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SEC and Big 10 teams already play 12 regular season games, then the SEC title game, and 2 more games in the playoffs. Expand NCAAF playoffs more, and they will wind up playing 17 games a year, with the season running September through February.
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Conference championships are already essentially playoff games, and when teams like Utah and Michigan and Oklahoma State win their conferences they have no shot at beating Alabama or the SEC winner anyway.
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Of all the sports that might consider playoff expansion, college football should not be one of them. We would still be having the same debates about who should get in but it would be about 2-loss SEC teams versus other 2-loss teams, and all it would do is add 3 or 4 more blowouts to the schedule for teams with 0% chance of winning the championship.
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In a 14 team playoff, no doubt in my mind we see teams with losing records make runs into the late playoff rounds. I doubt it will be a rare occurrence. Seems silly to me.
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It is silly the NCAA pretends there are 130+ D-1 teams. That list includes Bucknell, Nicholas State, Brown, Cornell, LIU, Elon…. I had no problem with the (not so) old days when schools played their schedules, played their Bowl games (except for Notre Dame of course - they never played in Bowls), and we didn’t need a formal “winner”. I was okay with the old system. Now we turn college football into an NFL system with a big playoff structure because why? We just need playoffs for everything?
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14 team playoff in baseball waters down the game. Diminishes the importance of regular season games and the team/fan pride of a team making the playoffs. If everybody gets a soccer trophy, the trophy’s symbolic importance is lost.
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I’m a big proponent of using Hawkeye technology for balls and strikes and far/foul ball calls. It works great in tennis. 1 or 2 missed calls in one inning can snowball into a huge inning. I’m also in favor of the pitch clock.
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@The Onk - I would be all for expanding NCAAF up to 8-16 teams. There are 131 division 1 football teams.
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I’d be all for robo-umps, deadening the ball slightly, eliminating “whip handle” bats and making bats a bit heavier, and finding ways to speed the action up and reduce the “true outcome” HR/K/BB trend and get more base running and defense going, but that can all be done without the changes being so in-your-face. Fans wouldn’t notice most of them aside from the game being more I te resting you watch.
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I just read about the “ghost win” idea for a 14 team playoff. As much as I hate playoff expansion, and I don’t want mediocre teams winning titles, I hate the idea of a “ghost win” even more. Is baseball really so broken they need such big changes?
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More teams in cheapens the regular season but have to admit, I’ll watch them.
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I wish it was the old days when the AL and NL were totally separate leagues, and they didn’t have “divisions” or wild cards, just the top team in each league playing for the title. These days, teams switch leagues, they have inter-league play pretty much all the time, and there is no real sense that the AL and NL are different companies. They are basically no different than “divisions”. I know there is no going back. But I hate the idea of going even farther down this road.
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NCAAF going to more than 4 teams is stupid. Now instead of 1-2 blowouts per playoffs there will be 4-5.
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Or just do away with divisions altogether for playoff seeding purposes and just have the 4 or 6 best records in each league make the playoffs regardless of division. You might have strength of schedule gripes and maybe rivalries wouldn’t be as exciting though.
SodoMojoDojo on
March 5, 2022 1:17 PM
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If there are going to be divisions there might as well be wild cards. For example, in 2015 the top 3 teams in all of baseball (both AL and NL) were all in the NL Central. With no wild card 2 of those 3 don’t make it, why? Because of geography? That seems silly to me that because of a somewhat arbitrary division based on locale the teams with the 2nd and 3rd best record in baseball wouldn’t make it. So wild cards make some sense to me if there are going to be divisions.
SodoMojoDojo on
March 5, 2022 1:14 PM
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If they are at 14, why not 16? I know the “slippery slope” argument is usually lame, but in this case I don’t think so. All sports seem to expand playoffs all the time. NBA’s “play in” nonsense, NCAAF’s push to expand the playoffs to 8 or 12 teams, NHL having 16 teams, NFL’s recent playoff expansion…Must always have more playoffs! Gotta have more, more, more playoffs. Never less (fewer?) playoffs. Always more!
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As a Sox fan I am a bit impartial regarding the wild card because they won in ‘04 and ‘07 as the WC winner. Those teams won high 90’s games and definitely deserved to be in the playoffs. I can’t help but wonder what could have happened if in ‘04 they ran into peak Halladay or in ‘07 peak Santana in a 1 game playoff. I hate big playoffs, but if they’re at 12 might as well go 14 it’s turning into a derby at that point anyway.
