MLB 2021 Baseball Season

[+ WilliamM]

The Dodgers can beat the Astros in the World Series, not sure about the Braves. And we barely missed a Braves Red Sox series. The Braves were the Boston Braves until the early 1950s.

[samhexum]

THANK GOD the Dodgers lost! 

Now we just need Atlanta to beat Houston.

This is just the latest example of how regular season domination doesn't necessarily correlate to playoff success.  The 1969-71 Orioles were widely considered to be the best team, but only won 1 WS.  The Braves supposedly won 14 straight division titles (the streak was interrupted by the unfinished 1994 season), yet only won 1 WS.  The Dodgers just won 8 straight division titles, then a 106-win wild card, and their only WS win was in the super-freaky 2020 season.  All of which makes the Yankees of 1996-2000 even more impressive.

Edited October 24, 2021 by samhexum

[+ Lucky]

RIP the 2021 baseball season. I won't be watching the World Series.

[+ WilliamM]

Interesting World Series because most people will likely hate Houston.

I will be watching.

[samhexum]

8 hours ago, samhexum said:

This is just the latest example of how regular season domination doesn't necessarily correlate to playoff success...  All of which makes the Yankees of 1996-2000 even more impressive.

Dodgers ‘dynasty’ could go way of 1996 Braves before they know it

By 

Joel Sherman

 

A quarter of a century ago to the day and 15 miles from the spot where the Dodgers and Braves played NLCS Game 6 on Saturday night, a lesson about dynasties was taught that remains as relevant today as it was then.

Namely, how difficult it is to construct one — and that is even while one was being constructed at the time, just unbeknownst to all the participants and viewers.

On Oct. 23, 1996, the Braves took a 6-0 lead in World Series Game 4 against the Yankees and all of the below was true midway through that contest:

—  Atlanta was in the World Series for the fourth time in the past five Series (there was none contested in 1994) and was the defending champion.

— The Braves had constructed a five-game winning streak (closing the NLCS with three wins and taking a two-games-to-none lead in the World Series) in which they outscored the Cardinals and Yankees by a combined 48-2. They lost Game 3 to the Yankees, 5-2, but led Game 4 by six runs with 12 outs to go. If they hung on, the Braves would have John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine lined up on full rest to win one more game to repeat as champions.

—  At that moment, the only significant Atlanta position player who was past his age-30 season was 32-year-old Fred McGriff. Andruw Jones was 19, Jermaine Dye was 22, Chipper Jones was 24 and Ryan Klesko and Javy Lopez both were 25. Smoltz was 29, Glavine and Maddux were both 30, Steve Avery was 26 and closer Mark Wohlers was 26.

If you were in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium that evening — and I was — as the sixth inning began and someone would have said, “By the way, the dynasty is in the other dugout,” you would have checked to see if anyone had escaped a local insane asylum. The Yankees hadn’t won a championship since 1978, had made the playoffs (newly expanded) in 1995 for the first time in 14 years and were hardly awash in as many stars with playoff pedigree as the Braves.

But, of course, the Yankees won that crazy night, Oct. 23, 1996, led most famously by Jim Leyritz’s tying, three-run homer off Wohlers. They won the last four games of that series. They won that World Series and won four times in five years. The dynasty was, impossibly, in the other dugout.

The Braves kept winning division titles and kept losing in the postseason. They have had two new stadiums since, but their 1995 title remains the only one the city of Atlanta has from the four major sports leagues. The Braves had all the measurables for a dynasty. As the sixth inning began a quarter of a century ago, they were making folks think about where they might land in the pantheon.

But didn’t we feel similarly after the Cubs won it all, finally, in 2016? Didn’t it feel as if that was just the beginning? Yet here in 2021 we watched playoffs with Anthony Rizzo on the Yankees, Kris Bryant on the Giants and Kyle Schwarber on the Red Sox. We probably all are going to need to get on a couch with a baseball therapist to determine what we think about the Astros and their tainted 2017 title, but they have made five straight trips to at least the ALCS and now are sitting as the AL champs again, waiting for the World Series to begin.

