Still Americas Pastime

At this time when everyone is complaining about the ridiculousness in college football called the BCS, I want to talk to you about the MLB playoff structure.  Let me preface this with the fact that when I started really paying attention to how the playoffs worked in Major League Baseball was in 1994 (I was 8).  That season we had the strike, and the next season was the first season with 3 divisions per league and the Wild Card.  Therefore, I really only remember watching the playoffs under the current system.

The way the baseball playoffs work is that the top team in each division and the team that has the most wins without winning a division (the Wild Card team) advance to the playoffs.  There are three sets of series in the postseason, the Divisional Series, the Championship Series, and the World Series.  The team with the better record in each match-up is the home team for the Divisional and Championship Series, while the League that won the All-Star game hosts the World Series. 

The Divisional Series is a best of five games (win three to win the series), while the Championship Series and the World Series are best of seven games (win four).

That’s the quick and dirty, but explain the exceptions, an illustration will help.  Let’s look at an example of how it would work inside one league (the format is the same for both).  Assume that the Western Division winner (W) has 100 wins, the Central Division winner (C) has 95 wins, the Eastern Division winner (E) has 90, and the Wild Card team (WC) has 92.  The playoffs would set up with WC at W, and E at C.  However, if the Wild Card team is from the West, it would be E at W, and WC at C.  This is because the Wild Card can not play the team that won their division in the first round.  Assuming that E upset W and WC upset C, the Championship Series would be WC at E, even though WC has more wins.  This is because supposedly the WC is a weaker team than the divisional winners.

What are the problems?  I have two really big problems. 

First, is the best of five series.  Baseball is a game where the objective is have the most wins at the end of the 162 game season.  This is like running a marathon.  Teams have to have depth (especially pitching depth), and a stumbling start (say a 5-win April) isn’t impossible to overcome.  In the best of five series, teams that have a dominate pitcher or two will have a disproportionately higher chance of success, and a bad game can be insurmountable. 

With all of the rest & travel days build into the series, a team can have their two best pitchers start 4 of the possible 5 games.  This gives an advantage to a team that has two really good pitchers and three so-so pitchers over a team that has a really good pitcher, three good pitchers, and one so-so pitchers, even though the second team would most likely have the better record.

You fix this problem by extending this first series to seven games.  This means you’ll have to extend the postseason into November (which means worrying about even more terrible weather like we had last World Series), or you can return baseball back to it’s previous 154 game schedule.  I’m a fan of the second idea, you gain a week of time to hold the playoffs and avoid that unfriendly weather.

The second part of the baseball playoffs that grinds my gears is the treatment of the Wild Card team.  The Wild Card team has to play as the visitor in both the Divisional and Championship Series.  Yet it possible that the Wild Card team has the second-best record in league, and just had the bad luck to be in the division with the only team to win more games.

How do you fix this?  You keep the Wild Card, and the Divisional winners, but you seed the teams on record.  The team with the best record hosts the team with the worst, and the team with the second best hosts the team with the second worst.  Don’t worry about whether it’s a Wild Card team or if both teams are from the same division.  If there is a tie, the tiebreaker is head-t0-head record.  This rewards those teams that are good enough to be second-best, but play in the division with the best.  (You could still possibly exclude teams from the playoffs that have better records than divisional winners this way, but it’s not very likely and divisional rivalries are good for baseball.)

Mark your calendar for two weeks from today, because the next I Call ‘Em as I See ‘Em will relate to this one quite interestingly.

Until next time, I’m hittin’ the showers.

If you remember, the first two ways to help alleviate the Offseason Blues are Understanding and Hope.

Well those are great, but there are not enough on their own to totally defeat the Offseason Blues.  You need to add the most potent component to the equation, Activity.

There are a number of activities you can do, both alone and with someone else that will help get you that baseball fix.  And don’t feel guilty about it, baseball is one addiction that is completely (well almost completely) harmless.

Play your favorite baseball game on you entertainment system of choice.  One added bonus is that with the create-a-player option many have, you can see yourself as a starting member of your favorite team.

Watch ESPN and ESPNews during breakfast.  Although most baseball stories won’t be on SportsCenter until the end of the show (unless it’s a blockbuster deal or a free agent signing of some significance), the ticker at the bottom of the screen will have MLB news.

Log onto MLB.com or your favorite teams website and check out the stories that are most important to you.

Visit Still America’s Pastime daily, and your other favorite baseball blogs.

Start planning your fantasy team.  It’s never to early to do this, and remember, you don’t need to know where C.C. Sabathia and Jake Peavy are going to end up to know they should be in your rotation.

Call up your buddy who loves the DH rule and debate him for hours about just how wrong he is.

Buy tickets to see your team’s spring training games.  Chances are you’ll need to arrange travel as well.

These next ones take the action factor up a notch, but will satisfy your baseball craving much longer.

Grab (or drag) a friend, co-worker, or significant other outside to toss with them.

Go to a batting cage and get your swing back.  This can be done alone, but going with a friend or two is much more fun.  If you don’t have the money to go to a batting cage, take your bat outside or into your basement.

Well there you go.  You are now armed with enough weapons to survive until Pitchers and Catchers report in February. 

In my “Baseball Resume” post I talked about my abysmal AVG and my much better OBP.  Most of you probably know that AVG stands for batting average (sometime abbreviated BA).  Still, if you are new to the game, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing.  OBP stand for On Base Percentage.

These stats are very similar.  Both measure offensive consistency.  Both are measured out to the thousandth place (.000) and range from .000 (worst possible) to 1.000 (perfect).

