In this post I flip the whole playoffs notion on its head.
First off, About 2 weeks ago I endured one of the most taxing
experiences in human life: going through a fantasy baseball playoff season. It
was only 2 weeks, but it felt like forever. Happened 2 weks ago,but I’m still
recovering from it.
1.)
Have to set your lineup every day.
2.)
Have to interpret weather patterns and cold fronts
moving through the Midwest to the East Coast to see how it will affect the
evening Tuesday games.
3.)
Makes me interested in Astros v. Marlins at the end of
the season when both teams are a combined 64.5 games out.
4.)
There are some young guys who EXCEL at the end of the
season for various reasons, either because they’ve finally been given some
playing time, they’re playing for a new contract, the pitchers they face are
September call-ups, etc.
5.)
Pitchers’ starts get moved around a LOT. And at a whim.
6.)
You get texts from your opponent all the time regarding
what happened.
7.)
Anything can happen in a one-week playoff.
Unfortunately, the best team doesn’t always win. (Just ask the managers in my
USC Law league, who saw a regular season with 2 dominant teams who got byes as
the #1 and #2 seeds only to see the #6 seed beat the No. 3, No. 2, and No.1
seeds in a epic run in the playoffs where each matchup was decided on the last
day, even the last game, of the week. *See note below about playoffs.
8.)
You need to be not working to fully enjoy it.
Unfortunately, I won’t have that luxury for about 45 years.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you like
them,) a playoff system is an imperfect way of deciding who the “best team” is.
The playoffs are exciting, they get great ratings, and they provide some sort
of way to “resolve” the season in an elimination format, in a sort of “do-or-die”
system where there’s a winner, or a loser. As exciting as it is, its flaws are
that it 1.) neutralizes the regular season as almost irrelevant besides
determining “byes” and who actually makes the playoffs. Important to narrow a
30-team field to say, 16 teams (like in the NBA), but it really doesn’t reward
the teams who had a great regular season, as 2.) the moment the playoffs begin,
the regular season becomes irrelevant. Basically, 80% of the season (in most
sports) is the regular season, and it’s totally made irrelevant as soon as the
playoffs begin. 3.)There is no “clutch” playoff team. I’m in the camp where
teams don’t magically “become a great playoff team because they’re clutch,” it’s
just luck. Teams get hot all the team, at the beginning of the season, in the
middle of the season, whatever, “great playoff teams” just happen to get hot at
the best time, the end of the season. There’s ways to increase that chance of “being
great in the postseason,” by saving your studs or trying to get the most
favorable schedule, for instance, but teams inherently don’t just “get to
another level” in the playoffs. 4.) It gives random, less-deserving winners. There’s
been a rash of teams both in my fantasy leagues and real sports. 2011 St. Louis
Cardinals, 2012 New York Giants, 2010 San Francisco Giants, 2011 Green Bay
Packers, just to name a few: had mediocre regular seasons, barely squeezed into
the playoffs, then made epic runs through the playoffs. Great television,
certainly, and in a way “deserved” because they beat the so-called “best teams,”
but were they really the “best” team that year? What if their one-month run
happened in the early parts of the regular season? It’d just be a “nice winning
streak,” nothing special. It makes us totally forget about the teams who were “best
from start to almost-finish (right before they lost in the playoffs) of those
years, including the 2011 Philadelphia Phillies, the 2012 Green Bay Packers,
etc. Certainly we like playoff system in that they “pit the best teams against
each other at the end of the season and may the best team win,” but let’s just
remember what it is: an imperfect way of determining a champion of a sport.
The most “pure” system of determining a champion of a
league, in my opinion, is actually the college football system. (where there’s
no playoffs---- I know, like 85% of the world disagrees with me). Remember,
though, I’m saying “purest” or “most pure” (whichever one is grammatically
correct), not “ the best.” In college football, EVERY game matters in terms of
trying to win a championship because if you lose, you are out of the national
championship hunt. The regular season IS the playoff; no games are irrelevant,
every game could end your season. (Witness USC @ Stanford 2012). The best 2
teams that play for the national championship at the end of the year are the 2
teams that have played “the best” throughout the season, managing no losses or
one loss to a worse team. Now, obviously the BCS has BIG problems like why a
certain 12-1 team gets to go to the national title game rather than another
12-1 team, but in terms of allowing the regular season to dictate the
champions, that is pure.
However, for my sports viewing, I’m all for playoffs. It
means high stakes, great action, and an excuse to sit around with friends
watching athletes compete at the highest level with everything on the line. I’m
a fan.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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