[Bob Reed]

“Man, we have some guys with some odd names.”

Yup. Just more political pandering from the Redbird front office. (As everyone knows of course, Nabil Crismatt is only on the team because he’s an anagram for “BLM antiracist.”)

But seriously folks, game 2 was lost when Shildt pulled Gant from game 1. Gant was fantastic, fanning 3 of 4 batters and requiring just 13 pitches to do so.

But Shildt pulled him. After those 13 pitches. And inserted Gallegos — who should have and would have been available for the high-leverage sixth inning of game 2. That would have been nice, wouldn’t it? To have Gallegos available?

(In case anyone is interested, Gant threw between 27 and 37 pitches on 11 occasions last year, and only once did he allow a run in his next outing. So obviously he can throw A LOT more pitches, with no lingering after effects.)

Leaving Webb in did lose the game — but it was largely lost before it even began. Stupid managers make knuckleheaded decisions that have ripple effects like a turd tossed in a reflecting pool.

[Bob Reed]

Baseball attracted about 68.5 million fans in 2019 after drawing nearly 80 million a dozen years earlier.’
‘the average age of baseball viewers is 57, with only 7% of viewers under 18.’

This means that the value of MLB franchises is on its way to tanking, so it really doesn’t matter if there is a long strike, or not. The owners have gotten themselves caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If there’s any chance at all of saving the value of an MLB franchise, something drastic is going to have to happen.

———————————-

In 2019 MLB owners made more money than in 2018.
In 2018 MLB owners made more money than in 2017.
In 2017 MLB owners made more money than in 2016.
And so on, and so on, and so on, for as far back as you want to go.

Here’s a link to the revenue numbers over the past 15 years:https://www.statista.com/statistics/193466/total-league-revenue-of-the-mlb-since-2005/

Revenues in 2007, when the attendance record was set, were roughly 5.5 billion dollars.
Revenues in 2019 were approximately 10.4 billion dollars.

Not only have revenues steadily increased, but the players’ share has been trending downward over the past 15-20 years or so. There’s no day of reckoning coming for anyone in the sport. Not the players, and certainly not the owners.

Minor league teams are in some trouble. Not major league ones. Quite the contrary.

[Bob Reed]

Not advocating or criticizing any specific public policies here. Just offering a few numbers for perspective.

The concern in California and pretty much everywhere else in our fair nation is that the virus could reach a 50% or higher infection rate. This today from the Los Angeles Times:

“Governor Newsom on Thursday also asked Congress for $1 billion in federal funds to support the state’s medical response to the novel coronavirus, which he said he expects will infect more than half of all Californians.” (Emphasis mine.)

——————————–

According to the very informative worldometers website, the current U.S. population is 331,002,651. Half of that is 165,501,326.

As of this morning there were 13,789 confirmed infected Americans. Subtract 13,789 from 165,501,326 and you have 165,487,537.

Yesterday there were 4,530 new American cases.
At a rate of 4,530 new cases per day, to reach a total of 165,487,537 infected would take 36,531 days. Basically one century.

———————————-

But maybe the disease has not crested here. It’s entirely possible if not probable that the worst is to come in the United States. So let’s look at a country that has almost certainly already seen its worst.

Let’s look at the virus’ country of origin, China. The population density of China is about four times that of the United States. The virus began there of course, therefore no doctors or public officials knew what they were dealing with for awhile.

In China, despite the relatively high population density and the initial paucity of knowledge, infections over the past few weeks have now slowed to…well yesterday there were 39 newly infected. In the entire country. A country of more than 1,400,000,000 people.

How long will it take for 50% of China to be infected? Well, when I started typing this post 50% of the Chinese population equaled 719,661,888. And so far there are 80,967 infected. That means China must have 719,580,921 more infections to reach the 50% threshold.

At 39 new cases per day it will take 50,550 years for China to get there. (For simplicity I left out leap years. Forgive me.)

