I can't help but think the main thing getting in the way of such radical changes are the record books. Every record before the change is essentially etched in stone. Now we have baseball 2.0.

Tbh what records aren't set in stone as is? And every time one gets broken people get mad about it anyway

Things like reaching 500 HRs, 3,000 hits, etc.

All these ideas of adding teams or shortening the season have the same problem of just turning what's already the highest-variance postseason of any major sport into even more of a crapshoot. Maybe that's fun for some people, but I hate it. I want to see the very best teams play each other in long series and feel like the winner really earned it after 6 months of elite performance and then going head-to-head with other teams who did the same.

When you start letting near-.500 teams into the playoffs and letting them advance after getting lucky in a short series or single game, you're not only giving these undeserving teams a chance to win it all, you're increasing the chances that the very best regular season teams never even face each other in the playoffs because they all have to run a gauntlet of extra rounds that might be fun for the underdogs, but deny us the best matchups in the end. The old system of 1 wild card per league was pretty much the perfect balance of fun and fairness imo. If you can't win your division or even be the best of the 2nd place finishers, then sorry, you don't deserve to win the World Series that year just by having a hot month at the end.

The NBA playoffs are a terrible model btw. The only thing that salvages that laughable system is the fact that the series are so much lower-variance that the 5-8 seeds have virtually zero chance of going anywhere.

Oh yeah. As things are going no one's gonna hit those either, lol. K record s in reach tho

I don't think any triples or steals records will be in jeopardy.

How weird that 2 of the 3 answers to my trivia question are in the studio for TBS: Jimmy Rollins and Granderson. (the 20/20/20/20 category)

What percent of the time over say the last 20 to 50 years has the betting favorite at the beginning of the playoffs won the World Series, anybody know? Also how often the favorite in the Series wins it?

First round really needs be a best of 7. What's the reasoning behind best of 5? In an age of trying to generate more revenue instead of adding more WC teams just make the DS' 7 games. 5 is way too short

Sorry about a late response but this is a bit wrong - Anthony Gose's fastball is excellent, he just can't locate it consistently and poorly located pitches will get hammered at the major league level. Two things (these aren't very controversial) - 1) Velocity and location are a lot more important than movement for a 4-seamer and 2) the ideal movement on a 4-seamer is arm-side horizontally and upward vertically (relative to gravity/trajectory, so a pitch that moves down as little as much possible has the most upward movement from the batter's perspective). This means an ideal 4-seamer with great movement and the greatest separation from typical secondary offerings is going to look very straight from most angles. The camera angle here is also quite off-center (which can help you see horizontal movement better for RHP) and makes it virtually impossible to properly gauge the horizontal movement for LHP, especially subtle movements on 4-seamers.

All that stuff I quoted about the Brewers having no one even close to .300 hitter, nobody .400 OB, nobody hitting 30 homers, nobody 20 steals ... nothing.

28 half innings for Brewers O in post-season so far thru 2 innings today, 27 of them scoreless.

Think I was probably thinking of Chapman and how his ball comes in flat with no movement.


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Chapman has a ton of movement on his fastball. I've seen both horizontal and lateral movement on his fastball. When he's on he's completely unhittable.

His problem has always been wildness. Every pitcher is easier to hit when they fall behind 2-0.

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Firing and having no idea where it's going has long been a problem for him

Speaking of baseball (I broke out the DiMaggio 61 game hitting streak trick question to a Yankee fan at the poker table last night), here's a priceless clip of Albert Bad Arse Belle doing that Albert thang. Funny, he and his namesake Fat Albert might just be the two greatest RH hitters ever for a 10 year stretch. Look at his extra base hits totals ... nearly 800 with 1/2 the at bats of like Mays, Aaron, A-Rod, Pujols. GOATish I say. And if frequency of XBH was totaled for all, I bet he would be up there at the top with Ruth and Gehrig, and greater than all the righties.

He always looked like and reminded me so much of Mike Tyson. But I had never seen this at bat or this scenario in a baseball game. First the heater sailing dangerously up and in and it didn't scare him in the least. Then Albert being Albert.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=...albert%20belle

ha ha - pretty funny

Thank Christ you're not running the team

Still hate the Braves since the 90s. Long live the Expos!

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/...t102bqe7x6ay81

The article doesn't highlight it but this is quite insane and reflects extremely poorly on the players - 44% of the players thought someone other than Ohtani should be the player of the year? 29% of the players thought Vlad, who missed the playoffs and wasn't even really that close to winning the AL triple crown and was somewhere around the 4th most valuable player in the AL, should've been the player of the year?

Vlad played 161 games, led MLB in runs, HR, OBP, and SLG. The Blue Jays won 90+.

Guerrero was 3rd in OBP and 3rd in SLG, but either way, this is like voting for Ichiro in 2001 because he led the majors in batting average, steals and hits and his team won 116 games or Sammy Sosa because he led the majors in runs, rbis and total bases. It ignores that Barry Bonds had arguably the best season ever. Guerrero had a solid top-5 player type of season but Ohtani had a historic season of the kind that most people thought was no longer possible in the modern game. What he did was considered so impossible than even while he's doing it, there were people that were saying this isn't actually possible and he needs to stick to one or the other. There is no question who the player of the year was and for 44% of the players to vote for someone else - and Guerrero collecting 29% of the votes means it wasn't like players were just voting for their best teammates - is utterly absurd.

I wasn't a fan, but he definitely had a bunch of them so RIP.

obvious bias but remy was an incredible color commentator and when he stopped broadcasting the quality of experiencing sox games declined dramatically

absolutely loved him, never saw him in his playing days but he was a daily staple of my childhood and in boston easily in the top 10 favorite people associated with the sox all time

this sums it up perfectly.
The funniest was Smoltz saying he needs to focus on pitching, then Ohtani hits something like 12 home runs in 14 games right after. Of course a couple days later Pujols said Ohtani shoud only hit...

lol at whatever team decides to pick up this POS.