Baseball

	Jeremy - 9475 Posts 03/30/2006 @ 04:02:46 PM
It's not so much that it's always the same teams in baseball. Obviously with the number of teams that go to the playoffs there are going to be different teams in the mix. It's more that you know there are going to be a handful of teams that are always in the mix. How many teams that were in the Super Bowl are 3+ games south of .500 the following year? The Super Bowl vs World Series argument is somewhat moot since the Patriots are an anomaly. In baseball you know it could be your teams year, but they're going to have to get through the Red Sox or Yankees to do it. In football it could TRUELY be your year. It was a good read though.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - Ma'am, can you make sure your computer is turned on? 03/30/2006 @ 06:08:34 PM
I read it too. If you look at the last 4 years, you will see a few things. The Yankees, Red Sox, Twins, angels, Braves, Cardinals, and Astros have dominated the playoffs. Each of those years the AL East was Yankees-Red Sox, with only one of those years the Red Sox not being the wild card. Minnesota won three division titles. The A's and Angels have basically dominated the AL West. The Braves haven't finished second in their division since the first Bush Administration. The Cardinals have finished with the best record 2 of those four seasons and have won 3 of the last 4 NL Central Titles. In those 4 seasons, 13 different teams made the playoffs. 13 out of the 30 teams. One very good argument is that there has been a different World Series winner each of that last 5 or 6 years, while there have only been 3 different Super Bowl winners in that same stretch. Well, here's what I have to say. You can't script October. Just because a different team wins each year isn't an indication that there is more competitive balance throughout the entire league. If the same 8 teams made the playoffs 8 consecutive seasons, it would be possible to have 8 different winners. The NFL can boast a small handful of teams that have suffered years of losing records: Cardinals, Lions, Texans. Baseball has the Brewers, Pirates, Tigers, Royals, Devil Rays, Reds, Rockies, Orioles; 8 teams that haven't had winning seasons in over 5 years. The NFL has only had only 3 teams to go this long without a winning season. While it is obvious that the salary cap hasn't completely solved all the problems in the NBA or even the NFL, you can't convince me that MLB doesn't have a competetive balance problem.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	icbeast - 3619 Posts 03/30/2006 @ 07:05:56 PM
Football sucks because half of each roster changes every year. And at least part of that is players that are dropped or traded for the sole purpose of creating cap room. It has reached an equal though different level of lameness as baseball. At least with the Brewers I can actually have hope that they can keep their core group of young players together and be contenders soon. And the Indians are in a similar situation, having signed key young players to longer-term contracts. With the Packers all I can hope for is Favre to make up his mind soon, Walker to disappear, and Thompson not to totally mess up the draft. I can't even try to think ahead to what the roster will look like to start this year, much less what the next 2-3 years will be like. That kind of random and constant shifting has created a different kind of competitive balance problem in the NFL. Everyone is just trying to catch lightning in a bottle instead of building up a powerhouse by slowly collecting and developing talent. Which is probably a reflection of American society in general. Everyone wants to reap the rewards without putting in the work. But to get back to the article, I think the overall talent pool in MLB has improved dramatically over the last 10 years. I can only believe that the influx of foreign players has raised the average talent level in general, which most likely makes a larger talent percentage increase on the bad teams than it does on the good teams. So team salaries are still varying a lot but there is more talent left over for the mid-lower teams. Plus, half the players on the Yankees and Red Sox are just plain overpaid which deceptively blows things out of proportion. I don't mind that the same teams seem to have dominated the playoffs in baseball over the last 4 years. When you put together a good team it should be able to have a run of more than one year (unless its the Marlins). And to keep it going as long as the Braves have, it obviously isn't being solely driven by money. They've had numerous stars defect, but they develop talent and find guys that are ready to step up.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jon - 1000000 posts (and counting!) 04/01/2006 @ 12:16:54 AM
I had a really long comment full of ideas and arguments and stuff and I hit the button to post it and the website was down. To make matters worse I was about a half second away from copying it so that I wouldn't completely lose the comment, but as my finger reached for the c key it all disappeared on me. I don't have the desire to retype it now, but maybe later. It was great though.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Jeremy - Pie Racist 04/01/2006 @ 04:36:56 PM
i bet.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - 6225 Posts 04/03/2006 @ 09:27:24 AM
Excerpts from a Journal Sentinal article: And at last, today, it's here. Pro football's Super Bowl is bigger, college basketball's Final Four is rowdier, but baseball's opening day is surely sweeter - rippling through big-league cities from coast-to-coast, bringing spring to New York and Boston, Atlanta and Houston, Seattle and San Francisco. But there's more. We need baseball. ----------------- Oh yeah, the best time of the whole entire year is upon us. Opening day!!!!!!!		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - Get Up! Get outta here! Gone! 04/03/2006 @ 04:26:41 PM
Brewers Win!!! 1-0. Perfect start.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - 6225 Posts 04/04/2006 @ 11:03:50 PM
At this exact moment, at this exact time, the Brewers own the best record in baseball. 2-0!!!!!		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - 6225 Posts 04/06/2006 @ 12:44:20 AM
make that 3-0. Brewers swept the Pirates.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.

	Scott - On your mark...get set...Terrible! 04/06/2006 @ 12:58:17 AM
Derrick Turnbow is on pace for 162 saves. JJ Hardy is on pace for 106 homeruns. Damian Miller is on pace for 162 rbi. Man, what a start!!! *note the unnecessary jubilation for the first 3 games of the season. But still, I get excited.		Rate this comment Yours: Rated 0 times.