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Yeah I much prefer the 1 wild card team. I am fine with knowing that the playoffs don't decide the best team. My problem is if you expand it too much you start to make regular season games and division battles less important and in turn less exciting. I care more about my enjoyment of 6 months of watching 162 than a month of postseason.
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I know I’m on the losing end of it, but I never liked wild card teams at all in any sport. MLB divisions only have 4 teams, and you can wind up as the 3rd best team out of 4, and still be a wild card, and still win the title. If you are the 3rd best team in a 4 team group after 162 games, why are you”World Champion” if you win the playoffs? Seems wrong to me. But I know the battle is already over, and I still wind up watching, so MLB wins. It doesn’t matter that I don’t like it
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That would be like baseball games that go past 12 innings being decided by a HR Derby where the 3 best hitters on each team get to go against the best pitcher on the opposing team for 3 "outs" to see who wins. Basically making the entire preceding 12 innings meaningless. That would be pretty entertaining but not really inform us who the better team was at "baseball" that day.
SodoMojoDojo on
March 5, 2022 12:18 PM
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That's very true. Entertainment value would be pretty high, think March Madness type excitement, but winning a championship would be relatively meaningless overall IMO if all 30 teams made it into a bracket. I like it when the rules/criteria for winning (and especially a championship) most closely align with who was actually the best. I still insist Josh Hamilton "won" the 2008 HR Derby lol. I'm also the guy who hates shootouts deciding games in the NHL, doesn't prove who the better te
SodoMojoDojo on
March 5, 2022 12:16 PM
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The media could have a field day talking about the Cinderella story of the lowly 60-102 Pirates bravely taking down the 102-60 Dodgers to reach the World’s Series! They could spin the randomness of a fluke upset as an epic underdog story. ESPN could make a crappy 30 for 30 and spin it into a dramatic David-Goliath story. “Entertainment” value would be huge.
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Why stop at 14? They could have 22 teams in the playoffs. Or all 30. The regular season could serve only as a seeding process to set up the playoff bracket. All 30 teams could be in. That way no matter how bad a team is, they still have hope of a title if they get hot at the end.
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That's right and that's my point. It's already like that now so expanding the playoffs even further would likely cause it to happen even more. I don't think WS winner HAS to be synonymous with best team, but do think there should be a balance between the entertainment value of playoff series and the best team most likely winning the WS, and expanding the playoffs even more would move that balance even further in the opposite direction I think that should go. Just my 2 cents.
SodoMojoDojo on
March 4, 2022 11:44 PM
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It is already true that the WS winner is not the same as the best team. I also don't want the playoffs expanded, but I don't think it changes things a whole lot.
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Seems to me if all that mattered was the best teams playing in the WS, they would go back to the old days and have the pennant winners of each league play each other in the WS with no playoffs prior to that. But alas, MLB is about creating a more entertaining product than simply finding out the true "best" team each year. I don't really fault them for that though and do enjoy playoff series. Would just prefer they don't expand it and would like all playoff series to be at least 7 games
SodoMojoDojo on
March 4, 2022 11:14 PM
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I think the '06 Cardinals had the worst regular season record for a WS winner at 83-78. I'd rather they not expand it that much personally. Teams can be dominant for 162 games and clearly the best team and it just takes one short series for an inferior team to got hot and/or the best team to get cold for them to be eliminated. Kinda cheapens dominating all year over a larger sample size. But the MLB is more about entertainment than being "fair" or making sure the best team is recognize
SodoMojoDojo on
March 4, 2022 11:12 PM
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When/if they go to a 14 team playoff, how long until a sub-.500 team makes the playoffs? And how long until a sub-.500 team reaches the World’s Series? If we had a -4 team playoff last year, the 83 win Reds and 82 win Phillies would have been in the playoffs. It’s inevitable there will be teams with losing records in the playoffs. It’s what fans want I guess. But shouldn’t you at least need a winning record to be in the playoffs?
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@Winnetka Thank you. I didn't consider the correct definition for capital.
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Manfred is smart. He cancelled the first 2 series of the year. He knew that if players sign and the season starts right after the 2nd missed series, players can still accrue a full year of service time. But if they make him cancel another week, players won’t have enough calendar days to get a full season. It will delay free agency for a lot of players down the road. Players might not mind losing some paychecks. But I bet they fold rather than risk delaying free agency an extra year.
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@Shohei- Future earnings is not capital. Capital is money, machinery, equipment used to generate revenue.
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With all due respect to Trout, that tweet doesn’t offer anything substantive. Posturing like anything else coming out of MLBPA to rally fans but it doesn’t reflect the reality of the work stoppage.
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@Winnetka - Trout is losing more than 98% of the players every day games are not played. He has the MOST capital at risk.
