Dodgers got this series. I'm definitely gonna see if I can get tickets to some playoff games at Dodger stadium if they continue to succeed.
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MLB thread
- Thread starter little gk
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NLDS
Cardinals - Dodgers - Toughest one to call IMO
]Phillies - Rockies - Upset # 1
ALDS
Yankees - Twins - Upset # 2 (Fingers crossed!!! Yankees have 99.9 % got this though)
Red Sox - Angels - Some people might call this an upset, but its pretty even imo.
EDIT: Lol I didn't realise that some series' were only two games in, my Dodgers pick looks to be right though :). Angels look good, and the Rockies are right in the mix.
Cardinals - Dodgers - Toughest one to call IMO
]Phillies - Rockies - Upset # 1
ALDS
Yankees - Twins - Upset # 2 (Fingers crossed!!! Yankees have 99.9 % got this though)
Red Sox - Angels - Some people might call this an upset, but its pretty even imo.
EDIT: Lol I didn't realise that some series' were only two games in, my Dodgers pick looks to be right though :). Angels look good, and the Rockies are right in the mix.
I've wanted that all season =D. It would be win to have Joe Torre's first season not managing the Yanks and he takes it all the way to the end, to face off with them.
^win
As much as I don't want the Yanks to win this, they have proven to be a good team this season. I'm not going to be uber specific on my predictions, but either the Yankees or Angels will face off against the Dodgers or Cardinals in the World Series unless Colorado can prove that this is not the magical run of 2007. In 2007, they were magnificent at the end, but this year's turnaround was a LOT more drastic and since they've proven that they can keep playing at a very high level for a very long time, they might steal a WS appearance. Unfortunately, the level of talent between the Yankees/Angels and Colorado is still going to be determining factor, so the AL will probably win it all this year.
If the WS turns out to be Dodgers - Yankees, than I want the Yankees to win solely on the fact that since Joe Torre left, the Yanks are still a team without his sorry ass. But then again, even if he left, and I hate him, you gotta admit, that it's something about him that makes teams good.
On a side note, the Cardinals have to come out of this slump. They have to defeat the Dodgers, otherwise, the Rockies have to defeat the Dodgers, we cannot let either the Dodgers or the Phillies into the World Series. Anyways, I highly doubt the Cardinals will pull out of this slump, so go Rockies to take the NL!
Also, so sad to see the Sox lose. I mean, I'm a Yanks fan and all, but the Yanks have a better chance to defeat the Sox rather than that foggy chance to defeat the Angels. But, that's just me.
Chamberlain just came in on the 7th Inning to pitch. 1-1 Twins and Yanks.
On a side note, the Cardinals have to come out of this slump. They have to defeat the Dodgers, otherwise, the Rockies have to defeat the Dodgers, we cannot let either the Dodgers or the Phillies into the World Series. Anyways, I highly doubt the Cardinals will pull out of this slump, so go Rockies to take the NL!
Also, so sad to see the Sox lose. I mean, I'm a Yanks fan and all, but the Yanks have a better chance to defeat the Sox rather than that foggy chance to defeat the Angels. But, that's just me.
Chamberlain just came in on the 7th Inning to pitch. 1-1 Twins and Yanks.
Wouldn't it be good though? Torre needs to show the Yankees they made a mistake for letting him go ;)
And Yankees need title number 27.
The Twins getting bullshitted out of winning Game 2 of the series pretty much killed any chance of some dramatic comeback, so I'm predicting the Yankees to get to the World Series against the Cardinals, with the Yankees winning it all. Pretty standard predictions.
(Probably) last game at the Metrodome tonight still makes me sad. =(
(Probably) last game at the Metrodome tonight still makes me sad. =(
That would be awesome if the cardinals didn't get swept yesterday. Anyway, Jonathan Papelbon is a fuck who doesn't know how to throw anything but a fastball ^_^
LOLed at Red Sox's 9th inning fuck up.
Yankees - Angels = ALCS
Dodgers - Phillies/Cardinals = NLCS
Yankees - Dodgers = WS
Looks like that's gonna happen due to the Dodgers' bullpen out pwning Phillies/Cardinals bullpens (combined)
Yankees - Angels = ALCS
Dodgers - Phillies/Cardinals = NLCS
Yankees - Dodgers = WS
Looks like that's gonna happen due to the Dodgers' bullpen out pwning Phillies/Cardinals bullpens (combined)
Here's some numbers that justify my frustration with baseball's postseason and being a fan of a team in the toughest division in all of sports, the AL East.
In the 15 postseasons that have commenced since the Wild Card was implemented in 1995, two Wild Card Teams in the AL will have won the World Series: the 2002 Anaheim Angels and the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Their records, respectively, were 99-63 and 98-64. The only AL Wild Card team to have a better record than these two clubs is the 2001 Oakland Athletics, who finished at an impressive 102-60. The only reason they didn't win their division is because the Mariners won a ridiculous 116 games, an AL record that tied the 1906 Cubs' mark. Should that be a reason to not get home field advantage?
