At first I thought my indifferent reaction to this year's postseason was the result of being a (you may think unjustly, but screw you) bitter Yankees fan. (Obviously, this is a diary. I'm not a stinking Yankees fan - Charlie.) But honestly, these playoffs had little to no drama in them, not just in terms of mostly media-fabricated "storylines", but in terms of actual competition. In the wild-card era there are seven postseason series' played. This year fully five of those were sweeps, and two of THOSE sweeps were by one-of-if-not-the-worst-team in the playoffs. Out of a possible 17 games the losing teams can win combined, this year's losing teams won four. Four!

I went to baseballreference.com to check the numbers on postseasons like this one. Here's what I found, the first column being the year, the second column being number of sweeps and the third column being number of games the eventual losing teams won, combined. On the surface, a lower number in the second column and a higher number in the third column would mean a more exciting playoffs.

2007. 5 4
2006. 3 6
2005. 3 6
2004. 2 10
2003. 0 14
2002. 1 10
2001. 1 11
2000. 2 7
1999. 2 7
1998. 3 6
1997. 2 10
1996. 2 8
1995. 3 7

Using this system (which of course does not account for ACTUAL game-play, but I think you all understand what I'm getting at), this year's postseason was indeed the most boring since the new format began in 1994er...5.

It's also kind of interesting to see that more drawn-out postseasons tend to flock together... we have the dominance of the Yankees which squelched competition from 98-2000, the "wild cards winning world series'" era that offered much more uncertainty from 01-04, and finally our most recent, boring era. Any hypotheses on why the last few years have been like this? I'd make some but I have to go to class.

And how about 2003! No sweeps, and four out of seven series' going the distance, including both championship series', one of which ended on one of the most dramatic game-winning home runs in history (which remains this sports fan's most exhilarating moment of fan-dom ever, even though the Yanks ended up being Beckettized), the other of which being defined by perhaps the most famous boner of 21st-century sports.

Anyway, hopefully things will be better next year.

Poll

Better postseason?

33%

2003

2 votes

66%

1991

4 votes

6 votes | Poll has closed