Commish For A Day #2: Best-of-7-LDS

Today's first Commish For A Day entry comes from Jay at the blog Fack Youk. Jay and his buddies are baseball guys with a distinct nod towards football, Syracuse hoops, black-and-white photos and profanity, though not necessarily in that order. There are now six of them pumping out a healthy dose of reading material daily after coming online in December. What you see here is verbatim, including the italics (with his permission):

Okay... I'm really hungover at the moment and I honestly tried to research this. The thing I'm having trouble with is that the regular season record doesn't always represent who the favorite was going into the series, because of strength of division and "hotness" at the time. The Yankees and Tigers won 97 and 95 games respectively in '05 but common knowledge had the Yanks over the Tigers all the way. I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the game so I have to rely on looking things up. Due to my current lack of mental acquity (laziness), I tried to circumvent this, and here is my revised version. I hope its okay if it's more than "a few sentences":

Were I to change places with Allan Huber Selig for just one day, he would probably think my apartment sucks and hate my job. However, I would certainly enjoy sitting in an actual office, and it would be there, that I would make the LDS seven games. (evil cackle)

Basketball did it in 2003, and their sport is far less probabilistic than baseball. There is no position in basketball comparable to a starting pitcher, who can single-handedly sabotage a game with a bad performance. You get the feeling that the better team in basketball is likely to win in a single game let alone a 5 or even a 7 game series. Yes, the NBA playoffs are too long, but that's because they take so many days off, not because of the potential of an extra two games in the first round. I'm sure someone smarter than me at the MLB offices could optimize the programming schedule and take advantage of the extra games this change would produce.

Our Yankees lost three ALDSes in a row, as did the Oakland A's (who had a better regular season record than their opponent in each of them). Statistically, a seven game series is more likely to determine the better team and helps negate the random nature of baseball to some extent.

If you don't want more postseason baseball, you probably don't like the game that much to begin with. More games means more views, cumulatively. It would mean better ratings and more money for the league and more baseball for us. What's not to like?"Waaah, but then the postseason would last longer and some of the games would be played in colder weather". Suck it up or start the season earlier (I don't think fewer days off is an option). I know the Twins new park isn't going to have a roof, but that's their fault, and they aren't going to make the playoffs anyway (kidding). Throw one of these on.

If Tom Coughlin can stand on the sidelines in Green Bay when the temperature is eight degrees Kelvin and the windchill is absolute zero, I think Cano and Jeter can turn a double play when its 30.

Big Willie Style is laid out on my couch right now and Cliff also helped with the submission, so it would be appreciated if you could give them a shout in the post as well.

Thanks Jay (and Big Willie & Cliff).


For previous CFAD entries:

1. Commish For A Day #1: Territorial Rights