2023 MLB Postseason Discussion

[BrewerFan]

7 hours ago, wibadgers23 said:

Yeah I agree with you. I meant for the Dodgers, not us.

Ok...my mistake. I see what you were saying. 

 

7 hours ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

Burnes won the Cy young in 2021, and has not been in the conversation for that award in either of the past two seasons because he hasn't been consistently dominant since.

He's a healthy, 28 year old pitcher who led the NL in Whip, 2nd in BAA, 5th in ERA and he's got a Cy Young recently, relatively few innings.

When(if) a team trades for him, how is he going to be described? "____acquire Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes." 

But I guess how he's described is less important than the return...which hopefully brings back at least one high ceiling arm in the upper levels and a couple more in the lower levels. 

 

[Brewcrew82]

Mitch Garver is someone I'd be interested in on a reasonable deal. Can play 1B, C and DH as the right-handed compliment to Yelich. Dude crushes the ball and gets on base. 

[sveumrules]

16 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

Mitch Garver is someone I'd be interested in on a reasonable deal. Can play 1B and DH as the right-handed compliment to Yelich. Dude crushes the ball and gets on base. 

Age (33) and injury concerns (career high is 359 PA in a season) will probably limit his deal, but he can definitely rake with a 138 wRC+ over 344 PA this year and a 130 wRC+ over 1,242 PA going back to 2019.

Maybe he gets something like 2 years for $25M?

MLBTR article about him today noted he only caught 25 games over the last four months after returning from injury, but he could be primary DH/backup C to open the season then slide into more of a DH only role once Quero is ready.

Only has 51 career MLB innings at 1B, but would imagine he’d be fine out there once a week or so if needed.

[Brock Beauchamp]

59 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Age (33) and injury concerns (career high is 359 PA in a season) will probably limit his deal, but he can definitely rake with a 138 wRC+ over 344 PA this year and a 130 wRC+ over 1,242 PA going back to 2019.

Maybe he gets something like 2 years for $25M?

MLBTR article about him today noted he only caught 25 games over the last four months after returning from injury, but he could be primary DH/backup C to open the season then slide into more of a DH only role once Quero is ready.

Only has 51 career MLB innings at 1B, but would imagine he’d be fine out there once a week or so if needed.

Garver just can't stay healthy and it's a bummer. He was a menace behind the plate early in his career and the Twins - they're kinda Brewers-lite in this regard - have a knack for taking hit-first "catchers" and turning them into legitimate MLB catchers. Garver was their first success story and four years ago, his future was as bright as could be... and he hasn't played in more than 87 games in a season since.

[wiguy94]

So far the teams to earn a bye are 1-5 in the DS. I honestly kind of hope all the WC teams win and advance to the CS then the MLB gets backlash from the teams they ditch this current playoff format.  

Go back to 4 teams make the playoffs in each league. Then bump the DS up to a 7 game series to counteract getting rid of the WC round.

Baseball is just not a sport where getting 5 extra days off after the season is an advantage. This isn’t the NFL where getting the bye and getting your team healthy can be a huge advantage. 

[torts]

7 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

So far the teams to earn a bye are 1-5 in the DS. I honestly kind of hope all the WC teams win and advance to the CS then the MLB gets backlash from the teams they ditch this current playoff format.  

Go back to 4 teams make the playoffs in each league. Then bump the DS up to a 7 game series to counteract getting rid of the WC round.

Baseball is just not a sport where getting 5 extra days off after the season is an advantage. This isn’t the NFL where getting the bye and getting your team healthy can be a huge advantage. 

Or add two more teams, make the top teams play those teams instead of having 5 days off.  Cincy v braves and LA vs cubs.  Make wc 5 games and DS 5 games.  

The fans will be there (well, except in Tampa)

[Fear The Chorizo]

8 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

So far the teams to earn a bye are 1-5 in the DS. I honestly kind of hope all the WC teams win and advance to the CS then the MLB gets backlash from the teams they ditch this current playoff format.  

Go back to 4 teams make the playoffs in each league. Then bump the DS up to a 7 game series to counteract getting rid of the WC round.

Baseball is just not a sport where getting 5 extra days off after the season is an advantage. This isn’t the NFL where getting the bye and getting your team healthy can be a huge advantage. 

I've long thought the solution to this, which would put much more value on how a team performs over a 162-game marathon regular season, is to expand MLB to include 2 more teams (Nashville, Charlotte) shift both leagues to 4- four team divisions and then have those winners play best of 7 series in the divisional and LCS rounds.

NL East - Mets, Phillies, nationals, Piraes

NL South - Marlins, Braves. Cards. Nashville

NL Central - Brewers, Cubs, Reds, Rockies

NL West - Dodgers, Padres, Giants, Dbacks

AL East - Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays

AL South - Rays, Charlotte, KC, Astros 

AL Central - Twins, Tigers, Cleveland, White Sox

AL West - Rangers, Mariners, Angels, A's

3 wildcards on top of 3 division winners per league had made regular season success and playoff seeding meaningless with how random baseball in October can be.

[owbc]

The playoff field is never going to shrink, it’s only going to expand further if they make changes.

Rangers over Orioles isn’t really an upset so I would argue the “favorites” are 3-3 so far. Too early to judge who will win the other series but does anyone actually want to see the other three higher seeds win besides their own fans? 

The easiest solution is to make the DS seven games. 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

1 hour ago, owbc said:

The playoff field is never going to shrink, it’s only going to expand further if they make changes.

Rangers over Orioles isn’t really an upset so I would argue the “favorites” are 3-3 so far. Too early to judge who will win the other series but does anyone actually want to see the other three higher seeds win besides their own fans? 

The easiest solution is to make the DS seven games. 

