THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Source of projection data from comments

19. Posted at 8:51:36 am on Sunday, January 29, 2012 by Mooser
Are these Tango’s Marcels for 2012? He has only released 2011 on his site.

20. Posted at 11:38:41 am on Sunday, January 29, 2012 by SG
Are these Tango’s Marcels for 2012? He has only released 2011 on his site.

No, I ran these myself using Python code that Jeff Sackmann(of Minor League Splits fame) provided to run Marcel for any year(s).

So when will get the Tango Marcels? I look forward to them every year!

If MLB feels that it has to extend the playoffs I wish they had chosen the minor league model of having first half and second half champions.  If they did that for each of the 3 divisions it would mean that they would have between 3 and 6 teams qualifying.  They also could add the teams with the 4th and 5th best records overall in the league for both halves of the season if they were not already included in the 6 division champions for a maximum of 8 teams overall but a high probability of of byes.  I think half champions are a better idea because it includes teams that have had injuries to key players in one half but not the other.  It also gives more incentive to a team to trade for a player if they were in second place in the first half.  Including the 4th and 5th best records gives some hope to the 3d best team in an overloaded division.  The playoffs would be the two winners of each division against each other for the division championship and the 4th and 5th best record teams for the play in.

In my view, we can never have too much baseball (or hockey, or tennis, or if you like football, basketball, soccer, golf, horse racing, those too).  The whole idea about one championship = 12 months is not something that needs to be set in stone.  Sometimes, it works best for one champion = 48 months (World Cup, Olympics).  In soccer, they have the league championship, but then they also have the European Cup, and presumably a few others.  Tennis and golf have the grand slam (which is actually a baseball term).

Anyway, I don’t see any issue with having two World Series champions every twelve months.  You can even make it that one season is MLB-only, and the other season, you include Japan, Korea, Venezuela, Cuba leagues, etc (like L.L.W.S.), all in a 12-month period.  Or, if you don’t like that, then be creative and think for yourself, and come up with a cool idea.  But, don’t let the one champion = 12 months be a constraint set in stone.

The idea of seeing Nadal, Federer, Djokovic all progressing toward a championship, four times a year, is fantastic.

So, put on your thinking caps, and get creative.  What do you got?

(If you are a naysayer, go to another thread.  We get it.  You like tradition/inertia, you buy new underwear every 10 years, sports is the one thing that is perfect in your world while the rest of the world is burning.  The sports founding fathers got it right in the beginning, and what some think is progress, you think is the decline of the roman empire. Got it, thanks.  Don’t repeat yourself, since I just said it for you.  Yes, yes, I’m not being nice.  I got that too, thanks, and I agree with you.)