The 2002 A's didn't win the World Series. They didn't win the American League Championship Series either. But the puzzling thing is that this team did not even win the American League Division Series. They lost to the Yankees, 3-2. The Yankees, by virtue of having won their Division at 95-67, had home-field advantage, which ultimately decided this series. Interestingly, the A's were able to take both Game 1 and Game 2 from the Yankees in NY. They allowed just two hits in Game 3 in Oakland, amassing six themselves. They somehow lost this game 1-0, and lost Game 4 after allowing 7 runs in innings 2-4. In the deciding Game 5 back in NY, the A's took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the second inning, but fell victim perhaps more to the home field advantage the Yankees has wrested back from them and the momentum the Yankees had winning the last two games than anything else, and lost 5-3, allowing the Yankees to move on to the ALCS.
I detail this ALDS to show how difficult it is to overcome homefield advantage in a five-game series in baseball, since as impressive as the A's first two games were and the A's themselves were winning 102 games on the season, they got really shafted out of a win in Game 3 with a two-hitter, anyone can win one game (Game 4), and the advantage was squarely back with NY in Game 5 if you adhere to the momentum phenomenon (you should) and remember that NY just had to win one game at home then to move on. I don't think it plays out the same way at all if the A's had homefield advantage, as I am arguing should always go to the team with the best record unless it would result in two teams from the same Division playing in the LDS (as it is currently).
I could do this for the NL but "totally different league" etc. The also have just two WS winners out of 14 (the NL Wild Card Rockies this year have yet to be eliminated), to note that. But while many strides have been made to take the emphasis off of winning the division (lol at four seven-team divisions and four playoffs teams in the then–28-team majors before the wild card), the focus still clearly seems to be on prowess in your Division rather than prowess in your League. And with five-game series, there seems to be even more of an obstacle for Wild Card teams to overcome, since home-field in baseball is perhaps more relevant than in any other sport as it actually decides who bats last. Comparing to the NHL, NBA and NFL, which have no such tangible advantage aside from the crowd, which baseball still has, and additionally when considering the fields of play in all four sports you see that the foul territory in baseball, and fielding fly balls in a dome (or not), and judging ground balls widen the gap of any "home field advantage" compared to the other three.
By rule, no Wild Card team will ever have home field advantage in the LDS or LSC (the World Series is determined by who wins the All-Star Game or, before 2003, simply alternated between leagues). Now the Angels had a better record than the Red Sox did, and thus very fairly deserved home field no matter what, but if I look at the actual records of the LDS and LSC teams in the last 15 years, I will probably be able to find more than a few instances where a team with a worse record had home-field advantage over a team with a better record, and won because of it given the actual advantage being at home grants you in the MLB.
In the 15 postseasons that have commenced since the Wild Card was implemented in 1995, two Wild Card Teams in the AL will have won the World Series: the 2002 Anaheim Angels and the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Their records, respectively, were 99-63 and 98-64. The only AL Wild Card team to have a better record than these two clubs is the 2001 Oakland Athletics, who finished at an impressive 102-60. The only reason they didn't win their division is because the Mariners won a ridiculous 116 games, an AL record that tied the 1906 Cubs' mark. Should that be a reason to not get home field advantage?
The 2002 A's didn't win the World Series. They didn't win the American League Championship Series either. But the puzzling thing is that this team did not even win the American League Division Series. They lost to the Yankees, 3-2. The Yankees, by virtue of having won their Division at 95-67, had home-field advantage, which ultimately decided this series. Interestingly, the A's were able to take both Game 1 and Game 2 from the Yankees in NY. They allowed just two hits in Game 3 in Oakland, amassing six themselves. They somehow lost this game 1-0, and lost Game 4 after allowing 7 runs in innings 2-4. In the deciding Game 5 back in NY, the A's took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the second inning, but fell victim perhaps more to the home field advantage the Yankees has wrested back from them and the momentum the Yankees had winning the last two games than anything else, and lost 5-3, allowing the Yankees to move on to the ALCS.
I detail this ALDS to show how difficult it is to overcome homefield advantage in a five-game series in baseball, since as impressive as the A's first two games were and the A's themselves were winning 102 games on the season, they got really shafted out of a win in Game 3 with a two-hitter, anyone can win one game (Game 4), and the advantage was squarely back with NY in Game 5 if you adhere to the momentum phenomenon (you should) and remember that NY just had to win one game at home then to move on. I don't think it plays out the same way at all if the A's had homefield advantage, as I am arguing should always go to the team with the best record unless it would result in two teams from the same Division playing in the LDS (as it is currently).