“More than anything to me, it is a couple of things,” Glavine said by phone about the ability to go back-to-back to improve dynastic perceptions. “You really have to have some luck on your side not only to win, but win two in a row. And you really have to stay healthy. Both of those things are hard to do as you see now with the Dodgers.”

The Dodgers of this era had yet to fully define themselves as Game 6 began. Were they going to chase dynasty or be Glavine’s Braves? They have been to the playoffs nine straight times, the first eight after winning the NL West, and last year they finally captured their first championship since 1988.But it has felt as if the Dodgers have chased history on fumes this time around, having to win a sudden-death wild-card game, a reminder that the extra layers of playoffs also work against a dynasty. The two faces of this Dodgers era, Clayton Kershaw and Justin Turner, were out injured Saturday, and so were Joe Kelly and Max Muncy. Max Scherzer did not have the life in his arm to make a scheduled Game 6 start. Kiké Hernandez and Joc Pederson, two key supplemental pieces to the Dodgers’ recent run, were producing big moments for other teams in the postseason. Kershaw, Scherzer, Kenley Jansen, Corey Seager and Chris Taylor are about to be free agents.

The Dodgers, who began this playoff run in 2013 with Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier and Yasiel Puig as cornerstones, have done a terrific job reconfiguring to remain elite. So who knows how long this will go on? Those Braves won 14 straight division titles, but they are not remembered as a dynasty because they won just one title. No team has won two in a row since the Yankees’ 1998-2000 three-peat.

“The fact we have not seen it in recent history, back-to-back championships, tells you how hard it is,” Glavine said.

 

Dodgers couldn’t buy way to a dynasty in the end

The Dodgers did not pursue a championship this season as much as they seemed determined to remove the concept that anyone else could win it.

They had the baseball equivalent of “The Godfather” cast in capturing their first title since 1988 last year, then added the cast of “Ocean’s 11” for kicks. They made anything George Steinbrenner attempted in his heyday play like just a starter kit for overkill.

Best rotation in the majors? Not enough. The Dodgers added NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer on an overstuffed three-year contract, ignoring warning signs about the pitcher’s character either out of arrogance or a single mindedness, akin to that of Javert from “Les Miserables,” to build what could not be stopped. At the trade deadline they did not trade for Max Scherzer or Trea Turner. They acquired both; the best pitcher and hitter dealt in July.

Their payroll swelled to $60 million more than any other team spent in 2021. Other clubs worried about paying the luxury tax. The Dodgers obsessed on a repeat, damn the cost.

But they did not repeat. They became the latest example of just how hard it is to do so, even if you stack your lineup, rotation and the deck.

“It is hard,” Dodger Chris Taylor said. “But that is what we signed up for.”

Over six months, the Giants were shockingly better than the Dodgers in the NL West. And over six games in October, so were the Braves. The Dodgers, withered physically by injury and seemingly mentally by the burden of expectation, were outplayed by Atlanta, who had a group from its chorus — notably Eddie Rosario, A.J. Minter and Tyler Matzek — outshine the stars.

The team with so much starting pitching just didn’t have enough in the end. Dustin May missed most of the year after Tommy John surgery, Bauer missed half a year after being put on administrative leave tied to sexual assault allegations. Scherzer described an arm that went dead after being used in a relief outing. He could not go on regular rest Saturday. That forced Walker Buehler to have to pitch on short rest for the second time in 10 days after never doing so previously, with the hope Scherzer could take the ball in a Game 7 Sunday.

But in a fateful three-batter span in the fourth inning with two outs, Buehler walked Travis d’Arnaud, allowed a double to pinch-hitter Ehire Adrianza and then a three-run homer to Rosario to break a 1-1 tie.