————————————-

Again, a 50% infection rate is what Governor Newsom expects — and therefore, at current rates, a few hundred thousand coronavirus deaths in California. Newsom is entitled to his terrors and opinions.

Based on everything that we know at this point, everything that has actually happened in our country and across the globe, why on earth would anyone agree with him?

—————————————–

At the risk of being rude, I very likely won’t return to this topic to even check for responses. What’s there to respond to, anyway? It’s just some numbers. Numbers that seem to be somehow overlooked in every news report I read or watch.

Take it easy, folks. Hope to talk to you all if and when baseball returns in 2020.

[Bob Reed]

[Bob Reed]

Looking at the 2018 and ’19 numbers, roughly 40-50 at-bats on average, and 15-20 innings for starting twirlers, Rat.

[Bob Reed]

“Matheny benched Fowler, not Shildt. Fowler started 15 of 17 before the foot injury, once Shildt took over, and appeared in all 17.”

This is correct, of course. Matheny benched Fowler in 2018, not Shildt. In fact Shildt has never shown any inclination by word or deed toward treating Fowler remotely close to the same as everyone else. “Defer to Dex” has been Mike Shildt’s unspoken managerial mantra from Day One as boss.

Recapping. In 2018, Mike Matheny had Fowler in the starting lineup for 48 of the first 64 games. At the end of the 64th game, which took place on June 11, Delicate Dexter was hitting a hateful .173/.276/.286. So finally, mercifully, Matheny benched him on June 12 in favor of Harrison Bader.

Fowler started just 11 of the next 29 games. Then Matheny was fired, and Shildt immediately & inexplicably restored Fowler to the starting lineup despite a still-abysmal slash line of .174/.270/.285 — incredibly, despite several better outfield choices, Shildt played the floundering Fowler even more frequently than Matheny had over the first two months of the season. (With Fowler now dementedly cemented by Shildt into the starting lineup, the front office wound up having to trade Tommy Pham for 50 cents on the dollar in order to get Bader back into the everyday eight.)

——————————————-

Mike Shildt has done an excellent job with the Redbird rotation during his year-and-a-half tenure, and has been solid with the pen as well. But he’s been plain bad with the everyday lineups, just awful. Right now for example he’s scratching his head raw trying to figure out whether DeJong or Goldschmidt should bat cleanup in 2020. Here are some career numbers for both:

Goldy, bases empty, has a career OPS just 67 points higher than DeJong’s (.854 to .787).
Goldy with men on base however, 208 points higher than DeJong (.990 to .782).
And Goldy with RISP, 310 points above DeJong (1.004 to .694).

But I digress. From all we have seen, Mike Shildt lacks the guts or brains or both to bench Fowler himself. Shildt’s Dexter devotion says to me that the only way the Cards will play their best outfield with Shildt as manager, is when Fowler is retired or released. I see that release happening in June or July of this year, when the front office takes Shildt’s favorite toy away from him.

[Bob Reed]

Gotcha, GC. Thanks for the response(s).

[Bob Reed]

“My 3 favorite Cardinals: Edman, Carlson & Schrock are all again having an excellent day and Spring.”

Okay, that’s twice now that you’ve brought it up, GC.
So I’ll do you a favor and take the bait. Why on earth Schrock?

[Bob Reed]

“I know nothing about Carlson’s arm, but could it be that it is not strong but it is very accurate?”

I can’t speak to the particular qualities of Carlson’s throwing arm, Forschy, but there’s this snippet from Monday’s McLaughlin/Mozeliak mini-podcast:

Dan: “What is his (Carlson’s) best position, or is there one?”

Mo: “If you’re asking me long term, because of his arm strength and his power you could naturally see him profile into the right field position long term.”