Agree with this in terms of being stuck with the larger playoff field. A couple of ways to improve, from my perspective:

1) Love what the NBA is doing with the in-season tournament this year. I'd love to see MLB take a page from soccer's book and have in-season competitions that matter. You could even do what the NBA is doing and have the games count double (as both part of the in-season competition and as regular season games). MLB could divide teams into 5 groups of 6 teams, top two teams in each group advance, and you play knockout-style three-game series. There are some scheduling quirks you'd need to figure out, but, at the end of the day, you're taking about maybe 30 games of the schedule counting as a separate competition with a trophy. Short of doing promotion/relegation (never happen), I think this is a cool way to add some juice to the regular season. You could even offer big incentives like the winner gets an automatic ticket to the postseason or something. There's just a lot of fun you could do.

2) I'd love to see division winners always get byes. To do this, you just shift to two divisions per league. You could do a radical realignment and even base divisions on market-size or TV contract instead of just geography. Or you could go geographic and do away with "leagues." Four division winners, best six other teams, and there's a random draw for matchups. I'd go with East, Midwest, South, and West as divisions, so the Brewers would be with both Chicago teams, Twins, Cardinals, Royals, and two of Reds/Guardians/Tigers. Probably have to expansion to 32 at some point to make for even, 8-team divisions, but keeping leagues and doing 7-8 in each league could work too. South would probably have 7: Rays, Marlins, Astros, Rangers, Orioles, Nats, Braves. West: Arizona, Seattle, San Diego, Giants, Vegas, two LA teams, Colorado. East: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Pirates, one of Tigers/Reds/Guardians, Phillies, Mets.

Just ideas, but I'd really love to see #1 happen. It's a great way to keep fan interest up in some markets where maybe the Tigers get hot in a competition despite being out of it overall. And it gives smaller markets another way to measure success. The best part about following the Premier League is that, even though only about 4 teams have any real shot to win it, a lot of teams can find joy and success simply by staying up and avoiding relegation. Some of that spirit can apply in baseball.

[nate82]

10 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Go back to 4 teams make the playoffs in each league. Then bump the DS up to a 7 game series to counteract getting rid of the WC round.

Not going to happen.  If they make a change it will be adding more teams to the playoffs not less.

[nate82]

I would love to see two more teams in the playoffs plus adding a one game playoffs for the draft order.  The first 8 picks would be up for grabs with reverse standings order.  The worst team in MLB getting the 1 seed etc.  

The final game for the #1 pick would be at a neutral site rotating around teams with domed or retractable roof stadiums.  So Milwaukee, Houston, Phoenix, etc. would host the games kind of like a SB rotation.  No 40 man requirements and participation in the games doesn’t count towards service time.  max roster size of 30.  If the MVP is a top 100 or former top 100 prospect within 1-year of the end of the season then that team gets an additional pick after comp B picks or $500k in international bonus money.  Only revenue receiving teams and teams not over the spending cap at the beginning of the season can participate in this tournament.  

[Brewcrew82]

Easy solution is to go with the 2020 playoff format. 

We all know MLB is never going to reduce the field or the number of games. 

[wiguy94]

Just now, Brewcrew82 said:

Easy solution is to go with the 2020 playoff format. 

We all know MLB is never going to reduce the field or the number of games. 

Yeah I just realized that people complaining about the bye is probably playing right into the MLB's hands to expand to a 16 team playoff.

[sveumrules]

This seems like another case where people might be attributing way too much meaning to a tiny sample of playoff games. 

Historically, playoff teams with 4 or more days rest are 24-11 when facing a team with 2 or fewer days rest.

From 2015 through last year teams with 4 or more days rest had a 15 game winning streak when facing teams with 2 or fewer days rest.

[BruisedCrew]

I don’t think you can attribute the success the Phillies have had in the playoffs last year and so far this year to not getting the byes. 
 

They have a lineup that highlights how deficient the Brewers are in that area, and in the playoffs their biggest weakness (lack of pitching depth) can’t really be exploited. 

[Brewcrew82]

38 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don’t think you can attribute the success the Phillies have had in the playoffs last year and so far this year to not getting the byes. 
 

They have a lineup that highlights how deficient the Brewers are in that area, and in the playoffs their biggest weakness (lack of pitching depth) can’t really be exploited. 

Their run prevention unit is actually preventing runs. The Brewers' unit, which was the best in the league all season, faltered at the worst time. That's the biggest difference right now. 

Brewers actually hit pretty well against the D-backs. They just fell victim to bad luck and timely defense by the D-backs. 

[BruisedCrew]

Great play to end the Braves comeback win over the Phils. 

[wiguy94]

Dbacks up 3-0 in the 1st inning. Why do we always lose to the team that happens to go on the hottest run every playoffs?

[sveumrules]

They mentioned during the game that the Braves scoreless streak to open the postseason was the longest for a 100 Win team since the 1986 Mets…things turned out okay for them.

[Brewcrew82]

13 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Dbacks up 3-0 in the 1st inning. Why do we always lose to the team that happens to go on the hottest run every playoffs?

I wanted the Dbacks over the Marlins, as I thought the Marlins were the better bet to be that team.

[Bulldogboy]

Dodgers in big trouble but they have bats so it's never over. Braves proved that also tonight. That's what hurt Brewers. Once they got down you knew it was over.

[wiguy94]

Dodgers with a combined 2 IP from their Game 1 and 2 SP. Just crazy. They are pretty fortunate that the NLDS has an extra off day or their bullpen would be pretty wiped out by game 3 of the series.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

The Diamondbacks appear well positioned to carry on the tradition of the team that eliminated us going on a deep postseason run. We have never been knocked out by a team that didn't play in the World Series and most of them won it. 

[markedman5]

Freeman takes strike 3 right down the middle 

[markedman5]