That was the blow that keyed the Braves’ 4-2 triumph that sent them to their first World Series since 1999. Atlanta was swept in that Fall Classic by the Yankees, who were in the middle of a three-peat. And the Braves did the Yankees a double favor — they kept those dynastic Yankees as the last team to repeat and perhaps reminded those critical of the current Yankees just how difficult it is to win titles.

“It is exponentially harder,” Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said of going back-to-back. “Everywhere we go it is, ‘Beat L.A., Beat L.A.’ It is hard to be on top.”

The Dodgers now carry, as the West Coast Yankees, the weight of win or bust. But they have just one championship since 1988. That came last year in the bizarre shortened season. The Dodgers were attempting to validate that title by winning another one, trying to put the capstone on their own dynasty. Instead, they are taking on the role of those Braves teams that twice lost in the World Series to the Yankees.

Those fantastic squads won 14 straight NL East titles. But just the one World Series in 1995. These Dodgers captured eight straight division titles before finishing second and earning a wild card this year despite 106 victories.

They survived four sudden-death games: the wild card vs. St. Louis, two in the Division Series vs. San Francisco and NLCS Game 5. Atlanta had blown a three-games-to-one advantage in the NLCS last year to the Dodgers. There was unease for the Braves.

But Rosario broke a 1-1 tie and the lefty relief trio of Minter, Matzek and Will Smith combined to go 15 up, 15 down with 10 strikeouts to help the Braves garner their sixth NL pennant since moving to Atlanta 55 years ago. They will face the Astros in the World Series, beginning with Game 1 in Houston on Tuesday night.

The Dodgers? “We are at a little bit of a crossroads,” Buehler said. “We have a lot of free agents.” That is Kershaw, Scherzer, Taylor, Kenley Jansen and Corey Seager. Who knows if Bauer ever plays again?

The Dodgers have remade themselves quite a bit in this nine-year playoff run. They have lots of money to spend, plenty of stars remaining and tons of brainpower. But what they won’t have is a repeat; that distinction toward dynasty.

They went all in and — short of the finish line and despite the single-minded obsession — here in the third week of October, the Dodgers were out.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by samhexum

[MikeBiDude]

2 hours ago, Lucky said:

RIP the 2021 baseball season. I won't be watching the World Series.

 

1 hour ago, WilliamM said:

I will be watching

Sadly, I doubt I’ll watch or be as interested. That said “go Braves”.

[samhexum]

Braves, Dodgers’ fates showed how unpredictable baseball can be: Sherman

Put yourself in the place of every top executive whose team was not active in the third week of October. Do what they all surely were doing, which is scrutinizing the only game played Saturday like baseball forensic scientists trying to find clues to make sure their club is alive at this time next year.

You would be watching the two winningest teams in the National League over the last four years. Two teams who were eight for eight combined in that period in making the playoffs and, in the case of the Dodgers, owning the longest unbroken streak of postseason appearances in the majors at nine.

Surely, you could watch and glean valuable lessons. Right?

But if this is what you were doing, you were more likely heading to the liquor cabinet for solace than your laptop to begin formulating plans. You were not encouraged by unearthing the keys to success as much as sullen about the unpredictability of it all, not just in the supposed crapshoot that is October baseball. But the whole darn season.

The team that assembled the most expensive, accomplished rotation in history lost because it ran out of starting pitching. The team that lost arguably the best player in the National League midway through what at the time was a discouraging Braves season won because one of Ronald Acuna Jr.’s replacements — a guy in Eddie Rosario who in the last calendar year had been non-tendered, then salary-dumped — earned the NLCS MVP.

Cue the zany circus music, pour a couple of fingers of whiskey and let’s toast to the randomness and absurdity of it all. Then let’s get right to work putting together our team for next year by throwing darts at a dartboard.

