You're right: Diamondbacks shouldn't be in World Series
And yet somehow, they are. It's not entirely fair, but it's the way the system works.
The Diamondbacks displayed an ice sculpture with their “Embrace The Chaos” slogan during Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.
Also:
Why did the Giants fire their manager? Why did the Padres let their manager walk?
Dealing with the post-cable TV blues
HEART OF THE ORDER
Are these baseball’s best two teams?
On April 23, 1962, Jay Hook earned himself a tiny piece of baseball immortality.
OK, that’s stretching it a bit. Let’s try again.
On April 23, 1962, Jay Hook became the answer to a trivia question — and arguably a trivial trivia question at that — as the first pitcher to win a game for the New York Mets.
Hook was masterful against the Pirates that day. He pitched a complete game, allowing a run and five hits. He struck out only two, but one of his victims was Roberto Clemente.
The Mets managed 14 hits, 12 of them singles, with four sacrifice flies (ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian would have gone nuts if he was there) in a 9-1 win.
Clearly, the Mets were the better team that day at Forbes Field.
The 9-1 win upped their record to 1-9. They went on to lose 120 games, a mark that has been challenged but never exceeded.
The Pirates had won the World Series 18 months earlier.
In fact in 18 games against the Pirates that season, the Mets won only one other time.
We all know one game is not a fair test in baseball. Nor for that matter is a series.
Fairest test
The fairest test comes over the course of many games.
So if you really want to determine the best team what you would do is have all 30 play each of the teams six times, three home and three away. Whichever team wins the most is the champion. End of story. In the event of a tie, they share the title.
That’s the way they do it in the English Premier League (soccer). And we are always being told how much better Europeans do things.
Of course, a 174-game season is a bit long, but there would be no postseason. The D-backs, for example, have played 174 games going into the World Series.
So the 174-game schedule with no postseason is doable.
And even if you had such a setup, there would still be complaints. If. for example, you caught the D-backs this season in May — when they went 17-10 — you would find a less difficult opponent than in July — when they went 8-16.
Wild card vs. wild card
Of course, we haven’t set up our MLB playoff system around creating a true test to determine the best team.
(Actually, I am pretty sure the best team was the Atlanta Braves. They were the best on paper with a lineup that featured Ronald Acuna Jr. Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna, Austin Riley, and Ozzie Albies, and a pitching staff that included Spencer Strider, Charlie Morton, Bryce Elder, and Max Fried. They were the best on the field, with 104 wins and a plus-219 run difference.)
The playoff system is designed to create drama. So we have a postseason with elimination rounds.
There, of course, has to be some balance. Baseball has a 162-game season. You can’t make players and teams and fans slog through that, and render it meaningless.
So we take the three division winners in each league and the three non-division winners in each league with the best records. That’s the cutoff.
This year, the Texas Rangers, the fifth seed in the American League, and the Arizona Diamondbacks, the sixth seed in the National League, are in the Series.
This is just the third time that two wild-card teams have made it to The Fall Classic (2002 and 2014 were the others).
More wild cards
As recently as 2011 — when there was only one wild-card team in each league — neither team would have made the playoffs.
Under the system from 1995 (technically 1994 but the postseason was called because of the players’ strike) through 2011, four teams in each league made the playoffs — the three division champions and one wild card, the second-place team with the best record.
In 2012, a second wild card in each league was added. The two wild-card teams played in a one-game playoff. I thought it was a good system. It gave an incentive to win the division instead of settling for the wild card.
The real reason for the change was the desire for a winner-take-all game, which would add drama.
Some people didn’t think a one-game playoff was enough of a reward for earning a postseason berth.
ESPN was willing to pony up for another full round of playoffs so MLB added a third wild card in 2022, with two wild cards playing each other and the last qualifier playing the division champ with the worst record.
So far it has been great for fans of the Phillies, Rangers, and D-backs, but tough for fans of the Braves, Dodgers, and Orioles.
The fact that Arizona is in the World Series has some people questioning the format. The Diamondbacks’ 84 regular-season victories are the third-lowest total for a World Series team in a year that saw MLB play a full season.
Only the 1973 Mets (82 wins) and the 2006 Cardinals (83 wins) had fewer. The Mets lost to the Athletics in seven games, and the Cardinals beat the Tigers in five games.
