JLB Recap Week 1?
That's the last Jargon post?
Seriously? Has it been that long?
So with slight delay, it's time to congratulate the now two-time World Series Champion, Sam Marcinek. I figure I better congratulate him now before he's a three-time champion. He did a great job at keeping birthday boy Jim Vaughn from winning what would have been a JLB-record fourth World Series title.
We couldn't have that happen. Not before I get my fourth. (Cue Choo chide.)
Sam dominated from start to finish, and the two-week series was pretty much over before the first weekend hit — even JV admits that.
Breakfast batted .314 for the two weeks with 28 homers and 103 RBIs. JV had just 13 homers and 58 RBIs.
The pitching figures were a little closer, and that's where JV got four of his six wins, but it wasn't enough to overcome the 10-2 whitewash on offense. Sam had 107 runs — 30 more than JV — 96 singles, 46 doubles, seven triples and 10 stolen bases.
With leads like that, it was no wonder most people lost interest in the series early.
Hell, I apparently lost interest in April.
All jokes aside, it was a hell of a year for Sam. He went all in, acquiring some big names in the offseason. He gave up prized prospect Bobby Witt for Paul Goldschmidt, who batted .340 with five homers and 12 RBIs during the World Series. He gave up another prized prospect in Julio Rodriguez, Parker's true love, for Luis Castillo, a move that during the season looked like a real dud, but paid off down the stretch. Castillo had 11 Ks and a 2.38 ERA in 11.1 innings of work in the World Series.
He had traded Zack Wheeler in that Castillo deal, but on June 1, he reacquired the should-have-been Cy-Young winner, and he pitched a pair of quality starts in the World Series with a 2.06 ERA and 16 strikeouts.
So, it cost him a good amount, but it worked. He doesn't draft until the fifth round again for the second straight year, but he showed this year that you can trade away picks and still draft a World Series-worthy team by starting in the fifth round.
Choo is so desperate to win a World Series, he did his best to mimic that this year and he doesn't pick until the fourth round. ... There's still plenty of time to match or even one-up Sam. Go ahead, Choo, you know you want to do it.
PLAYOFF FORMAT CHANGE
After some discussion, we will be changing the format of how the playoffs are run. We wanted the World Series to be more than just one week because it didn't seem fair that a whole season boiled down to the luck of one week, but after 2 years of 2-week World Series (or has it been 3? Who knows?), we haven't achieved what we were looking for.
So, we turn to International soccer for our answer.
Effective in 2022, the playoffs will last five weeks and we will delete a regular-season week — an interleague matchup — to make space for this.
The first week of the playoffs, MLB Week 21, will be our Wild Card matchups as usual, a one-week battle to see who moves on to the NLCS and ALCS.
Both the NLCS and ALCS will occur over 2 weeks. They will be divided into legs — here comes the International soccer talk for you. The World Series will also occur over 2 weeks and be divided into 2 legs.
Meaning, you will essentially play your opponent for back-to-back one-week matchups and we will take the aggregate score to see who advances.
If Team A wins first leg of the matchup 11-10, but Team B wins the second leg 15-7, Team B advances with the aggregate score of 25-18. If somehow it's a tie, we'll stick to our current playoff tie-breakers to decide.
We are doing this format for a few reasons:
1) As much as we'd love to do a best-of-3 series, it would take two extra regular season weeks to make it happen, and still you would wind up in a scenario that I will explain in reason 2:
2) It didn't seem fair that if you won week 1 of the matchup 22-2, but lost week 2 11-10 that you'd both be tied 1-1 in a series moving on to a Game 3. The entire regular season is set up in a manner where category wins matter. But once the playoffs hit, it has been, "Can you just win the week?" Whether it was by 1 or 10, a win was a win. That's not how our regular season is set up, so why should the playoffs be any different? So to best reflect the regular season, an aggregate scoring system is needed.
3) Piling on with the "one week didn't seem right" feeling. Too many times, the luck of the draw hit for teams that would get double pitching starts. This 2 week system will help ease those luck-of-the draw pains because if your opponent lucks into that double ace start for several aces, in leg 2, they won't have that happen.
4) Strategy. There's a lot of strategy in that first week. Heading into a weekend, a leader isn't just trying to hold on for a win anymore, they're trying to keep or add to the margin of victory, and vice versa. This will add to the drama, especially in leg 1.
...
The original plan was just to do this format for the World Series, but seeing how everyone works so hard in this league, it felt only fair to also do this format in the ALCS and NLCS. If you're in the final four, you deserve that chance to prove your team is a winner. We believe this format will achieve what we've been looking for in our playoff system.
All in all, I hope this helps drive excitement come August/September, and I cannot wait to be the blogger all over it. I can't quit in April again, can I?
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