GO ROYALS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pash]

.

[Demosthenes]

Woo Hoo!! Yea Royals!

Only one game back of the division too...

[AllThingsKC]

But... but... but... it doesn't count because it took Dayton Moore 8 years to do this.

[macnw]

Look to the future, win or lose. Stop living in the past. The stats mean nothing at this point. It's all about one game at this stage. Win that game 1-0, who the hell cares, move on to the next series. GO Royals

[chaglang]

But... but... but... it doesn't count because it took Dayton Moore 8 years to do this.

[Demosthenes]

But... but... but... it doesn't count because it took Dayton Moore 8 years to do this.

Haha I can't wait to see what crazy things people say when we win the world series.

"Yea I'm happy and all, but it really shouldn't have taken 8 years. We should have had 4 or 5 championships by now. And this team shouldn't have even won. I mean look at their offense. You are a sucker if you don't realize we just got lucky. I doubt we have a winning record next year with this team. We need to fire everyone!"

It's too bad these people don't just enjoy the ride. These are good times!

[Highlander]

So what happens if Royals win and Tigers lose today and the division is a tie? Since the Tigers haven't clinched, I can only assume it doesn't revert to the head-to-head record.

[phuqueue]

The Royals will go to Detroit for a tiebreaker game to decide who wins the division. The loser will play the wild card play-in game at home against Oakland or Seattle, the winner will head to Baltimore for the ALDS.

[shinatoo]

With the addition of the wild card game it time to retire the tiebreaker game and just go with the head to head record. you play 17 games head to head so there won't be a tie and, really, 17 games head to head, why play one more?

[AllThingsKC]

With the addition of the wild card game it time to retire the tiebreaker game and just go with the head to head record. you play 17 games head to head so there won't be a tie and, really, 17 games head to head, why play one more?

I agree. It would suck to 17-0 or 14-3 against someone then lose the only meaningful game.

[aknowledgeableperson]

then lose the only meaningful game

all games played have meaning. just think if a team had won just one other game there wouldn't have been the need a tiebreaker game to decide.

[Unknown JimmyD]

phuqueue, i agree with just about everything you've said. i love that the royals have gotten to this point, but i'm not going to really celebrate until we get into what i consider the actual playoffs... as in, a series, not a one-off. however, i don't begrudge anyone else for feeling like we finally accomplished something, and that we "made it." i just choose to look at it differently.

so my issue isn't really with what the royals have done, or have yet to do, it's with baseball and their playoff structure. the wildcard should be a 2 out of 3 series. if we lost 2 out of 3 to oakland, i could live with it much easier than if the royals lose the single game playoff "series" on tuesday. baseball is always about who's better over multiple games, because even the best teams still lose 60+ games a season.

i basically view it similarly to the play-in games for the ncaa tourney. i don't consider those 4 games the "first round." this wildcard game is mlb's play-in game. then you get to the real playoffs.

[mean]

I 100% agree with the notion that the "first round" should be a series rather than a single game. This is partially because everything else in baseball is series-based, but also partially because I'd have a lot more confidence in the Royals taking 2/3 from A's pitchers not named Lester.

That said, it is at least a home game, and technically it's a home playoff game even if they lose. But if they do manage to lose, they still won't have played baseball in October.

[WSPanic]

phuqueue, i agree with just about everything you've said. i love that the royals have gotten to this point, but i'm not going to really celebrate until we get into what i consider the actual playoffs... as in, a series, not a one-off. however, i don't begrudge anyone else for feeling like we finally accomplished something, and that we "made it." i just choose to look at it differently.

so my issue isn't really with what the royals have done, or have yet to do, it's with baseball and their playoff structure. the wildcard should be a 2 out of 3 series. if we lost 2 out of 3 to oakland, i could live with it much easier than if the royals lose the single game playoff "series" on tuesday. baseball is always about who's better over multiple games, because even the best teams still lose 60+ games a season.

i basically view it similarly to the play-in games for the ncaa tourney. i don't consider those 4 games the "first round." this wildcard game is mlb's play-in game. then you get to the real playoffs.

Baseball is always about being the best regular season team - winning your league; and then -when teams exceeded a certain number - the division. The wildcard is a recent construct and the notion that this should somehow earn a team an opportunity at surpassing a team that proves themselves better over a full 162-game is antithetical to how baseball has been for over 100 years.

I agree that it will probably be expanded to 2 out of 3 at some point, but I don't necessarily think it's right.

And for those of you who don't consider this a playoff - that's fine. Just like it's fine that people that don't consider global warming to be real, or Flat Earth Society members don't consider the earth to be round - you're entitled to your opinion, but you're wrong.

