2016 MLB Postseason Thread

One thing that gets lost: It's nice that, for once, the clear best team in baseball ended up winning the World Series. It's been a problem since the Yankees dynasty ended.

 

And, in general, since they added the wild card.

Yankees didn't have the best record in the AL in 1996 (Indians), 2000 (White Sox) or 2001 (Mariners).

 

"Congratulations, you Motherfuckers. Now go get a job."

 

Cubs won the World Series ... gonna take a while for it to sink in.

Cubs. It's funny.

 

I was 31 when the Phillies won their first World Series in history (franchise founded in 1883) and it really did change my attitude towards all sports. Before, I had all the bad habits of the bitter Philadelphia boobird. Afterwards, I found myself discovering I'd been mired in a bad way to live. It does change many (not all) fans -- for the better, I think. Surely depressed Indians fans feel a little less bad this morning because of the Cavs winning last June.

 

If the Phillies had lost in 80, would the two then-recent Flyers' cups have cushioned the blow?

 

I've seen this discussion inside a Facebook group for my favorite baseball podcast, and I'm gonna say, not quite. I think the Game 7's in 1960 and 2001 (not to mention 1997) might surpass it since they were walk-offs. Furthermore, you throw in the Cubs committing three errors and a combined 3 TOOTBLANs and it's not like the game was the most crisply played either. In fact, both teams appeared to be clenching the gluteus maximus pretty tightly most of the evening.

I've been trying to see if there's a metric that can empirically measure things like momentum swings in a game, and though I've seen something called "average leverage index" used to determine the worst game of a season, I have never seen a way of measuring the best games or comparing them. However, I think something like this should be evaluated in a Bill Simmons-style "pantheon" of great games, of which this would still occupy the highest level.

In the TV era, I think that pantheon includes Game 7s in 1960, 1991, 1997, 2001 and last night and Game 6 in (EDIT: 1975) 1986 and 2011 at the very least. Probably forgetting a couple. And really the difference between any two games at that level would be like trying to compare the Mona Lisa to Botticelli's Venus or to a Rembrandt. Ranking them seems irrelevant.

 

Agreed. The AL was a bit of a muddle all year (for example, the team with the best record had an absurdly high luck rate), but I think you can make a plausible case that the two best teams contested the series.

 

No. It made people happy, but the Flyers were only seven years old when they won their first Cup. I (and most everybody else) grew up with the Phillies, and 1964 left some pretty awful scars.

 

Agreed. They also took a great approach to building this team, a mixture of free agents and young players they developed. They knew they were close and took steps to strengthen the team to get themselves over the top.