Crawling to the finish line

[cheo25]

Still two months left in this season, but check the NL West. The poor Cardinals find themselves 6 games back in the East, but 12 games better than the leaders in the West.

[cheo25]

UPDATE: Nine games left (10 for Atlanta), and the entire NL West is under .500. Reds and Padres have three games left against each other (1 in SD, 2 in CIN the following week), and the Braves and Reds finish the season with a three-game set in Cincinnati.

Playoff odds slightly favor the Braves, but each team has odds better than 30 percent but no higher than 36.3

[cheo25]

Padres end up winning the West with an 81-81 record. San Diego actually clinched with two days remaining in the season as the Braves and Reds both fell apart.

[dodger300]

Did Steve Carlton win Cy Young for last place Yankees?

[Pedro]

In my 2019 expansion game, the White Sox made it to the playoffs with a 75-87 record



It's possible the game may have entered some alternate dimension due to the expansion. Houston, LA and my expansion team all won >95 games in the AL West.Yanks and Red Sox were also strong in the East so I guess that squeezed the middle.

[r0nster]

After reading a post earlier this morning. I got to wondering about everyone else in the forums My greatest comeback is I was 6 games out of first struggled much of the season. It seemed the light finally turned on as KC was sitting pretty in first place with 6 games left. As you guessed it my team won the last 6 games while KC lost the last 6 games. Yes 3 of them were between KC and Det. Forcing a one game playoff and won that. Cinderella feeling busted by phenomenal Colorado Rockies with 3 great rookies and one of them broke rookie HR recoed of 78. They destroyed my team in 5 games in World Series. Im sure many of you have stories to share and please do. I think many of us would love to read your great moments or seasons

[cheo25]

I'll have to go back and check on Carlton.

The Padres were 17-36 and I think 13 1/2 back in late May, but jumped into the race with something like a 21-4 stretch immediately after that. But in July or August, I think they might have been as far back as 8 or 9 games back. I'll try to go back and check.

As it turned out, the Padres knocked off the Mets 3-1 in the NLCS and reached the World Series. But the Rangers beat them in five in the World Series.

[nebradska]

Let this forever serve as a quick "shut up" to those old fogeys who complain that the wild card lets undeserving teams into the playoffs.

[cheo25]

Steve Carlton did win the Cy Young with those Yankees.

[dodger300]

In 1972 Carlton won the Cy Young for the last place Phillies. Just thought it was cool he also did it in your replay.

[cheo25]

Originally Posted by nebradska

Let this forever serve as a quick "shut up" to those old fogeys who complain that the wild card lets undeserving teams into the playoffs.

Well, the worst divisional champ by winning percentage in the divisional era is the '73 Mets, who went 82-79. Divisional champs that bad in the old four-divisional setup were rare. Did the better of the two division champs in a league always win the LCS? No. Does the better of the two league champs always win the World Series? No. Chalk that up to the realities of a short series.

I don't like the wild card, even as a fan of a team who benefited from it to reach the '05 World Series (where they promptly got swept). Of course, I also hate the DH. The beauty of OOTP is that I don't have to have a setup with wild cards, and I don't have to play with the DH, regardless of what year I'm simming. In my dynasty, which started in 1971 and is now in 1981, there is no DH, even in the American League. Reluctantly, I expanded to 14 teams in the AL in '77 because I didn't feel like making a custom schedule to account for a 12-team AL or use an old 24-team schedule that was full of doubleheaders. And I grew up with Toronto and Seattle around so that was another reason to expand. I will not expand to 28 when I get to 1993.

IMO, there are at least four too many teams in MLB today and possibly six too many. We need contraction, not expansion, in current day MLB. But that's only my humble opinion, and it's not the only opinion. So I can play my way, and others can have wild cards and DH and a million teams in OOTP to their heart's content. If that makes me an old fogey, well, I'll grab my cane before I go for a walk.

[nutt]

Originally Posted by r0nster

After reading a post earlier this morning. I got to wondering about everyone else in the forums My greatest comeback is I was 6 games out of first struggled much of the season. It seemed the light finally turned on as KC was sitting pretty in first place with 6 games left. As you guessed it my team won the last 6 games while KC lost the last 6 games. Yes 3 of them were between KC and Det. Forcing a one game playoff and won that. Cinderella feeling busted by phenomenal Colorado Rockies with 3 great rookies and one of them broke rookie HR recoed of 78. They destroyed my team in 5 games in World Series. Im sure many of you have stories to share and please do. I think many of us would love to read your great moments or seasons

In OOTP17, The Cubs were 12 up with 14 to play in the NL North for the 2017 season in the game I was playing (I was the expansion NL East Brooklyn Robins). The Brewers were 12.5 back with 14 to play. The Brewers won 14 in a row and won the NL North. The Cubs lost 14 in a row and tanked from leading the division to falling down to a one-game playoff for the second wild card at Miami.

If that doesn't get any worse, the Cubs bullpen blew a 7-0 lead in the final two innings to lose on a walkoff, 9-7.