There are a number of differences though.  AVG is determined by dividing the number of hits by the number of at-bats.  OBP is determined by dividing the number of times a player reaches base safely by the number of plate appearances.

Seems like same thing?  Almost, but not quite.  A plate appearance (PA or TPA for total plate appearances) is any time a player walks up the plate and either becomes a runner or makes an out.  There are a number of results where a plate appearance does not count as an at-bat: sacrifice bunt (SAC), sacrifice fly (SF), base on balls or walk (BB), and hit by pitch (HBP).  These distinctions are made to protect a batter’s average for sacrificing himself or for the inability of the pitcher to throw three balls over the plate.

There are two results that will hurt a players AVG but increase their OBP: error (E) or fielder’s choice (FC).  Both of these are results where it is judged the player should have been out, if the defense had not failed to make the play (E) or chose to make another play (FC).

Most players will have a higher OBP than AVG.  Where a great hitter has a batting average over .300, most teams want their leadoff hitter, whose main job is to get on base for other batters to drive him in, to have an OBP in the upper .300s or even .400+.

To show just how far apart the two stats can be, last season Chipper Jones lead the MLB with a .365 AVG and a .470 OBP.  The .105 difference was mainly to due to his 90 walks.

Note: Although I do not know of an instance in MLB history, it is technically possible for a player to have a higher AVG than OBP.  This would require the batter to have at least one hit, and more sacrifice bunts and/or sacrifice flies than walks, hit by pitches, fielder choices, and errors combined.  As you can guess, this is extremely unlikely.

To be honest, I’m impressed I made it this long on my blog without a Braves-centric post.  But when I saw the headlines today, I knew that was going to end.

As a huge Braves fan, I’ve spent the years tracking Mike Hampton’s injury progress as a starving wolf watching a gimp deer.  When he first came over from the Rockies, I had high hopes, and he started off that fateful season he needed Tommy John surgery in an impressive fashion.  Now, after making his way back to the Braves starting rotation for the last bit of the past season, Hampton has signed with the Houston Astros (pending a physical, which with his recent history is not a guarantee).

I had hoped that the Braves would resign him.  After spending over $1,000,000 per win in his Braves tenure, it would have been nice to see him pitch at least full season for the Braves after coming back.  Earlier Hampton had acknowledged that the Braves were extremely patient with him and he wanted to repaid them for that, but I guess the Houston offer was just too tempting.

Mike, I’ll be rooting for you (unless you’re playing the Braves).

I’ve spent an awful lot of time trying to think of what non-MLB news I’m going to have on this blog that I claim (but have yet to prove) is not only about the Major Leagues.  Finally, I had a stroke of brilliance.

Obviously, I want to you visit my blog to get your baseball news, learn about the game, and come to love it.  Shouldn’t I tell you why you should come here?  After all, this is far from the only baseball blog, so why should my views and opinions at least receive your attention?  So I will give you my baseball resume.

Teams:

Something Redsox?  (T-Ball, Little League):  I’ve been trying really hard to come up with the name, but this was some time ago, back when I lived in New Jersey and was about to start 1st grade.  I know it was a (Color)sox name, and that we had blue shirts with yellow lettering.  And I was upset that neither our shirts nor our socks were the right color.

W-T Rowdies (Coach Pitch, Knothole):  This was my first team after moving to Ohio.  Looking back, I see that my first two baseball teams had trouble with names.  First it was the color issue, next they were using an adjective as a noun.

W-T Rebels/R&R Rebels (From the beginning of Kid Pitch through 10th grade, Knothole): This was the team that I have the fondest memories of.  The Rowdies were too large of a team, so me and two other kids got shipped to the lesser W-T team.  We had some horrible years and some amazing years.  We always had a game against the other W-T team, the Rowdies (which had fixed their name problem by changing to the Bombers, then the Express, then back to the Bombers), and we lost every one.  Always hated that.

Amelia Barons (9th & 10th grade, Freshman/JV School Ball):  Had a good time Freshman year, though was definitely not as relaxed (and therefore good) as with the Rebels.  Sophomore year was terrible.  I didn’t like the coach, he seemed to not like me.  He also had a problem with wanting to have a lefty in the lineup no matter what the cost.  I finished with season with a stellar .181 avg (2-11).  This was still better than the 0-40 (or maybe 1-40, the point is less hits, more at-bats) lefty who often started the game in my place.  I also estimate I had around a .400 OBP, since I walked about every other plate appearance and reached on a few errors (though obviously, since I didn’t actually figure that out, the number could be inflated because of my indignation).  There’s more to the Sophomore story, but that’s the important stuff.

Tealtown Indians (11th grade, Knothole): At this point, I’d already been kinda hung up my glove.  I had decided not to try out for the school team because the JV coach had been promoted to Varsity coach.  Plus, I was in that awkward stage of the first girlfriend where you think you don’t need anything else, and she didn’t want me not to be able to spend the time I would have ended up spending at conditioning, and later practice and games, with her.  That summer, I had been looking forward to getting back to baseball with the Rebels, but the majority of the team was unwilling to make the commitment to three weekend games every week.  I joined the Tealtown Indians, but skipped a good number of practices and games.  I honestly don’t remember too much about this season because I was trying to cut myself off from baseball, as I saw I was done playing.

Positions Played:  In games, I’ve played every position but pitcher, catcher, and first base.  I spend a couple practices at first base, but the not enough to get the footwork down.  I spend the most time as a third baseman (great range and quickness, average arm).  I also spent a majority of my limited playing time for the JV squad at second base.

I’ve also spent significant time as an armchair MLB manager.

I hope that gives you a better picture of my baseball experience and will keep you coming back.

Until next time, I’m hittin’ the showers.