The Carlson material starts at the 3:07 mark. Link: https://www.scoopswithdannymac.com/mondays-with-mo-march-2-2020/

[Bob Reed]

Pipeline seems to like Herrera much more than they did just a few months ago when they omitted him from their top 25 Arizona Fall League prospects. Better late than not at all, I guess. I feel compelled to say something about the silly following quote, though, from Pipeline’s Ivan Herrera capsule:

“Scouts are increasingly bullish about Herrera’s power potential, with some seeing him as a future 15-plus homer threat who also hits for average and gets on base at a high clip.”

The latter portion is very nice, and makes perfect sense given Herrera’s elite three-year professional track record. But Ivan just hit 8 homers in 69 games for Peoria at age 18. Only a loon or a liar could watch an 18-year-old boy pop 8 homers in fewer than 70 Midwest League games and conclude that, golly, he “might” have as much as “15-plus” homer power in the majors. The plausible potential is 25-30 per 600 PA’s, period. (Especially so, if MLB keeps the jumpyball.)

But don’t listen to me. How about an entirely objective analysis?
The Davenport Peak MLB Translation for Ivan’s Peoria campaign is in fact a robust one home run per 22 at-bats, or 25 longballs per 550 AB’s. Moreover, that’s based on Herrera’s being translated by Clay Davenport as a 19-year-old rather than 18-year-old, since Herrera is a June baby, not July, and July 1 is of course the current arbitrary cutoff for “baseball age.” (Ye Olde Tymers may recall that in the 1980’s the prospect age cutoff was June 1, not July, for whatever it’s worth.)

And speaking of Ivan the Terrific, he and fellow 19-year-old Nolan Gorman are having a pretty nice Spring Training so far. Even looks pretty good compared to last year’s “breakout” performance by then-20-year-old Dylan Carlson.

2019 Dylan Carlson .250/.353/.364 with a .38 BB/K ratio.
2020 Gorman + Herrera .310/.344/.483 with a .40 BB/K tally.

Carlson of course may have faced somewhat tougher pitching last spring. But then, Ivan and Nolan are still teenagers, each presently more than half a year younger than Dylan was at this time last year. (Don’t know how anyone with a grasp of the importance of prospect ages has either kid outside their top 50 overall prospects, much less where Keith Law ranked them [82 and 97]). Incredibly, despite his caution Law is somehow the high man nationally on Herrera.

[Bob Reed]

“B-Ref developed a spring training stat that measures the quality of opponent based on the level played the previous year, where 1 is rookie ball and 10 is MLB.”

“Through play yesterday, Dylan Carlson’s quality of opponent was 6.8 or below AA (7).”

———————————–

Thanks for alerting us to that function at B-Ref, Brian. Pretty darn cool. Let’s see how some others stacked up, before play today.

Carlson 1.193 OPS, versus 6.8 quality
Fowler .192 OPS, versus 8.4
O’Neill 1.240, versus 7.1
Ozuna .091, versus 7.9 (Yeah, that’s a zero not an eight at the start of his OPS. He’s hitless.)

So basically Carlson & O’Neill have dominated Double-A level twirlers while Fowler & Ozuna have been humiliated by Triple-A quality pitching. In sample sizes smaller than a Coronavirus, of course.

Also, Carlson/O’Neill had 9 walks against 8 strikeouts. (THIS is what I like best, for sure.)
Fowler/Ozuna had walked twice and fanned 11 times, through Monday.

Then today Fowler and Ozuna each went hitless, with two Ozuna whiffs. Carlson was 1-3 with no walks or K’s.

At any rate, veterans like Fowler and Ozuna won’t (and shouldn’t) be judged until their final 25 or 30 trips to the plate in Spring Training. But it sure is nice to see the young outfielders doing exactly what we want them to do at the plate.

[Bob Reed]

Yeah, bets like that give me the heebie jeebies, Brian. We all know how a team can be very good and still via the caprice of Dame Fortune not make the postseason.

Last year it was Cleveland with 93 wins. The year before Tampa missed despite 90 victories. While I don’t think the 2020 Senior Circuit will be deep in 90-win teams, well, to quote a famous St. Louisan you never can tell.