I have proposed a different system for determining MLB’s champion that would include splitting the season into thirds and having a “Pennant Chase” similar to NASCAR’s Chase.
But no matter what, if you want more teams involved in the postseason — which means more teams contending for playoff spots late in the season — and more rounds of playoffs, you are going to have to accept the possibility that a team with a less-than-stellar regular season record might reach the World Series or win it all.
BONUS FRAMES
The Giants, Padres managerial shuffle
The No. 1 reason for firing a manager is he doesn’t win enough. But what constitutes enough?
That largely depends on expectations.
If a team is perceived as thin on talent, the front office tends to be more lenient with the manager. And the front office cuts a manager less slack if the team is loaded with talent.
So by that logic, Gabe Kapler should have been lauded for keeping the Giants. who have a threadbare roster in contention for a wild-card berth until near the end of this season.
The Giants’ 78-81 mark this season under Kapler was downright heroic.
Kapler was fired three days before the season ended.
He also should have earned a longer grace period based on the team’s incredible 107-55 record two seasons ago. That was accomplished with a more talented roster than this year’s bunch, but still hardly a juggernaut.
The Padres finished this seaosn with a better record, 82-80, than the Giants. But the Padres entered the season with the third-highest payroll in MLB after going to the National League Championship Series last season.
Yet the Padres didn’t fire Bob Melvin, although he won’t be back.
He’s taking the Giants’ job.
Kapler deficiencies
No one directly involved is saying what truly led to the parting of ways.
Giants baseball ops boss Farhan Zaidi and Kapler worked together for four seasons with the Giants and another three with the Dodgers. Was Zaidi just tired of Kapler?
The Giants front office is quite analytics-oriented. And there is often a clash between the number crunchers and the dugout these days. But Kapler may be the most analytics-oriented field manager in the game.
The Athletic speculated that perhaps Kapler was too numbers-oriented and the team wants a manager who will offer a different perspective and push back.
New direction for the Padres?
Melvin was still under contract with the Padres, but they let him interview and leave for a division rival. So they must not have been too keen on keeping him.
And it is beginning to look as though Melvin’s departure is a sign of a different direction for the Padres.
Reports of the team talking with the Yankees about trading them star outfielder Juan Soto began breaking shortly after Melvin was hired by the Giants.
Old men yelling at clouds
Ron Darling speaks for me when he complains about the new streaming universe
Late in the Mets’ lost season, I was watching their TV broadcast. The Mets TV crew had not done the previous day’s game. It was streamed by Peacock.
Play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen asked color guy Ron Darling if he watched the previous game.
Darling sheepishly admitted he hadn’t. He’d just watched the highlights. Why?
Because he just didn’t want to buy another damned app. “I know it’s only about 5 bucks, but I’m just tired of it,” he said.
Cohen waited for a pause. “Peacock is a part owner of SNY (the Mets cable channel),’’ Cohen said. “YOU can get it free.”
Even free, navigating the streaming universe is frustrating for us oldsters.
What the youngsters wrought
I miss basic cable.
I know this is controversial because a) this is truly a first-world problem and b) the younger generation sees this trend of “cord cutting” as their great contribution to civilization.
If I have any younger readers, I will lose them. And I may be the subject of online ridicule. They will call me “Boomer.” Sure, when I worked in newspapers, people would call me up and scream at me. But online ridicule is much worse. At least that is what I am told.
Still, I must be true to myself.
Everything in the streaming world is divided up into annoying little pieces. I got Fubo for baseball season because they carried the Bally Arizona. It was an extra fee, but the channel showed the Diamondbacks. Then Bally Arizona decided to stop paying for the TV rights to Diamondbacks games. So MLB took over. So I pay an extra fee to Fubo for that.
Fubo is good for sports, except it doesn’t offer TNT or TBS, the TV homes for the National League Division Series and National League Championship Series. So I got Sling for the month. Sling doesn’t carry regional sports channels.
There are occasional issues with buffering a picture freezes. And switching from one game to another is impractical. It’s no longer a case of hitting a couple of buttons, it takes about three minutes.
I know these aren’t the biggest problems in the world. And with the Verizon cube for Internet service, I am saving a lot of money each month (though still spending plenty).
Still, I thought new technology would make things easier — and it has been the opposite.