I could do this for the NL but "totally different league" etc. The also have just two WS winners out of 14 (the NL Wild Card Rockies this year have yet to be eliminated), to note that. But while many strides have been made to take the emphasis off of winning the division (lol at four seven-team divisions and four playoffs teams in the then–28-team majors before the wild card), the focus still clearly seems to be on prowess in your Division rather than prowess in your League. And with five-game series, there seems to be even more of an obstacle for Wild Card teams to overcome, since home-field in baseball is perhaps more relevant than in any other sport as it actually decides who bats last. Comparing to the NHL, NBA and NFL, which have no such tangible advantage aside from the crowd, which baseball still has, and additionally when considering the fields of play in all four sports you see that the foul territory in baseball, and fielding fly balls in a dome (or not), and judging ground balls widen the gap of any "home field advantage" compared to the other three.
By rule, no Wild Card team will ever have home field advantage in the LDS or LSC (the World Series is determined by who wins the All-Star Game or, before 2003, simply alternated between leagues). Now the Angels had a better record than the Red Sox did, and thus very fairly deserved home field no matter what, but if I look at the actual records of the LDS and LSC teams in the last 15 years, I will probably be able to find more than a few instances where a team with a worse record had home-field advantage over a team with a better record, and won because of it given the actual advantage being at home grants you in the MLB.
As much as I agree with your sentiment about how the MLB playoff system is flawed (which it is) there is one thing in your post that I find disturbing:
You think home field advantage in baseball matters more than in the other 2 and a half major sports. (Hockey counts as half).
In football homefield matters most. If you look at stats for the last 10 seasons you will most likely find that over 60% of winners are the home teams. This is because mainly of the noise. The crowd of lets say 80,000 makes so much noise when the road team is on offense it is extremely hard to hear the quarter back. This leads to an increase in false starts for the road team. Not only that, but it makes audibles for the quarterback much harder to call, as the recievers will not always hear that the QB is making a play change.
In hockey the home team gets to send their team on last on every faceoff. This allows for the home team to put on a favourable line matchup, will helps pllenty more than batting last.
and in basketball, home teams win around 60% of the games still. I'm not sure why as there is pretty much no tangible advantage for a basketball team playing at home, but for some reason they win much more at home.
tl;dr : Statistically home field matters LEAST in baseball. I agree that the MLB playoffs is wrong, but the homefield advantage aspect means barely anything in baseball that they can get away with it being wrong ( take a look at the NBA and NHL playoffs if you want to see some shitty playoff structures)
You think home field advantage in baseball matters more than in the other 2 and a half major sports. (Hockey counts as half).
In football homefield matters most. If you look at stats for the last 10 seasons you will most likely find that over 60% of winners are the home teams. This is because mainly of the noise. The crowd of lets say 80,000 makes so much noise when the road team is on offense it is extremely hard to hear the quarter back. This leads to an increase in false starts for the road team. Not only that, but it makes audibles for the quarterback much harder to call, as the recievers will not always hear that the QB is making a play change.
In hockey the home team gets to send their team on last on every faceoff. This allows for the home team to put on a favourable line matchup, will helps pllenty more than batting last.
and in basketball, home teams win around 60% of the games still. I'm not sure why as there is pretty much no tangible advantage for a basketball team playing at home, but for some reason they win much more at home.
tl;dr : Statistically home field matters LEAST in baseball. I agree that the MLB playoffs is wrong, but the homefield advantage aspect means barely anything in baseball that they can get away with it being wrong ( take a look at the NBA and NHL playoffs if you want to see some shitty playoff structures)
The NFL decides "series" in one game, instead of best-of-five or best-of-seven, which is a large part of my argument. I'd argue that this is the overwhelming reason homefield matters in the NFL. As underrated as they ultimately were, I highly doubt the 2007-2008 Giants were capable of beating the 2007-2008 Patriots four times in the playoffs, and this is just the most recent/obvious example of this phenomenon. And the Superbowl is played at a neutral site to mitigate this flaw to some degree.
In the NHL, the faceoff detail is a valid point, but the Stanley Cup Playoffs has been 16 teams, best-of-seven since the 1986-87 season. This seems to indicate that if they understand one thing, it is that the winner should be determined by skill demonstrated from an NHL perspective, not just a division one. Even more to my point is the fact that no matter what, home ice in the Stanley Cup Finals is awarded to the team with the best regular season point total.
The NBA expanded their opening playoff round from Bo5 to Bo7 in 2003. Further,
in 2006 the NBA went to a format that takes the three division winners and the second-place team with the best record and ranks them 1–4 by record, filling the other four slots with the teams other than those first four that had the best records. This meant that such a non-division winner could be seeded as high as 2 instead of just 4. Before that, the top three seeds went to the division winners. As you pointed out, it's hard to find a tangible reason for homecourt "advantage" in the NBA in general, but at the very least the NBA has taken considerable and recent strides to reduce whatever that is by favoring prowess and skill from an NBA perspective.