Of course, there is more to it than that. The Dodgers didn’t only fail to defend their title because by October they were using relievers to open, starters to close and Walker Buehler on three days’ rest for the first and second time in his career. But the team that did everything to defy the baseball saying that “You can never have enough starting pitching,” actually didn’t have enough starting pitching. Despite:

• Taking on half of former Cy Young winner David Price’s contract (which is $16 million a year) just to lower the prospect return price to obtain Mookie Betts.
•  Looking at the NL’s best rotation of Price, Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Julio Urias and deciding, sure, let’s add 2020 NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer.
•   Not stopping at the trade deadline and acquiring three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. And for good measure, trading for Danny Duffy and signing a World Series MVP, Cole Hamels.

And in 12 Dodger playoff games this year, career-long reliever Corey Knebel had the same number of starts (2) as Price, Gonsolin, Bauer, Kershaw, May, Duffy, Hamels and Urias had combined (both by Urias). Some of that was opener strategy, but lots of it was desperation. By the weekend, Scherzer reported an arm out of life, which forced him to bow out of his NLCS Game 6 start. Thus, Buehler, who had never worked on short rest before Oct. 11, was now doing it for a second time in 12 days. The Dodger workhorse lasted 4 ¹/₃ innings the first time and four innings Saturday.

The key blow against him in Game 6 was a three-run homer by Rosario in the fourth that broke a 1-1 tie in what would be a pennant-clinching 4-2 win by a team that did not get over .500 until Aug. 6. The Braves fell back to .500 the next day. Three days later they recalled A.J. Minter from the minors after sending him down yet again in July for infuriatingly not being able to command his obviously terrific stuff. They were still three weeks away from having the most afterthought of all their late July acquisitions, Rosario, make his Brave debut.

Those acquisitions of Rosario, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson and Jorge Soler were made as an attempt to solve the loss of Acuna. But in the moment it played like, “Hey, Adele can’t go on tonight, go get me four lounge singers.” In the aggregate, they smashed 44 homers with an .828 OPS in 758 regular-season plate appearances with Atlanta.

Rosario was non-tendered last offseason by Minnesota and produced a .685 OPS for Cleveland, which was happy to just move his salary in exchange for a player who used to answer to Pablo Sandoval. Rosario did not play for his first month as a Brave due to an abdominal strain.

But he was terrific down the stretch and otherworldly in the playoffs — hitting in all 10 Braves games with a .474 average, a 1.313 OPS and the kind of clutch streak that would make Reggie Jackson modest. And the reality is he might not have been the NLCS MVP. With all that Dodger pitching, the best two arms in this series belonged to the lefty relievers Minter and Tyler Matzek. So a guy in the minors as late as August and a guy who was out of the majors for four seasons mostly due to having the yips and was a member of the independent Texas AirHogs as recently as 2018.

If you were watching, what could you have learned to apply to your team? Don’t try to add great starting pitching? Get your best player hurt? Scout the Texas AirHogs?

Maybe the best answer is this: Get the dartboard, pass the whiskey.

[samhexum]

Famous Texas gambler “Mattress Mack,” known for his bold multi-million-dollar wagers on his hometown sports team, could win $36 million on the World Series.

Furniture tycoon Jim McIngvale placed $3.3 million dollars in bets on the Houston Astros who take on the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday. He reportedly placed the bet in Indiana.

According to William Hill, the spoils could be the largest payout in sports betting history.

“It’s very cool that William Hill took that large of a futures bet,” McIngvale told KHOU.

“Kudos to William Hill for stepping up and taking that big bet. I’ve done a lot of bets with William Hill, and they’ve always been great to me. The execution has always been great.”

McIngvale went viral in February after he won $2.72 million on a $3.45 million dollar wager on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to win by 3.5 points when they routed the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9.

“This is a potentially historic bet, and it’s one that we love to take,” Eric Hession, Co-President of Sports for Caesars Entertainment, said in a statement.

“We pride ourselves on our flexible limits in our sportsbooks and sports betting apps. This wager certainly makes baseball season a little more exciting for us, and we’re looking forward to seeing how that plays out.”

