Phillies 2018 Season News/Notes/Discussion

[zambonir]

Once you do that you may as well not even have divisions for seeding purposes.

[Patchmk88]

That’s fine. What I originally proposed is basically identical to the NFL playoffs except for the fact that they have 4 divisions instead of 3 - maybe the MLB could go to 4 division. I just think that the NBA has too many playoff teams, the MLB doesn’t have enough, and the NFL is pretty much perfect. Plus I hate the 1 game wild card series.

[andyb]

I saw an interesting proposal of a 2-game series in which the lower seed has to win both games on the road. That would lessen the unfairness of a really good wild card team losing a freak game to a lesser squad.

One could play these 2-game series Monday-Wednesday with the full series still starting Thursday and Friday. I know it is part of baseball history, but I would also be completely fine if baseball eliminated all play-in games even for division titles. Every other sport uses head to head and strength of schedule tie-breakers to decide playoff spots and baseball should just do this rather than allow an extra day after the season that pushes the entire playoff schedule back a day.

[Philsmania]

At first, I was very uneasy with the one game "play-in" but I like how there is a penalty of sorts for being a wild card.

[zambonir]

Sure but why should the Yankees have to play a wild card game instead of Cleveland? I know the NFL rewards weak division winners too but they have almost no chance of advancing, whereas in a baseball play-in you just never know. And the schedules/numbers of games are so different.

If it was open seeding not only would the Yankees be ahead of Cleveland but they'd be in a race with Houston for #2.

[julio]

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Phillies Acquire 1B Justin Bour from Marlins

[el-pietro]

Baseball isn't fair. You can't have playoffs based on overall record while teams play unbalanced schedules. The Yankees have to play the Red Sox more than anyone outside their division but they also get to play Baltimore to balance that out. If you want to move to a situation where the best teams get in regardless of division then you have to solve the schedule problem first.
The Yankees will get into the playoffs if they have one of the best records due to the wild card

[andyb]

If baseball ever goes to 32 teams I really hope they have 4 8-team divisions as opposed to 8 4-team divisions. With 8 team divisions you could have 2 division winners and then 4 wild cards in each league. Maybe give the 2nd place teams in the division home field in a 3-game series against 2 extra wild cards (or home in the 2-game series above).

The schedule is almost a little too unbalanced now for my tastes. 12 games against teams in a larger division seems better than 19 in a small division.

[philsphan67]

The lower seed having to win two games is Smoltz's idea - not sure he first thought of it, but he has been pushing it. He has also been all over reducing mound visits for the past two years.

Anyway, there is a schedule out there for 32 teams and 156 games. Link below.

I personally think 4 divisions (2 in each league) and 4 wild cards is the way to go. It is really unfair for the weak division winner (Cle this year) to have a bye, while a team in a tough division has to play a "shoot out" game.

Mapping out a 32-team league should MLB pursue expansion

[el-pietro]

JP reinstated according to an alert from the MLB app

[el-pietro]

No one goes down until Bour gets out there.

Matt Gelb (MattGelb)

[andyb]

Some interesting ideas in that proposal but I do think it misses some of the points.

-Full realignment is just not something people wants. Stick to the current leagues maybe move a team or two to reduce travel.
-156 games is an issue. But tell the players to give up 4%-5% of their salary and it is a non-starter. Give the players a greater share of revenue and maybe that is possible. To me though, the number of games is not that important because both the players and the owners don't want to make less money
- 8 team divisions. Good. Fewer weak division champions.
- Revised schedule. 12 in own division. 3 against everyone else. I am fine with the 12 (or 13 if you go back to 162 game) schedule in division. But just play 6 against the other division in your league and then 3 against one of the 8-team divisions in the other league. Never liked the rivalry series (like NY vs NY) because it is unfair to some teams
-Playoffs - Really want more than 1-game wild card series. It is just too random. Again eliminating the play-in day (and maybe all travel if the wild card series is 3 games) is the way to go. 3 game series all at the home park of the higher WC seed.

I'd be shocked if something like this happens though. Just too many conflicting motivations among the parties involved.

[tom81]

I think it’s a good possibility that the Phillies make another trade before August 31. I think they look to a bat bench with pop.

[zambonir]

Gotta be Kingery right? I mean, I know business is business but it would be cold to make JP fly all the way to San Diego and then ship him back. Or will they dump a pitcher until the doubleheader? (At which point they could send down Crawford or Kingery for the spot starter and then swap the spot starter for Ramos.)

[el-pietro]

I assume so, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was Quinn. We have learned that positions mean little to nothing to the organisation, at least in 2018.

[zambonir]

They're so high on Quinn though, I doubt it. He's useful for double-switches and defensive replacing and pinch-running. Kingery less so.

[Austinfan]

Kingery makes sense b/c he could play everyday and try to regain his stroke instead of sitting on the bench.

[el-pietro]

Just looking at the rotation schedule for the rest of the season. They will need a spot starter on the 19th of August versus the Mets or else Velasquez goes on 4 days rest.

If they follow the same order then for the rest of the season the final series against the Braves would be Velsaquez, Eflin and Nola. Arrieta would be ready to go for game one of any playoff series. The last 12 games of the season would all be on regular rest.
They could of course adjust this in September quite easily when rosters expand to make sure they have Nola and Arrieta ready to open a playoff series.

[andyb]

Gotta imagine they would hold Nola for a wild card game if his start did not mean anything for the division. There is enough flexibility in the schedule that they could position Nola for that. I am actually thinking our competition for the division is more likely to be the Nats than the Braves but obviously that is an unknown at the moment.

[zambonir]

We may have the power to put the Nats out of it or keep them in it this month.