Sports question (Best-of-7 series)

[RIP Robert H Bork]

Inspired by a discussion in another thread.

Well?

[RIP Robert H Bork]

None of the above. Prefer no series. Just play the game and win or lose.

It takes a very myopic worldview to not realize that that's a terrible idea for a great many sports.

Correct. The more games there are, the more likely the true better team will emerge as the series winner.

In that case (and I agree), scrap the play-offs entirely. Surely the regular season provides the best opportunity to determine which club is best, considering how many games are played?

I'm not opposed to this, actually. I do wish baseball would get rid of the playoffs and just have the top team from each league play in the World Series, but money forfends.

Amen, and this is why I hate Bud Selig. We should have less, not more, playoff teams. If it weren't for his move to an 8-team tournament in the first place, we wouldn't complain about baseball going into November. His current move to a 10-team postseason is only done for the attention ("now, even a third place team can win it all", as if that is a good thing!) and money.

Or, better yet, go old-fashioned. Scrap interleague play, send the best team from each league into a single-round playoff (the World Series), and give home field to the team with the better regular season.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

So? If you're in a tough division, too bad. My team-of-choice is in the same division as yours, and we'd be playoff contenders even more frequently in a 16-team tournament. I still don't favor it. If you want a playoff berth, go win your division first.

The 16th best (or, in other words, the 15th worst) team finished worse than half of the teams! And as such, it should not be allowed to compete for the title. This even makes it possible for a losing-record team to win the championship. That's not right, and it's not fair.

A team that's in the bottom half of a league shouldn't have the chance to luck-out and become world champion. The playoffs are and should remain only a contest between teams that have already proven their worth in the regular season.

By the way, a true pennant race (like the American League in 1967) is always more interesting than a tournament, no matter how large.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

None of the above. Prefer no series. Just play the game and win or lose.

It takes a very myopic worldview to not realize that that's a terrible idea for a great many sports.

Correct. The more games there are, the more likely the true better team will emerge as the series winner.

In that case (and I agree), scrap the play-offs entirely. Surely the regular season provides the best opportunity to determine which club is best, considering how many games are played?

I'm not opposed to this, actually. I do wish baseball would get rid of the playoffs and just have the top team from each league play in the World Series, but money forfends.

Amen, and this is why I hate Bud Selig. We should have less, not more, playoff teams. If it weren't for his move to an 8-team tournament in the first place, we wouldn't complain about baseball going into November. His current move to a 10-team postseason is only done for the attention ("now, even a third place team can win it all", as if that is a good thing!) and money.

Or, better yet, go old-fashioned. Scrap interleague play, send the best team from each league into a single-round playoff (the World Series), and give home field to the team with the better regular season.

Oh, god, yes. The idea that now a third-place team can win the World Series infuriates me. I agree with all of your post except for the part at the very end; baseball has never given home-field advantage to the team with the better regular-season record because the two leagues don't (or aren't supposed to) play each other; you can't compare a 100-win team from one league and a 98-win team from the other, since they don't face the same competition and either could be better than the other. Home-field advantage will always be determined essentially at random; in that respect, giving it to the league that wins the All-Star Game is no worse than alternating each year, plus it makes the All-Star Game a little more interesting. That move might be the only thing Selig's done that I'm totally fine with.

Alright, fair enough. I, for one, don't like the All-Star rule.

It could be true that a better regular season might be caused by poorer competition within one's own league. I still favor the even-odd rule if the regular season records are tied and if the head to head record is tied (although, if there's no interleague play, that doesn't apply).

[RIP Robert H Bork]

It must really anger you that an 8th place team is about to win the Stanley Cup.

Me or Xahar?

I certainly don't like the fact that an 8th-seed team is winning the championship, though as I said in the Stanley Cup Final thread, that's only half the problem. The 'point' system is also a big reason. Even with a 16-team tournament, LA wouldn't be in the playoffs if W-L records were used and if overtime losses were treated just the same as any other loss.

For instance, the Kings won only 40 games out of 82 in the regular season (a losing record), while the Dallas Stars (a non-playoff team) won 42 games (a winning record). Yet because of overtime losses, the Kings are 1 win away from a title while a better team from the same conference is out of the playoffs.