To be fair, baseball also used to only have two divisions. Best of west plays best of east. It made sense. When they added a third division, it increased the likelihood that there would be a second-place team in one division better than a first-place team somewhere else. (Look at both east divisions this year!) IMHO, with three or more divisions, there needs to be at least one wild card. I don't think baseball needs more than one, as with 162 regular season games, that had better count for something, and "home field advantage" doesn't make sense when you've already clinched a playoff position with 30 games left to play.
Those are also good points. I personally still like the focus on winning your division, though. It's a refreshing change of pace from hockey and basketball where most people can't even name the teams by division since they matter so little, and it makes races like this year's one between the Sox and Yankees much more interesting than they would otherwise be.
-- Ace Detective in Sir Chris' Police http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/81/1768646.jpg
Perhaps, but I'd feel bad for the Braves for having the misfortune to be in the same division as the Phillies. They aren't giving up without a fight, but at this point it's pretty unlikely they can win their division since the Phillies record is just ridiculous. Up until recently the Braves had the second-best record in the NL. and fourth overall behind...The Red Sox and the Yankees, also in the same division.
I'd say the playoffs are more interesting with those two teams included, even though I'm from Philly and would be perfectly happy to not think about either the Braves or the Yankees in the postseason.
On another note, how do you feel about elimination brackets that leave slots open for contestants that lost in round 1 to crawl back in? Like, say the bracket was set-up as...
1 vs 14 Wild card
5 vs 10 4 vs 11
3 vs 12 6 vs 9
7 vs 8 2 vs 13
In a sports setting, it doesn't make much sense, but in a voting countest, it would give the "best loser" a path back in. Of course, the way I positioned it, they'd have to play #1, but that can be easily juxtaposed.
I'm outside of Philly myself, and I agree that I'd be just fine not seeing the Braves in the playoffs. I didn't mean to say that I don't like the wildcard, I just mean that the fact that the wildcard winner is disadvantaged (given the lowest seed regardless of record) is a good thing. The Yankees and Red Sox race wouldn't mean much if they could both enter the playoffs as the one and two seed, each getting home field advantage in the first round.
I'm not totally sure I understand your model. The wildcard there would be someone who lost in the first round? How would you decide which loser gets that wild card?
I'm partial to double elimination brackets where applicable. They don't really have a place in any of the four major sports (most of them play series, which already cuts down on flukes, and it would just be too many games in any of them), but I think they'd work well in tennis, for instance, and they're definitely ideal in most non-sports brackets.
-- Ace Detective in Sir Chris' Police http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/9526/prosecutorshominamimoto.png
Is that all the stong contestants except 1st seed will be gone by the quarterfinals, because seed 2, 3 and 4 get kicked out in round 2, 3 and 4...
Then the 1st seed faces opponents from seed 8-16 in the final matches... yeah, that's totally exciting. This doesn't even make sense. I'm not saying that the higher seeds should be put in the same...branch...division...whatchamaycallit