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Mike Trout makes more money than the average owner makes for his team. Mike Trout has $-0- capital at risk. It matters not what Mike Trout says or thinks.
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I side with the owners in this dispute. I don’t really care very much what they wind up agreeing to, as long as I get to watch a baseball season. But I’m not persuadable that I should sympathize with the players. The good news for the players is that they have no reason to care which side I take :)
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I've never understood why the players feel they are entitled to anything from the teams other than their salaries. MLB franchises are allowed to be incredibly lucrative businesses.
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https://twitter.com/MikeTrout/status/1499098984190603264 This is what the superstars of the game are saying
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The owners are offering to pass a long a small portion to the players. And what you're saying Spa is EXACTLY what the players are saying. They are asking for the minimum salary to be raised from $600k to a lot higher number (I THINK it was $770k, but not 100% sure).
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I agree completely that most players never make it to a big FA contract. The average player doesn't even make it to arbitration any more. Instead they get DFA'd and are suddenly a free agent fighting for a spring training invite.
The TWO pieces of leverage the players have right now are expanded playoffs and advertising on the uniforms. These would provide about $250 million in revenue to the league a year.
They have asked that HALF of that be passed on to the players.
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Owners could break the solidarity by offering $1M minimum salary, but tie it to harsh salary cap penalties to control mega contracts. Try telling younger players you have their best interests at heart by rejecting huge raises for them. Most players never make it to a big free agent contract.
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That may be true, but they're simultaneously balking at the expanded playoffs and lowering of the CBT, which are measures that prevent big spending on the top free agents. The only players harmed by those stipulations are the ones making the most money, and given just how much money we are talking about I would argue that no real harm is actually done at all. If we are to believe they actually care about the players making the least amount of money they would already be playing spring games.
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I am assuming you haven't been reading what the players have been saying about the negotiations. They are working to get the younger players more money, and faster. Because the "average" major league career is less than 6 years, they want young players earning more.
The superstars will always get their money. It's the average player who they are fighting for right now.
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I’ll bet you when Mets players meet to discuss the negotiations with Scherzer, guys like Sean Reid Foley and Yennsy Diaz have no voice at all. I bet if they tried to debate Scherzer, they would get told to shut the heck up. I don’t know if that’s the case, but I’d bet you it is. Rookies who might only have 1 or 2 years in MLB are supposed to speak freely and oppose Scherzer? Good luck. Meanwhile, some MLBPA members will lose a % of what might be their only season in the majors.
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I am not an expert on unions, but how is it that players who have signed free agent contracts are still in? Isn’t being a free agent the very definition of not being in a union? They really should be negotiating with the players making $600k in mind (can’t believe I’m even typing that) instead of players making $millions. I think MLBPA would be much stronger if players like Scherzer had no voice at the negotiating table. How can a guy making $40M a year reasonably negotiate on others’ behalf?
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I am not at all offended if anybody thinks my opinion is dumb - maybe it is dumb, it’s just my opinion. Clearly none of the fans get a say in the CBA so it doesn’t matter what I think. And I don’t mean to offend anyone who has a different view. I’m just offering my 2€.
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I hate the MLBPA, and I think it is dominated by a small group of elite players. The “unanimous votes” are among the player reps. A “unanimous vote” to reject MLB’s offer might have been a 51-49 vote if all players had an equal voice. It might have even been a significant majority of players wanted to accept the offer, as we don’t really know if they could vote anonymously or if they even took a full membership vote.
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I don’t think the players are negotiating in good faith. 2020 was the textbook case of why one side deserves to have more favorable terms than the other when risk is not shared. MLBPA does not seem to acknowledge that they have no leverage in this negotiation, because MLB still does make money even when games aren’t played and players aren’t paid. I am not defending the owners because that’s a completely different topic, but the MLBPA is completely tone deaf right now.
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I just really want to get back to where I can be speculating where free agents will sign and trying to project players stats instead of comparing which millionaire I dislike more.
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is fixed.
The reason why I get so frustrated with this subject is that we get fed a false narrative from sports media constantly about this. They take the players side no matter what. Guys like Jeff Passan and Joel Sherman are useful idiots for the lawyers that represent the MLB players union.
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It is pretty similar across the board. MLB teams were run pretty much like a public utility back then. Now that was 13 years ago and I understand TV revenue has gone up considerably. However 2020 was a disaster for the owners. Average league operating revenues were less than 1/3 of what they were in 2008. Statista.com has revenue of every major league team in 2020. Granted player compensation took a similar hit but other operating expenses don't go down as much in proportion as much of it
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