Which system is better: NFL or Baseball

Most bizarre concept you hear regarding the NFL... Parity.

As someone else mentioned... everyone's record in any league put together equals .500.

101-61 is a great record in baseball is 10-6 is the commensurate record in the NFL.

13 teams had at least that record in the NFL last year. Not a single team won more than 100 games in baseball.

 

That's part of your problem.

101-61 does not equal 10-6.

Regression to the mean.

 

Um of course, it's going to be .500. For every team that gets a win, another team gets a loss.

 

At the risk of entering this fight, I will say I enjoyed the quality of NFL football before the salary cap when there were a few dominant teams.

Those teams could draft and develop players and then keep them. Today that can't happen. The latest example -- Edgerrin James to the Cardinals.

Injuries thin an NFL team's depth too quickly under the current system.

 

Yes it does.

If any sport is loaded with teams that are virtual clones, it is baseball.

 

No, it doesn't.

Which you proved yourself by saying that a bunch of teams in football will finish 10-6 while hardly any baseball team will.

Any poker player knows you're wrong.

Over the course of 16 hands, 7-2 off might win 10 times. Over 160 hands, it will not win that same percentage of the time.

 

Hi folks! Did I miss anything good? Guess how I voted!  

16-15 NFL, that's pretty damn close. Lot closer than the originator of this thread probably believed, which must be very frustrating. Maybe the numbers would be more in his favor if he had a better public relations policy.

Anyway, I will make my usual points then duck the hell out of here:

As noted by della (thanks! saved me the time of posting those championship comparisons again), baseball's system pretty clearly works considering they've had more champs over the last 25 years than the NFL. The system works because there IS NO NEED, NONE, IN ANY MAJOR PROFESSIONAL SPORT FOR A SALARY CAP. Carl Pohlad is a billionaire crying poverty. Fuck him. Why the fuck should the rest of baseball be punished because he's a cheap fucking homely bastard?

Spend all the money you want, if you don't invest heavily in player development, you will have a tough time winning a championship. Note that the Red Sox, who had one homegrown player on the 2004 champions, have done a 180-degree turn over the past two years and are now concentrating heavily on building from within.

The Yankees "buying" titles is one of the great uninformed opinions of all-time. Here's the lineup for the "greatest team of all-time" in 1998:

C: Joe Girardi (trade from Rockies)/Jorge Posada (homegrown)
1B: Tino Martinez (acquired from Mariners for several prospects in 1996)
2B: Chuck Knobaluch (acquired from Twins for several prospects in 1996)
3B: Scott Brosius (acquired from A"s in a mutual salary dump in 1997)
SS: Derek Jeter (homegrown)
LF: Chad Curtis (acquired from Indians for David Weathers in 1997)
CF: Bernie Williams (homegrown)
RF: Paul O'Neill (acquired from Reds for Roberto Kelly, who was supposed to be a big time star, in 1993)
DH: Darryl Strawberry (scrap heap)/Tim Raines (minor trade with White Sox in 1995)

SP: Andy Pettitte (homegrown)
SP: David Cone (free agent)
SP: David Wells (free agent)
SP: Hideki Irabu (international free agent)
SP: Orlando Hernandez (international free agent)

CL: Mariano Rivera (homegrown)
Middle Relief: Ramiro Mendoza (10 wins, homegrown)

Sure, they bought some players. Why shoudln't they? Why should anyone bemoan an owner who actually spends the money he makes? But the core of that team was either homegrown or swiped at his lowest trade value. And none of those homegrown players had yet to reach a big payday (Bernie was a free agent after the 1998 season).

Since the Yankees last won the World Series in 2000, they have added Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi and Hideki Matsui and have not won a thing. Their farm system, conversely, grew increasingly barren...until last season, when they recovered from a terrible start to make the playoffs behind, shockers, homegrown SP Chien-Ming Wang and 2B Robinson Cano. This year, the Yankees' starting nine has often contained at least six homegrown players: 1B Andy Phillips, 2B Cano, SS Jeter, C Posada, LF Melky Cabrera, RF Williams. Andy Phillips is an example of good in-house scouting and evaluation. He's not a superstar, yet the Yankees held on to him and turned him into a useful, low-cost regular player.

People crying that so-called small market teams can only go so far without big-buck replenishments are missing the point. Not only have the Yankees not won since they really started going apeshit with money, but Pube's favorite team, the Marlins, have won TWO World Series. The first one they bought. The second one they built. Now he and others are crying because the Marlins tore it apart again last season. But two days ago, he wondered if the Mets would like to swap rotations with the Marlins for the stretch run. That's a pretty good indicator that the Marlins are doing things the right way. Why should they spend tens of millions to re-sign the likes of Beckett, Pavano and Penny when there's a very good chance they've already gotten the best years of their lives (Beckett perhaps excepted)? Why should they spend tens of millions to keep the team together when they are not going to get nearly the bang for the buck they got from years one thru four or five? Isn't THAT economics at its finest--getting as much bang for your buck instead of spending the same amount of money as everyone else in an artificial attempt to create parity?

As for Abreu getting traded today, others have already noted that he's 32 and has already shown some signs of serious decline. And look up the last bunch of World Series champions, and see how many of them made a huge earth-shaking trade like this. There's a very good chance the Yankees are going to end up on the hook for however much Abreu is owned and not win a title this year.

And hey, funny how there were so many 10-win teams in the NFL last season and nobody cried about the lack of competitive balance.

I eagerly await Pube's reply.  : Actually, I don't. See you at the polls!

 

The winning percentage is the same. You cannot argue it, so stop.

The comment was made for all the assholes who say that the NFL is filled with 32 teams that look alike.

The point of the line is that that is baseball's folly... 30 teams that win between 40 percent and 60 percent of their games.

And, despite the bunching in baseball, the small market teams STILL only luck into the top spot with great rarity.

In the NFL, where teams with some regularity go 13-3, or 3-13, every team has made the playoffs at least once since 1998 (save Houston, which has been in the league since 2002).

If the baseball model was in place in the NFL, where talented teams drastically separate from the pack over a season unlike baseball, the Giants and Jets would, at the lest be in teh conference championship team almost every year.

 

Neither financial system protects its fans better.

But the fact that the NFL only plays 16 games makes it much easier for teams to jump or or drop down in the standings year to year.

 

PS: Derek Jeter just hit a two-run homer to give baseball a 19-17 lead!!!

 

Pube --
You seem not to understand some basic concepts. The winning percentage might be the same, but that does not mean the records are in any way equivalent. That's like saying a .900 save percentage is the same as a 90 percent shooting percentage. Hey, the numbers are the same.

And if football played more games, their teams would have more similar records as well. I say again, Regression to the Mean. Has to do with numbers over different periods of time, and nothing to do with the quality of the product on the field.

G'head. Look it up. I won't make fun of you. Much.

 

Talented baseball teams don't separate from the pack over the course of a season? ??? ??? ???

Over the course of 162 games, I'd beg to differ. Larger sample size = larger accuracy.

Over 16 games, any team can go 10-6 or 13-3 ... or 6-10 or 3-13. Doesn't mean it's very accurate as to which team *should* have which record. It's just too small a sample size to equate with any accuracy. It's 50% talent, 50% crapshoot.