During February’s deadly winter storm in Texas, McIngvale transformed his furniture store into a shelter for residents without power. McIngvale similarly opened up his stores for shelter following Hurricane Harvey, which dumped several feet of rain in the area. 

McIngvale, 70, lives in Houston and owns the Gallery Furniture retail chain. The Mississippi native also turned heads back in 2019 after wagering losing $11 million on the 2019 Astros-Nationals World Series as part of a store promotion. 

He’s additionally co-authored a book in 2002 titled, “Always Think Big,” and is well-known around his local community for his charitable efforts.

 

[+ WilliamM]

7 hours ago, samhexum said:

Braves, Dodgers’ fates showed how unpredictable baseball can be: Sherman

Put yourself in the place of every top executive whose team was not active in the third week of October. Do what they all surely were doing, which is scrutinizing the only game played Saturday like baseball forensic scientists trying to find clues to make sure their club is alive at this time next year.

You would be watching the two winningest teams in the National League over the last four years. Two teams who were eight for eight combined in that period in making the playoffs and, in the case of the Dodgers, owning the longest unbroken streak of postseason appearances in the majors at nine.

Surely, you could watch and glean valuable lessons. Right?

But if this is what you were doing, you were more likely heading to the liquor cabinet for solace than your laptop to begin formulating plans. You were not encouraged by unearthing the keys to success as much as sullen about the unpredictability of it all, not just in the supposed crapshoot that is October baseball. But the whole darn season.

The team that assembled the most expensive, accomplished rotation in history lost because it ran out of starting pitching. The team that lost arguably the best player in the National League midway through what at the time was a discouraging Braves season won because one of Ronald Acuna Jr.’s replacements — a guy in Eddie Rosario who in the last calendar year had been non-tendered, then salary-dumped — earned the NLCS MVP.

Cue the zany circus music, pour a couple of fingers of whiskey and let’s toast to the randomness and absurdity of it all. Then let’s get right to work putting together our team for next year by throwing darts at a dartboard.

Of course, there is more to it than that. The Dodgers didn’t only fail to defend their title because by October they were using relievers to open, starters to close and Walker Buehler on three days’ rest for the first and second time in his career. But the team that did everything to defy the baseball saying that “You can never have enough starting pitching,” actually didn’t have enough starting pitching. Despite:

• Taking on half of former Cy Young winner David Price’s contract (which is $16 million a year) just to lower the prospect return price to obtain Mookie Betts.
•  Looking at the NL’s best rotation of Price, Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Julio Urias and deciding, sure, let’s add 2020 NL Cy Young winner Trevor Bauer.
•   Not stopping at the trade deadline and acquiring three-time Cy Young winner Max Scherzer. And for good measure, trading for Danny Duffy and signing a World Series MVP, Cole Hamels.

And in 12 Dodger playoff games this year, career-long reliever Corey Knebel had the same number of starts (2) as Price, Gonsolin, Bauer, Kershaw, May, Duffy, Hamels and Urias had combined (both by Urias). Some of that was opener strategy, but lots of it was desperation. By the weekend, Scherzer reported an arm out of life, which forced him to bow out of his NLCS Game 6 start. Thus, Buehler, who had never worked on short rest before Oct. 11, was now doing it for a second time in 12 days. The Dodger workhorse lasted 4 ¹/₃ innings the first time and four innings Saturday.

The key blow against him in Game 6 was a three-run homer by Rosario in the fourth that broke a 1-1 tie in what would be a pennant-clinching 4-2 win by a team that did not get over .500 until Aug. 6. The Braves fell back to .500 the next day. Three days later they recalled A.J. Minter from the minors after sending him down yet again in July for infuriatingly not being able to command his obviously terrific stuff. They were still three weeks away from having the most afterthought of all their late July acquisitions, Rosario, make his Brave debut.

