VFTB Season Predictions

What the hell is wrong with you people? Not a single Cub logo on the board? Turn in your badges..reality is nothing but a crutch for those who can’t handle drugs.

Interesting that only a couple people had a WC team advancing to the World Series.  No one had a WC team winning it all.  I think that’s the biggest change you’ll see for however long Selig keeps this setup.  It’s far more reasonable to expect a WC team that’s already blown it’s No. 1 starter will struggle in a short division series.  Very possible a team like the Giants could win a WC and never get to throw Lincecum in the NLDS, and certainly not twice.  Plus that one game WC playoff might eliminate a red-hot WC team like the Rockies from a few years back.

Agreed.  Selig has sapped the value from both WC spots.  Too bad he was a season too late to give the Cardinals an early exit.

I almost left off the Yankees and gave the Red Sox the WC spot.  Ultimately I thought there pitching was a tad shakier than the Yankees.  But if you’re asking if I feel good about picking against Gonzalez and Crawford (who I do expect to “respond” this season), the answer is no.
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Do you really see three teams coming out of the NL East?

And speaking of lining up pitching, all the division winners get to do that with this new format, even if they are fighting to the last day to make the playoffs.

They get an extra day off which will allow them to throw them in game 2 on 3 days rest

By your logic, divisions are irrelevant. If it’s going to be the best records, why not return to dem olden days when it was just the AL and NL?

This is nice, Joe, I like it. It will be fun to look back at the end of the season and see how we did!

Joe, I remember fondly when we did this. Thanks for reprising the staff predictions. I recall when 3 or 4 of us were carrying the water for the site, You have a plethora of writers now. Congratulations!

The AL East is filled with good teams, that I wish I didn’t pick both WC’s from there. I think the AL West will have one of them.

NFL is symmetrical 8 divisions with 4 in each division. MLB could folow suit, add 2 teams and reallign. What I hate about the divisions is that the Cubs have 6 teams and the AL West only has four. Not fair!

No the NBA does NOT do it that way.  All NBA division champions WILL make the playoffs regardless of their record.  It’s highly unlikely that with 8 seeds a division winner would ever have the 9th best record, but it’s true nonetheless.

Also interesting that we all picked 5 postseason participants from only 6 AL teams…there’s not a whole lot of surprise in the AL it seems.  Either the AL East gets 3 or the AL West gets 2.
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But there are 11 different teams that were picked (by at least two people even!) to make the playoffs in the NL.  The five not picked – Astros, Pirates, Mets, Padres, and our Cubs.

In each conference they practically do play the same schedule. You play 4 games with everyone in your division, a home-and-home with the other conference, and then the rest of the teams in your conference, there is a set rotation that determines which teams u will play 3 times instead of 4. Let the division winners raise a banner and sell hats and shirts, but they’re only in if they earn it. Why should a 85 win team make the playoffs simply because they play in a lousy division while a 99 win team doesn’t because they play in a tougher division?

The SFG argument from 1993.  And with an unbalanced schedule in MLB you can’t simply look at the wins by the top team in the division to determine which is better.  You’re better looking at divisional win-loss records for that…every division is .500 against themselves, show me what they do collectively outside of that division if you want to make a case one is better than the other.
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Also, did you know every divisional winner for the last two years won at least 90 games?

By the way CAPS, it’s a false argument in the WC era.  In 2007, the Cubs made it with 85 wins, the Padres finished 3rd in the NL West with 89 wins and missed out.  In 2005 the Phillies finished with 88 wins in second place and the Padres won their division with 82 wins.  In 1997 the Astros only won 84 but played in October while both the Mets and Dodgers had 88 wins and went home.  That’s it…every other “difference” where a division winner finished behind a team that went home was 3 games or less.
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So twice since 1993 a division winner has won 4 fewer games than a team that didn’t qualify for the playoffs, and once that division winner has won 6 fewer games.  It’s important to note that none of the teams that were sent home won 90 games.  Never in the WC era has a team won 90+ games, finished ahead of a division winner by a significant margin (I’m defining that as more than 3 games), and missed out on the playoffs.  It just hasn’t happened – and the new rules make it a lot harder for that to happen.

Where do Ozzie and Bozo end up? Out of a job, that’s where. LMAO. I’ve been looking on Stubhub for tickets for the series, I can get them cheaper there than on the Marlins website. I thought the new stadium was supposed to increase demand.

So now instead of being paid 10 bucks to go to a game, I’m paying 5 bucks? I think you forgot to adjust for inflation.

So what’s the wager?