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for posting those odds, Brian.
At the Bookmaker.eu website the division numbers look like this:

Cards +195
cubs +205
Reds +257
Brewers +530
Bucs +20000

And to win the Pennant:

StL +1085
Chi +1269
Cin +1912
Mil +2547
Pit +21500

The Pirates to win the division would be the obvious value bet, if they had more than Ke’Bryan Hayes in the upper minors. As it is, I don’t see a real good wager, other than the over on the Cards’ win total — our boys have beaten the Vegas number by a cumulative 53 wins during Mozeliak’s 12-year tenure, or a whisker under 4.5 wins per season on the average. (Under Mo the very worst Redbird performance vs. Vegas was a decade ago, when they fell just 2.5 wins short of the number.)

[Bob Reed]

Thanks for the link, BHC. Fine article, and I expect an equally fine year from KK — strictly in the Redbird rotation.

[Bob Reed]

“Cabrera is such a wild card, what are your thoughts on him? Not much offseason info that I can find…. he has the stuff to be a very good SP, or the stuff to be a lights out closer, but the control to be a 5th inning guy.”

My thoughts on Genesis Cabrera are few, and far from printable at a family website.
Since coming to the Cardinal organization, he’s had three opportunities to impress. In 2018 in AA he posted an ERA just under 5.00. Ugh. The next year in AAA he had an ERA of nearly 6.00. Blecch. Then the front office saw fit to give him a September callup anyway, and he had an ERA out of the Redbird bullpen of nearly 5.00 again. And reasonable people think he has a shot at the 2020 Opening Day MLB roster?

Genesis throws hard. He does not throw well. He could become a fine MLB reliever some day — almost any pitching prospect with anything close to Cabrera’s velocity can say the same thing. But he looks to me like a guy who is miles and miles from that destination. And as a starting pitching prospect, well, for me he isn’t one.

Now, I probably speak as the world’s least optimistic “fan” of Genesis Cabrera. I mean, of course I want very badly for him to succeed with the Cards. But I believe that anyone who has him as a top 10 or 12 Cardinal prospect is kidding themselves. Excellent velocity? You betcha. But on balance he’s been something between ineffective and awful at each stop since joining the organization, and excellent velocity plus two bucks gets you a ride on the city bus.

[Bob Reed]

“I’m still confused on the Gallen trade from Miami to AZ. Why Miami traded a potential stud, young SP who was already putting up great numbers for Chisholm is still a bit confusing? I understand the value of a star position player over a SP, but Chisholm is far from a sure thing.”

Agreed, ChiTown. That deal was weird on the face of it.
All I can figure is, maybe Miami was looking FAR into the future, thinking they won’t compete for another 3 or 4 years at least, and that Chisolm would at that point be entering his early prime, while Gallen would be an arbitration-pay piece of trade bait.

Or Derek Jeter & Co. looked at Gallen and saw a not particularly imposing specimen of a hurler, a guy without a dominant fastball, and just underestimated his value — not unlike the Cards did when they made him the throw-in for Marcell Ozuna. (Hey, on the bright side at least Mags Sierra didn’t become Willie McGee.) If the Cards can get it wrong when evaluating a twirler, anyone can. Heck, the indisputably brilliant & efficient Dodger front office gave Joe Kelly a ton of dough based on fewer than a dozen innings in October, right?

[Bob Reed]

“Simba, you might have missed the best one of the bunch?…. Zac Gallen had a 2.81 ERA and 96 K’s in 80 IP last year.”

Well said, ChiTown. Also, how about Luke Weaver and his 2.94 ERA for Arizona in a dozen starts, with 9.7 K’s per 9 innings and a terrific 5-1 K/BB ratio?

The StL farm system really has been a pitching factory during the Mozeliak era. Funny thing is, the “signature” guy, the guy who represented at least a bit of a departure from tradition, Shelby Miller, has turned out to be far less than hoped. Thus the Heyward trade looks better with each passing year.

