who the "best team" is on the regular season record. Since no two teams play exactly the same schedule, and teams in different divisions can play significantly different schedules, the fact that the Angels won 3 more games than Tampa (or 5 more than the Red Sox) doesn't mean that they are a better team. While the Angels and Sox seemed pretty evenly matched, I didn't see anything in the Cubs-Dodgers series that would lead me to believe the Cubs stood a better chance in a best of 7, 9 or 11 series.


ON EDIT:
In 2004, the Yankees won the division and the Sox were the wild card, the best of 7 (instead of 5) resulted in the "better team" losing.

[joeybee12]

3. Angels won 100 games, Red Sox 95...and keep in mind that the AL East

was much tougher, and they had more games there than the Angels, where their second place team was the pathetic Texas Rangers. Right til the end of the season you had four teams in the East who legitimately had a chance of making the play-offs...the Red Sox had a harder schedule...that is all.