[phuqueue]

Baseball is always about being the best regular season team - winning your league; and then -when teams exceeded a certain number - the division. The wildcard is a recent construct and the notion that this should somehow earn a team an opportunity at surpassing a team that proves themselves better over a full 162-game is antithetical to how baseball has been for over 100 years.

By that logic, the team with the best regular season record is our champion. Cancel the World Series, we don't need it anymore.

The postseason -- in baseball or in any other league -- is about letting the best handful of teams fight it out amongst themselves to determine a champion. How many teams comprise that "handful" is arbitrary in any case. Even if you restrict it only to division winners -- something that you appear to be fine with -- you can create as many divisions as you want. We used to have no divisions. Then we had two. Now we have three. The NFL has four. Breaking a league up into divisions -- especially geographic divisions -- doesn't somehow legitimize the presence of teams in the playoffs where it would be "antithetical" had they made it in as a wild card. The Yankees and Red Sox might be meh this year but it wasn't so long ago that the AL East was producing wild card teams with better records than the winner of the Central (and sometimes the winner of the West too). If you're going to have a postseason at all, the wild card is no less legitimate in principle than a divisional champion.

And for those of you who don't consider this a playoff - that's fine. Just like it's fine that people that don't consider global warming to be real, or Flat Earth Society members don't consider the earth to be round - you're entitled to your opinion, but you're wrong.

Jesus Christ are you kidding me

The issue is not and has never been whether the wild card play-in is literally, factually the playoffs. MLB officially calls it the postseason, so it is therefore part of the postseason. And I've even said quite explicitly that I don't care about the format per se. Have a second wild card, have a one game play-in between the two wild cards, whatever. The issue is whether a one and done wild card game loss represents a meaningful playoff appearance and, in the case of the Royals, whether it would represent any sort of meaningful end to the playoff drought. Or yeah I guess if you wouldn't be satisfied with that then it's just like denying climate change!

[aknowledgeableperson]

Look at it this way. Under the old format of just four teams from each league in the playoffs and therefore playing a series before elimination the Royals would have been in the playoffs for sure. I could see the griping if they came into this situation as the fifth team but they qualified as the 4th team, as the team with the best record after the automatic division winners.

[KCMax]

So...who's going? I'll be there tomorrow.

Also, in the morning there's this:

[WSPanic]

Baseball is always about being the best regular season team - winning your league; and then -when teams exceeded a certain number - the division. The wildcard is a recent construct and the notion that this should somehow earn a team an opportunity at surpassing a team that proves themselves better over a full 162-game is antithetical to how baseball has been for over 100 years.

By that logic, the team with the best regular season record is our champion. Cancel the World Series, we don't need it anymore.

The postseason -- in baseball or in any other league -- is about letting the best handful of teams fight it out amongst themselves to determine a champion. How many teams comprise that "handful" is arbitrary in any case. Even if you restrict it only to division winners -- something that you appear to be fine with -- you can create as many divisions as you want. We used to have no divisions. Then we had two. Now we have three. The NFL has four. Breaking a league up into divisions -- especially geographic divisions -- doesn't somehow legitimize the presence of teams in the playoffs where it would be "antithetical" had they made it in as a wild card. The Yankees and Red Sox might be meh this year but it wasn't so long ago that the AL East was producing wild card teams with better records than the winner of the Central (and sometimes the winner of the West too). If you're going to have a postseason at all, the wild card is no less legitimate in principle than a divisional champion.

And for those of you who don't consider this a playoff - that's fine. Just like it's fine that people that don't consider global warming to be real, or Flat Earth Society members don't consider the earth to be round - you're entitled to your opinion, but you're wrong.

Jesus Christ are you kidding me

The issue is not and has never been whether the wild card play-in is literally, factually the playoffs. MLB officially calls it the postseason, so it is therefore part of the postseason. And I've even said quite explicitly that I don't care about the format per se. Have a second wild card, have a one game play-in between the two wild cards, whatever. The issue is whether a one and done wild card game loss represents a meaningful playoff appearance and, in the case of the Royals, whether it would represent any sort of meaningful end to the playoff drought. Or yeah I guess if you wouldn't be satisfied with that then it's just like denying climate change!

According to Phuque:

Well I maintain that the wild card play-in is not really the playoffs

All I said is that the wild card play-in isn't really the playoffs.

A one game play-in is not the same thing as the real postseason

All I'm saying is that if we don't make the ALDS, as far as I'm concerned that is not the playoffs.

Excuse me for somehow "missing your point".

[phuqueue]

It's weird how you can be both super literal and yet also skip over obvious qualifiers such as "I maintain" and "as far as I'm concerned."

[phuqueue]

Just to be clear, everyone, my original argument was definitely that it is a matter of incontrovertible fact that the wild card play-in is literally not part of the Major League Baseball Postseason® but since I have been so cleverly ensnared in a web of my own making I am desperately trying to walk that back now.