[Bob Reed]

“I don’t understand how one team can have depth in one category and be weak in another.”

Here’s one for you, muddy. Theo Epstein is closing in on two decades as a GM, and he’s developed one starting pitcher from scratch, Clay Buccholz, who made his pro debut some 14 years ago.

And yet, Epstein will quite rightly waltz into the Hall Of Fame one day, because he’s discovered & developed position players as well as any GM of his era. Probably better than any others, in fact.

——————————

Over the long-ish haul I don’t think there’s much luck involved in these matters at all. Dozens and dozens of individuals, thousands upon thousands of man hours every year. I think the luck largely if not entirely washes out over any three or four year period. I think the boring truth is that certain organizations are just better at some things than other things — but of course that’s still a somewhat fluid situation, as the scouts and analysts employed by each organization is ever-shifting.

It’s a darn good thing that Theo’s minions didn’t get better at developing pitchers when they moved from Boston to Chicago with him. That was my big concern, when the Cubs hired him. But his Red Sox record has proved true, and thus he’s in the same boat now that he was near the very end of his Carmines tenure. Numerous bloated contracts, and nary a pitcher in the pipeline. The Fat Lady is warming up.

[Bob Reed]

“On the other hand, the Rays have been in the top five in each of the last three years, but not before that in recent years. Then again, what good does ranking well in prospects do if you can’t translate it into MLB success eventually? The Cards haven’t been among BA’s top five systems since 2013.”

Well said, Brian. It’s all about the majors and how those prospects perform there.
And considering the Cardinals haven’t been in the BA top 5 since 2013, I’d say their “non-elite” farmhand collections have acquitted themselves rather marvelously at the MLB level. Certainly during their rookie campaigns, at least.

Here are MLB’s top organizations in rookie WAR over the past five years:
1) Dodgers 40.2 WAR (That’s Fangraphs WAR.)
2) Cardinals 36.1
3) Devil Rays 31.5
4) Yankees 28.3
5) Phillies 24.4

Breaking it down further, the Birds were 2nd in position player WAR behind only LA, and 3rd in pitching behind just Tampa and (surprise!) Milwaukee — the Cards were the only franchise to rank in the top 4 in both bats and arms. Moreover, they would likely have ranked 1st in pitcher WAR had I used Baseball-Reference values instead, as they easily topped MLB rookies in ERA over the last half decade.

1) Cards 3.55 ERA (Versus a 4.01 FIP.)
2) Dodgers 3.86
3T) Indians 4.01
3T) Tampa 4.01

——————————–

Anyway, following the Arozarena/Liberatore upgrade, 13th is roughly 4-6 spots too low, depending on how much hitter/pitcher balance one prefers in a farm system. If one seeks some sort of Platonic ideal balance, the Cards should be about 9th. Largely indifferent to balance? Then 7th or so.

But 13th isn’t so radically inaccurate that it’s worth starting a fight over. It’s a below average job of evaluating, but certainly not awful. Not the classic BA BS to which we became accustomed over the past 15-20 years. Without Callis or Manuel, the nonsense quotient there has markedly diminished.

[Bob Reed]

I can’t solve that riddle, Black Hills.
But here’s a neat fact: according to Fangraphs the player who one month ago was the 14th-best prospect for the Cardinals, is now the #107 prospect in all the minors! Here’s the link where Randy Arozarena is the #14 for StL: https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board-scouting-and-stats?pos=&lg=2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,14,12,13,15,16,17,18,30,32,33&stats=bat&qual=0&type=0&team=&season=2018&seasonEnd=2019&draft=2019updated&players=&boardView=0&q=&org=stl&filter=&sort=5,-1

And here he is, just today, at #107: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2020-top-100-prospects/

So, with Liberatore replacing Arozarena in the Redbird farm system, the Cards still have 14 of the top 107 prospects. Well, only 13, since Ramon Urias is now a Baltimore Oriole. But still, 13 of the top 107 prospects! Must be a record.