Those acquisitions of Rosario, Adam Duvall, Joc Pederson and Jorge Soler were made as an attempt to solve the loss of Acuna. But in the moment it played like, “Hey, Adele can’t go on tonight, go get me four lounge singers.” In the aggregate, they smashed 44 homers with an .828 OPS in 758 regular-season plate appearances with Atlanta.

Rosario was non-tendered last offseason by Minnesota and produced a .685 OPS for Cleveland, which was happy to just move his salary in exchange for a player who used to answer to Pablo Sandoval. Rosario did not play for his first month as a Brave due to an abdominal strain.

But he was terrific down the stretch and otherworldly in the playoffs — hitting in all 10 Braves games with a .474 average, a 1.313 OPS and the kind of clutch streak that would make Reggie Jackson modest. And the reality is he might not have been the NLCS MVP. With all that Dodger pitching, the best two arms in this series belonged to the lefty relievers Minter and Tyler Matzek. So a guy in the minors as late as August and a guy who was out of the majors for four seasons mostly due to having the yips and was a member of the independent Texas AirHogs as recently as 2018.

If you were watching, what could you have learned to apply to your team? Don’t try to add great starting pitching? Get your best player hurt? Scout the Texas AirHogs?

Maybe the best answer is this: Get the dartboard, pass the whiskey.

The Dodgers won last year and in 1981 over the Yankees fair and square

[samhexum]

2 minutes ago, WilliamM said:

The Dodgers won last year and in 1981 over the Yankees fair and square

And, coincidentally enough, 1981 was also a freaky, abbreviated season, when 1/3 of the season was lost to a strike and the season was split into 2 halves and the Dodgers didn't have the best overall record in their division. (neither did the Yanks, to be fair and square)

West Division -- Overall

 

Tm	W	L	W-L%	GB
Cincinnati Reds	66	42	.611	--
Los Angeles Dodgers	63	47	.573	4.0
Houston Astros	61	49	.555	6.0
San Francisco Giants	56	55	.505	11.5
Atlanta Braves	50	56	.472	15.0
San Diego Padres	41	69	.373	26.0

[+ WilliamM]

1 minute ago, samhexum said:

And, coincidentally enough, 1981 was also a freaky, abbreviated season, when 1/3 of the season was lost to a strike and the season was split into 2 halves and the Dodgers didn't have the best overall record in their division. (neither did the Yanks, to be fair and square)

West Division -- Overall

 

 

Tm	W	L	W-L%	GB
Cincinnati Reds	66	42	.611	--
Los Angeles Dodgers	63	47	.573	4.0
Houston Astros	61	49	.555	6.0
San Francisco Giants	56	55	.505	11.5
Atlanta Braves	50	56	.472	15.0
San Diego Padres	41	69	.373	26.0

I know that is why I included 1981.

It is quite possible that people who grew up near Boston went to baseball games as far back as 1950

[samhexum]

7 minutes ago, WilliamM said:

It is quite possible that people who grew up near Boston went to baseball games as far back as 1950

And will undoubtedly remember the glorious result of the sport's first work stoppage in 1972, when the first week of the season was lost and MLB decided not to make up the games, leading to the Tigers playing one more game than the Bosox and winning the division over them by 1/2 game.

[+ WilliamM]

On 10/25/2021 at 9:17 AM, samhexum said:

And will undoubtedly remember the glorious result of the sport's first work stoppage in 1972, when the first week of the season was lost and MLB decided not to make up the games, leading to the Tigers playing one more game than the Bosox and winning the division over them by 1/2 game.

I went to Boston Braves games, seldom Red Sox games because the National League games were interesting

 

And the St Louis Cardinals have hired their bench coach to manage the team. Good to see a young Black man 😉 managing in the major league

[BuffaloKyle]

PETA wants MLB to change the term "bullpen" to "arm barn" due to bullpens being where bulls are kept before being slaughtered. I'm all for animals not being mistreated or abused but this offends no one. 

 https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/peta-calls-for-mlb-to-change-term-bullpen-to-the-arm-barn-to-be-sensitive-to-cows/ar-AAQ5MJF?ocid=uxbndlbing

I absolutely love the tweet in the article showing an actual barn in dodger stadium's outfield. 😆 

[+ Lucky]

On 10/24/2021 at 8:44 AM, MikeBiDude said:

 

Sadly, I doubt I’ll watch or be as interested. That said “go Braves”.

