In reference to five-game series in the first round of the MLB playoffs, pitcher Tom Glavine had an odd comment:
“A seven-game series creates an atmosphere where, most of the time, the better team is going to win,” Glavine says.
“In the best-of-five, there is way too much of a chance the better team will not win.”
Isn’t the purpose of the series to determine the better team? The team that wins the required number of games is the better team.
The problem is that Glavine’s definition of “better” is not readily apparent in his comment. Perhaps Glavine has formulated a superior method of choosing the better team, thus rendering playoff games antiquated. If so, it shouldn’t be too long before Bud Selig changes the playoffs to the Glavine System.
In the meantime, despite Glavine’s mindset, let’s continue to enjoy the wonderful uncertainty of the playoffs. After all, Glavine should know as well as anyone that apparent superiority on paper doesn’t actually prove the better team; in the playoffs, only wins prove the better team. Anything else is simply an opinion.
Just ask the Yankees and the Mets.
I might have to agree with Glavine. It doens’t make sense to me to play 162 games in the regular season and then go right into a 5 game series. I do agree with you about creating unpredicability.
With a season as long as baseball’s, any series will seem short. A five-game series in football would be eternal because that’s nearly one-third the existing schedule. In baseball, it’s not practical to avoid that sort of shock. Besides, I’m not sure what one more win will really prove about a team.
And here’s the thing: this isn’t creating unpredictability; it’s allowing it to exist. Any sport hinges on the idea that you could win or lose any one of those games. The Tigers got swept by the Royals to end the regular season, and then they dispatched the Yankees in four, and they dominated the last two. On paper, the Tigers should have won one out of four, but in reality, the Yankees didn’t play well enough to win. And then the Tigers went on to sweep the A’s, the team that had swept the Twins, which was the team that beat out the Tigers for the AL Central crown. And, of course, the Mets were supposed to saunter through the playoffs to the World Series, but then the Cardinals beat them in seven. And then comes the WS, and what happens? The Cardinals, the supposed underdogs, lead the series 2-1 against a team many decided was better on paper.
If anything, Glavine is discouraging unpredictability. He wants superiority on paper to matter far too much. If a team can’t win three out of five when they have home-field advantage, then I don’t see any way they could be called the better team. Maybe they were better in the regular season, but the playoffs are not the regular season; that great regular-season record won’t get anyone into the WS. It should get you home-field advantage, period.
And if they do go to a first-round seven-game series (a move for which they will need a better reason than “the better team should win the series”), then they should shorten the regular season by at least eight games. Between early-season northern games with players wearing ski masks and the WS weather this year , there is ample evidence the season cannot practically get any longer.
The One and Only Gene LaFave would probably also agree with Glavine. I remember his once commenting that the longer the game, the more likely it is that the better team will win. (Obviously, to a point: a 10-hour football game will probably decide which team is in better shape.) Leyland said basically the same thing – he was glad the Tigers had to play the Yankees first (unlike most Tigers’ fans), since then they needed to win only three games. That implies that he thought the Yankees the “better” team, and the Tigers more likely to upset them with a shorter series.
So the question becomes, What does it mean to be better? If the 1980 US hockey team played the Commies ten times, would the US win more than twice? Does that mean that the Pinkos were really the better team?
In sports, it seems like better is defined by the whole structure of the sport: from the rules to the means of determining the top team. So the US in 1980 was the better team, because it won according to the structure. Had it been a seven game series, I am quite confident the Reds would have ended up the better team. And if the rules were different (no shots inside the blue line), maybe the Swedes would have been the better team.
So to apply to the first round of the baseball playoffs: by definition, the better team is the team to first win three games. I understand what Glavine, LaFave, and Leyland mean by saying (or implying) a seven game series is more likely to result in the better team winning. But that’s not the structure we have. It is irrelevant to say the Yankees would win if the series were seven games; therefore they are better. That just means, in a league which had a seven game first-round series, they are better. But that’s not what we have.