[Bob Reed]

“So the bye teams could possibly not play again until day six, the start of their divisional series. That’s a long wait.”

An astute observation, jj. And one that no one in the national media seems to be making, at least not very vociferously.

Under the proposed changes, the Big Reward of having the best record in your league and thus getting a bye and several days off, may not be much of a reward at all. If you have the best record in your league, you are probably a few games clear of the field — so you can already set the rotation for October without any days off at all, or perhaps two or three days at the very most. It’s a thin line between rested and rusted.

[Bob Reed]

“Thanks Bob, those are very compelling numbers compared to the top 18. Was Kopech still in the top 100? It would seem any time a pitcher has major surgery, he should be dropped from any national list until proven recovered.”

You’re welcome, 27.
Kopech isn’t just in the top 100 at Fangraphs. As of a month ago he was in the top 20. Link:https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board-scouting-and-stats?pos=&lg=2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,14,12,13,15,16,17,18,30,32,33&stats=pit&qual=0&type=0&team=&season=2018&seasonEnd=2019&draft=2019updated&players=&boardView=1&q=&org=&filter=&sort=5,-1

As you’ll see, Matthew Liberatore is 19th among pitching prospects and 63rd overall. Not bad.

————————————————

And now upon further review, I see that Kopech has been moved up from 20th to 19th for their freshly-minted top 100.

Matthew Liberatore on the other hand had the misfortune to be traded to the Cardinals, which has moved him from 63rd a month ago to 94th. Imagine that. A month ago, in the dead of winter with nothing going on, he was 63rd overall and 19th among pitchers, and now Liberatore is just 32nd among twirlers and 94th overall. Hmph. Randy Arozarena on the other hand has gone from an irrelevant grade 40, non-top 300 non-prospect a month ago to 107th. Trades seem to help some prospects more than others, huh?

One thing I will say on behalf of the manifestly crooked and stupid prospect “evaluators” at Fangraphs, they are the first national voices to almost put Ivan Herrera in the top 100. Ivan the Terrific checks in at #105.

[Bob Reed]

“Some prospects throw harder, but I like Rondon as our 2nd best pitching prospect behind Liberatore. He has decent control and a lot of swing and misses with 3 pitches. Unfortunately the numbers game may have him starting 2020 back in Springfield.”

I’m with you, C-27. At least regarding the first part.
Rondon is 2nd only to Liberatore, and maybe deserving an overall top 100 slot. Actually, if forced to make a list, I’d feel compelled to include him. Angel’s Double-A performance* was just too much like the best minor league pitching prospects, for him not to make the list. And his exceptional 2019 durability is a tie-breaker if we need one.

But as to your second point, I suspect the Cards will prioritize Rondon and get him straight to Memphis, even if it means a 6-man rotation there to start the year.

————————————–

*The following is lifted from an early August thread here. I’m sure the numbers didn’t change much over the final few starts of the season.

Here are the slashlines permitted this year in AA by some of the very elite pitching prospects in baseball. Beside each pitcher is his age and his current Fangraphs ranking among all pitching prospects.

Dustin May (21 years old, #3 overall pitching prospect) .237/.297/.330
Casey Mize (22, #4 pitcher) .226/.274/.322
Sixto Sanchez (21, #8) .231/.273/.353
Matt Manning (21, #11) .198/.264/.296
Ian Anderson (21, #13) .202/.285/.296
Angel Rondon (21, not top 600) .228/.309/.320

And as for the aforementioned durability matter, Rondon logged 160 innings in 2019. And here are the (rounded off) career-best innings totals for the top 18 pitching prospects, per Fangraphs:

F. Whitley 90
L. Patino 95
M. Gore 100
N. Pearson 100
J. Luzardo 110
C. Mize 110
D. Garcia 110
S. Howard 110
Sixto Sanchez 115
B. McKay 120
A. Puk 125
M. Manning 135
L. Gilbert 135
I. Anderson 135
M. Kopech 140
D. May 140
K. Wright 145
M. Keller 150

[Bob Reed]

“Considering that adding two more teams gives a significant chance of a team with a losing record making the playoffs…”

The actual data presented on page 2 of this thread indicates that had the extra wild card been in place the last 19 years, just four of the 38 extra wild card teams would have had a losing record. That is not very significant to me.