Given Houston's corrupt history, there is no choice but to want them defeated. So, yes, Go Braves!, but I will likely read about it rather than watch it.

[+ WilliamM]

I am watching the World Series like most baseball fans

[+ WilliamM]

Atlanta could win the World Series Tonight. Go, Braves

[BuffaloKyle]

I'm not totally counting Houston out just yet because if they win tonight, in another bullpen game for Atlanta, they get to go back home and face Max Fried again who has run out of gas. Tonight is gonna be tough though. Atlanta is undefeated at home this postseason and they beat up on Valdez in game 1. 

[+ WilliamM]

Atlanta  Brave Frreddie Freeman for World Series mvp if Atlanta can win in Houston

 

Will not be easy for Atlanta

[+ purplekow]

On 10/24/2021 at 9:11 AM, Lucky said:

RIP the 2021 baseball season. I won't be watching the World Series.

The baseball playoffs and the football playoffs both reward a weak team who wins a weak division and penalizes a strong team that finishes out of first place in a strong division.  Sometimes, the division in baseball is decided by a single victory and in footballl is may decided by tie breakers.   

I am all for determining which teams make the playoffs based on regular season divisional play, it allows for more excitement for more teams and then I think there should be a seeding of the teams based on records.

This year Atlanta already had the advantage of playing in a weak division which gave them more games against the Marlins Nats and the collapsing Mets and then had the home field advantage against the Dodgers who had to win a play in game against the Cardinals who had the second worst record and rightfully should have had to win a play in game.  

Then the Dodgers had to be be on the road against  their division rival who won only a single game more.  Defeating the Giants who had the best record while Atlanta the team with the worst record played the Brewers who had finished third.  

Winning the series between the two best teams, the Dodgers then have to go on the road yet again and play Atlanta.  

The scheduling for TV, the seeding and the travel needs all gave the Braves an advantage which they did not rightfully win on the field.   Weak division, squeaking in with the worst record, 3 and 4 team matchup and then home field advantage.  

Don't get ne started ib the TV based schedule which drags out the playoffs and allows for these bullpen games due to the gap between games.  

For me, I would like to see something like the final four playing 3 three game series against one another in a 12 day period.

Winner of that series goes on to play the other League.   No betting on a single pitcher to carry the team as the Giants did with Baumgartner.  No Bullpen resting up with frequent breaks in the schedule.   If there is a tie for first, one game playoff, winner take all.  

 

[+ WilliamM]

How is this different for the 1960s when let us say the Yankees easily won in the American League 

And the Cardinals, Reds and Phillips baffled to the last game of the season in the National League?

In 1864 the Cardinals beat the Yankees in a seven game World Series

[+ WilliamM]

Congratulations to the Atlanta Braves for winning The World Series on the road - not easy. Go Braves and the city of Atlanta.

[BuffaloKyle]

11 hours ago, WilliamM said:

Congratulations to the Atlanta Braves for winning The World Series on the road - not easy. Go Braves and the city of Atlanta.

The world series champion has not clinched it at home now since 2013. 

Now onto the work stoppage with the CBA expiring!

[+ WilliamM]

1 hour ago, BuffaloKyle said:

The world series champion has not clinched it at home now since 2013. 

Now onto the work stoppage with the CBA expiring!

If one takes a much wider sample,  I may be correct.

[+ WilliamM]

Guess the St Louis Cardinals were noticed yesterday for setting a record in gold gloves recipients  (5) including two new guys: 2b Tommy Edman and CF Harrison Bader. Harrison also has a very nice ass