To bring it back to the BCS (to which everything must return, black hole that it is), it can crown a national champion because it gets to define national champion (it sets the structure, therefore it decides who’s top). So to say the BCS champion isn’t the best team is meaningless; the BCS isn’t (if it’s honest) trying to find the best team. Its structure is to match up the two teams that score highest in opinion polls. The winner of that beauty contest is by (BCS) definition the national champion. The 1980 US hockey team would not make the cut.
There’s probably a point to my rambling, by I want to go watch the Tigers, so I don’t think I’ll make it there.
I think it’s the definition of “better” that makes this a bit of a gray issue. LaFave said a longer game would be more likely to see the “better” team win, but that’s just it — better is loosely defined in a variety of contexts. If one team is more likely to win a shorter game, and the format is a shorter game, then that team is the better team …if they win. I get what they mean, too, by saying a longer series gives the better team a chance, but I think it’s kind of an odd way to look at it. If MLB stays with a first-round best-of-five, then they’re not catering to the teams built for the long haul. If they go to a best-of-seven, then they’re making it harder on teams built for the short haul — which would be a move I would not really understand in the world of modern sports “parity.”
But then again, they’re also considering taking away one first-round home game from the wild card teams, so in light of that, it wouldn’t be such an odd move.
Plus, when the Pistons and Spurs were on top of the NBA with defensive-minded teams, the league began to shift the rules toward offense because they felt high-scoring offensive teams were better and more attractive than slow defensive teams. So leagues shifting rules to accomplish a goal isn’t new; I’m just not sure what MLB would be accomplishing with a longer first round.
The real answer is the best team is the team that wins in the structure
that makes the most money. So any major professional sports league – from
MLS to Div-IA football – wants to make money. It sets the structure
accordingly (you don’t think the BCS was really brought about to make
fans happy, do you?). If a 7-game first round series would bring in more
money than a 5-game series, the MLS will adjust. The better team then
becomes the first team to win four games, not three. Why? That’s the structure.
Why? That’s what maximizes revenue.
All these purist views about some mythical “better” team belong in leagues
not dominated by revenue concerns. A purist would probably define “better”
something like “the ideal mix of talent, coaching, leadership, and other
stuff like that.” But the leagues on TV aren’t concerned with trying to
establish a structure which ranks according to those merits. A structure
which seeks to maximize revenue may incidentally end up ranking the
teams according to merit (maybe last year, USC and Tex really were the
two best teams). But that’s not its goal, and it won’t change if it gets that
part wrong (Auburn got left out one year – did anything really change?).
I don’t know if the Tigers or Cardinals are the “better” team in some
mystical sense; but I do know the Tigers don’t deserve to win this
series, unless they quit playing like bush-leaguers (there I go again,
talking in terms of merits, like some purist). Stayed up to midnight
watching, and now I can’t sleep.
Of all the major pro leagues, I’d say MLB is at or near the top when it comes to stubbornness, so I think it’s probably the safest haven for purist fans. Best example: the NL/AL designated hitter disrepancy.
But yes, revenue will make leagues do curious things. See also: adding days to the season. For tv considerations, next year’s world series will begin a couple days later; Saturday nights are weak for tv ratings, so they’re not going to start the series on Saturday anymore. Although in a more pleasant development, they’re also considering actual day (a.k.a non-prime-time) games in the world series, which indicates that even pro leagues are not beyond hope.
Anyway, to take this back to Glavine, it seems like we’ve come to the point where his statement holds no absolute meaning. Based on this comment thread, I’m getting the idea that a best-of-seven would determine not “the” better team, but the team he believes is better. I disagree that the game of baseball would be better with a longer first-round series, and I wish he would couch his opinion as such, and not as a baseball truth. (I also don’t think NFL playoff games should be 15 minutes longer, but in my eyes, Glavine’s comments would indicate that NFL playoff games would then give the “better” team a better chance to win)
(Sorry. I can’t help but talk like a purist. That’s how I’m made.)
Also, I’ve been watching the Tigers, too, and they haven’t played like a superior team in any sense of the word. No matter how you define it, they’re just not better.
(But, to Glavine’s delight, if they play better the next three games, they would be crowned the “better” team.)
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