————————————

That’s a fair rebuttal, Brian. However, I would say that 4 is 4 too many for sure, especially if one of them is the Cubs. One of them wasn’t the Cubs, was it? We don’t need the Cubs in the playoffs any more than necessary — I’m sure we can all agree upon that.

Meager levity attempts aside, I look at it this way. I only want “good teams” to make the playoffs, in any sport. The playoffs are a reward for playing well, is partly how I look at the postseason. And I know this is absolutely subjective, but as far as MLB is concerned I define a good team as one that finishes at least 10 games over .500. (A “very good” team is 20 over, and a “great” team would be 30 over.)

And by those standards I saw roughly 30 “non-good” teams making the playoffs from 2000-2019 per that chart on page 2 of this thread. Call me Killjoy, but that’s not how I prefer the playoffs to go.

Here’s a thought. Everyone who was asking for expanded MLB playoffs a week ago, raise your hand. That’s what I thought. Nobody was asking for this.

Now, some people will reject anything new, because they are highly uncomfortable with change. Which is why it’s generally constructive to flesh out one’s views civilly with those of differing opinions. (At least it used to be, before the internet debased dialogues so severely. Stupid internet.)

But a certain substantial percentage of people will embrace whatever is new, for one of two reasons.
(1) To be argumentative toward people they dislike, regardless of the merits of the new thing.
(2) Because they believe that whatever is newer is intrinsically better than status quo.

So far, both at this website and in the national discourse, I’ve seen plenty of stubborn codgers like myself resisting change — but unfortunately I’ve seen many more who suffer from afflictions (1) and (2).

[Bob Reed]

And I’ve heard the “it will cheapen the regular season” argument in every sport every time an expansion of playoffs happens. It never does.

To me it has. I can’t tell you the last time I watched a regular season NBA game because it doesn’t matter who wins. I will watch the NBA playoffs though.
I am sure I will still watch a lot of regular season MLB games because I love baseball but I still feel that the regular season will have been cheapened.

——————————

I share your regular season ennui, GScott. I don’t watch either of the NHL or NBA regular seasons, with rare exception. I just check the standings now and then.

If I’m Bill DeWitt, and I know I can pocket an “extra” 30 or 40 or 50 million bucks and still make the playoffs by winning 84, 85 games — and that I gain effectively nothing by winning my division, not even avoiding the idiotic one-game play-in — then why would I even try to win much more than those 84 or 85 games?

I want to watch very good baseball, for six months, every year. This format would significantly de-incentivize Redbird owners, and all other owners, from trying to provide that quality of baseball. This isn’t a matter of greed per se; it would only be rational of them to pocket the tens of millions, and settle for the October crapshoot.

But lastly, just on general principle, I don’t want crap teams in the playoffs — in any sport. And until now baseball has pretty much managed to avoid that. With this new format, they would be embracing the crap.

————————————–

If Manfred needs more revenue, just expand the current wildcard to best-of-three. But incentivize
winning the division by “punishing” the wildcard participants with a doubleheader on the Monday
immediately following the regular season. This way, roster depth, esp. pitching depth, is rewarded in
October, just like it should be. Plus, the lesser wildcard team has to play all three on the road.

And if Manfred wants more interest, more excitement for the fans, then deaden the baseball back to
normalcy so we get more doubles & triples, and fewer homers. Doubles & triples are fun! Fielders run
hard and make strong throws! Batters break fast from the batter’s box, and fans stand up to see the action! What happens on a homer? Nothing. People stand still, or walk, or trot, or flip a bat. Ho hum.

[Author]

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