I'm still wondering what the impetus of this thread was. If it was to do with the regular season, were they not paying attention to the Braves and Orioles? They both had very impressive seasons. The As, Royals, Rockies, and White Sox all had pathetic seasons.
Listening to game 2 of Orioles-Rangers, I think it might have more to do with the postseason so far, that the teams with the better records aren't looking like the juggernauts that some might want them to be.
I heard the same tired argument that the byes are causing rust, giving the opening round winning teams an unfair advantage. To that I say, "hogwash!". I'd take the bye every time. Not only do you get to avoid possibly getting knocked out in the opening round, but you get to rest guys and lineup your rotation exactly how you want. It's just not guaranteed what will happen afterwards. You look at any team any year, they've probably both won and lost 3-5 games in a row, and it's not unusual that they have had losing streaks against bad teams too.
Look at the Astros this year. I picked them at the beginning of the season to go back to the WS and, while they struggled throughout the year, in the end they still won the division. But look at
their September. They lost 2 of 3 against the As and lost 5 of 6 against the Royals. On top of that, they got swept by both the Yankees and Royals. But what they did do was play pretty well against the best teams and that's what got them the division.
My point is, pick a playoff team, any year, and I'm sure if look hard enough you'll find a streak of games where they played poorly and lost against teams they should have beat. Why then would we expect these teams to be juggernauts during the postseason against even better teams on average? Nah, teams get hot and they get cold. In the regular season we just don't make a big deal about it because there are so many games is all.
And why would we want the teams with better records to be juggernauts anyway? Some say there should be far less teams in the postseason, some say the higher seeds should get more home games. What next, is someone going to argue they should start the game up 4-0? Do we just want to do away with the postseason entirely and award the Braves a championship based on the regular season alone? I'm down with making a bigger deal about the best regular season record like they do in hockey with the President's Trophy, but I want the postseason. I like the running the gauntlet that the postseason is. The unexpected should be expected is all.