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The 2003 M's, packing most of the ballplayers who won 116 games in 2001, would have made the playoffs under baseball's new system. And maybe that woulda been the year that The Edgar got his ring.
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For those who missed the memo, MLB reached agreement with the union this week on another 5 years' worth of baseball peace.
Dr. D read about 900,000 words of angst over this: the 2nd Wild Card will dilute the playoff field. The hard slotting in the ammy draft, and the spending limits internationally, will nuke small-market teams. Expanded replay will ruin the game ... again. The pundits said very little, that I could see, about the simple fact that we gonna have baseball. Oklahoma Thunder fans, eat your hearts out.
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Personally, I liked almost everything I saw in the new CBA, especially that there aren't going to be any lockouts. But the 5th playoff team was my favorite.
Benihana, Cool Papa Bell, and Dr. D were laughing earlier about the pseudo-scientific pretensions we all tend to have in modern sabermetrics. Most of the time, we react to a player (or rule) emotionally, and then we start levelling our 4-inch math guns at the enemy...
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=== Full Disclosure Dept. ===
On a visceral level, just on an instinctive level rather than rationally, I love the 5th playoff team.
Because?
Because the game is broken economically. I don't get snooty sabermetricians who wail about the Steinbrenners' hammerlock on the game and then --- > when the game lets average teams back onto the field, they --- > complain that the playoffs will be diluted?!
Diluted away from the Yankees and Red Sox, you understand ...
Viscerally, I also do not buy the idea that "undeserving" teams are now going to be in the playoffs. I think the 1987 Twins were playoff-worthy, though they only won 80-some games.
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My team, the Mariners, of course happens to be one of those middle teams. So I definitely feel friendly to any paradigm that says, "okay, above-average teams can play too."
The 2012 M's might actually be the most affected ML team by this rule, along with maybe the Angels.
If you buy the idea that the Rangers are going to be a 95-win for a loooooonnnnng time, and buy the idea that the AL Central is up for grabs, and buy the idea that the Yankees and Red Sox have a little bit of money...
Well, the teams affected are the guys parked behind the Rangers and Yankees. But the Rays have shown that they can grab the Wild Card already. And the Angels don't fear a straight-up fight with the Rangers the way that ... well, let's be honest, the way that some of you guys do. ;- )
Dr. D expects that a WC2 would transform the baseball conversation around here, and for the pleasanter.
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Be advised that I prefer it. But I would still argue that the 2nd Wild Card benefits baseball, objectively speaking. After all, baseball voted for it.