Originally Posted by BigRedChief (Post 11799397)

meh, not a big of a lost as Molina.:(

Originally Posted by teedubya (Post 11799398)

There is something powerful about being a Wildcard team that wins the one game playoff... a WC team has won the WS in 2 of 4 years since they implemented it. Before that, IIRC, only the 2005 White Sox won it as a 4th seed wildcard.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 11799382)

The thing is, if you look at the number of playoff appearances they've had over their recent golden streak and then just assume them all to be random coin flips, you'd get about what the Cardinals have had. In fact, they'd probably done far better.

So 12 playoff appearances over the last 15 years and if you just go with random chance you get:

6 NLCS appearances, 3 WS appearances and 1, maybe 2 WS championships.

The real outlier comes with the Cardinals absolute dominance in the LDS. The Cards have made it to the LCS an amazing 9 times, only losing twice in the LDS over that period (so far). In the LCS appearances, they've gone 4-5; so pretty random. In the WS they've gone 2-2.

So to my eyes, they're simply due to start losing in the LCS more often. I'm to the point as a baseball fan that I really do see the MLB post-season as blind !@#$ing luck - a complete crap shoot. There's no rhyme or reason to it at this point.

The way to win a lot of championships is to get a lot of bites at the apple. Make it to the post-season 16 times and over that stretch you should get 2 world championships and 4 pennants out of it. I'd like to believe otherwise, but I've seen too many random outcomes in a short series to believe that the best teams really win in the post-season (including the 2 WS the Cards have won over the last decade).

That's why I'm generally opposed to win-now moves, especially at the deadline. Just make it to the post-season as often as possible and sooner or later things will come together for you.

Originally Posted by BigRedChief (Post 11799397)

meh, not a big of a lost as Molina.:(

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins (Post 11799418)

Unless you're the Giants, in which case you just go Chris Moneymaker three straight times.

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins (Post 11799413)

So, of the 8 WC teams that have been around since implementation, two have won the WS, which is 25%

Meanwhile, they also constitute 25% of the "real" playoffs.

Where's the advantage?

Originally Posted by teedubya (Post 11799445)

Well, LOL. No more than 4 of them could have won. Factor in how many of them made the WS.

In the 10 years of just 1 WC team per league... 1 WS champion. In the 4 years of there being 2 WC teams per league, 2 WS champions. And the Royals were a WS participant.

I've not seen the numbers on WS participants being WC.

It just seems like the WC game winners have more momentum and are playing with house money. Just like the Royals last year, and potentially the Cubs tonight.

I'd rather go back to 1 WC team, personally. Even though it benefitted the Royals.

In 1985, we benefitted from going from a 5 game series to a 7 games LCS, as well.

IMO, a 7-game LDS and a 7-Game LCS is better for the teams that had the better record throughout the season. Now the playoffs are a crap shoot.

Just an opinion...

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins (Post 11799457)

Playoffs have, and will always be, a crapshoot. Even seven games is not a representative sample size in baseball.

If you wanted a true representation of the best team, have it set up the way it was before '69 and then have the two league champions play a 51 game series.

Originally Posted by jd1020 (Post 11799425)

Molina is in the lineup, at least according to the Cards website.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 11799407)

We were already playing without Molina, even when he was in the lineup.

Originally Posted by jd1020 (Post 11799076)

That wont stop if the Cubs lose. They were the 3rd best team in baseball with 4 starting rookies.

Originally Posted by Hootie 2.0 (Post 11799606)

The Cardinals are simply getting by on pure grit and determination at this point ... I personally think with all of the injuries they are the least talented team left in the entire playoffs.

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut (Post 11799756)

Losing Martinez was the death knell.

He was the guy with the swagger to go out there and stare down Arrieta. He was the guy that still had some bullets in his gun.

Once he went down, it became very similar to the 2011 post-season except the level of competition in the NL this year is several of orders of magnitude higher than it was in 2011.

Carpenter, chaff and a powerful offense wouldn't have gotten it done this year, let alone Lackey, chaff and a largely popgun offense.

They just don't have the horses and they're running on fumes.

It's disappointing, but it's the reality of it.