There are inherent flaws in all four postseasons, yes. But every league but the MLB has taken the necessary action to buck old trends in favor of a better game. I don't know what you mean when you say that home field matters least in baseball statistically. I just showed that only 13% of the time has the team assured of not having homefield for the LDS and LCS—the Wild Card—won the World Series. Guess what both of those teams had in their respective World Series? That's right—home field.
In 2002, the Angels were down 2-3 in the Series to the Giants, and 5-0 in the 7th in Game 6 in Anaheim. During a SF pitching change, the Angels flashed their now-infamous Rally Monkey on their Jumbotron, which absolutely incited their fans and many would argue directly contributed to the three runs they scored in both that inning and the next, winning that game and taking Game 7 at home the next day. I'd call that a home-field advantage.
In 2004, the Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the WS, where many would argue that finally lifting the Curse of the Bambino at the hands of the hated Yankees themselves in the ALCS gave the Sox an immeasurable boost of support from their fans who had been waiting some 86 years for legitimate World Series hope. The 4-run and 2-run first innings of Games 1 and 2 respectively went a long way in deflating the hope of a Cardinals team that had gone 105-57 during the regular season, eight better than Boston. I'd call that a home-field advantage.
In conclusion, baseball is therefore worse than all the others in how it has addressed the spectre of "home field advantage", which is present in each of the four majors sports. The NFL cannot very well play Bo7 series to determine every round, the NHL has made improvements and has four Bo7 series, and the NBA has made the most and most recent changes of any of the four sports.
In the NHL, the faceoff detail is a valid point, but the Stanley Cup Playoffs has been 16 teams, best-of-seven since the 1986-87 season. This seems to indicate that if they understand one thing, it is that the winner should be determined by skill demonstrated from an NHL perspective, not just a division one. Even more to my point is the fact that no matter what, home ice in the Stanley Cup Finals is awarded to the team with the best regular season point total.
The NBA expanded their opening playoff round from Bo5 to Bo7 in 2003. Further,
in 2006 the NBA went to a format that takes the three division winners and the second-place team with the best record and ranks them 1–4 by record, filling the other four slots with the teams other than those first four that had the best records. This meant that such a non-division winner could be seeded as high as 2 instead of just 4. Before that, the top three seeds went to the division winners. As you pointed out, it's hard to find a tangible reason for homecourt "advantage" in the NBA in general, but at the very least the NBA has taken considerable and recent strides to reduce whatever that is by favoring prowess and skill from an NBA perspective.
There are inherent flaws in all four postseasons, yes. But every league but the MLB has taken the necessary action to buck old trends in favor of a better game. I don't know what you mean when you say that home field matters least in baseball statistically. I just showed that only 13% of the time has the team assured of not having homefield for the LDS and LCS—the Wild Card—won the World Series. Guess what both of those teams had in their respective World Series? That's right—home field.
In 2002, the Angels were down 2-3 in the Series to the Giants, and 5-0 in the 7th in Game 6 in Anaheim. During a SF pitching change, the Angels flashed their now-infamous Rally Monkey on their Jumbotron, which absolutely incited their fans and many would argue directly contributed to the three runs they scored in both that inning and the next, winning that game and taking Game 7 at home the next day. I'd call that a home-field advantage.
In 2004, the Red Sox swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the WS, where many would argue that finally lifting the Curse of the Bambino at the hands of the hated Yankees themselves in the ALCS gave the Sox an immeasurable boost of support from their fans who had been waiting some 86 years for legitimate World Series hope. The 4-run and 2-run first innings of Games 1 and 2 respectively went a long way in deflating the hope of a Cardinals team that had gone 105-57 during the regular season, eight better than Boston. I'd call that a home-field advantage.
In conclusion, baseball is therefore worse than all the others in how it has addressed the spectre of "home field advantage", which is present in each of the four majors sports. The NFL cannot very well play Bo7 series to determine every round, the NHL has made improvements and has four Bo7 series, and the NBA has made the most and most recent changes of any of the four sports.
I don't know man. Angels are a good team, there may be some trouble in there for the Yankees. But, we can't lose faith!
Looking at it on the bright side, at least Alex Rodriguez has a chance to not be remembered like Don Mattingly for never having been to nor won a World Series at least.
So, I h3rd j00 l3ik$ d4 Y4nk33$
1-0 vs Angels!
1-0 vs Angels!
Looks like a Philly/Yankee WS to me.
Phillies - Yankees
Score Predictions for game 1:
8-5 Yankees
What do you guys think?
Score Predictions for game 1:
8-5 Yankees
What do you guys think?
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