Quote Originally Posted by Sanlmar View Post
Your #4 starter is victorious against an opener for the Mariners in the 4th game of a long series.

This has absolutely no parallel to tournament play. Maybe your #4 goes to the bullpen as a long reliever.

If you feel the season is too long a satellite to the big tournament hardly anyone will argue.

Raw wins are a poor way to compare teams from division to division and league to league. Dodgers still have a cupcake division

RPI and strength of schedule measurements have disappointed me personally

The Royals reference is intriguing. That team did nothing short of rewrite the way teams approach pitching. Genius rewarded.
Dodgers are 12-3 against the East, 19-11 against the Central, and 29-15 against the West.

They aren't just fattening up on a bad division. In fact, there are no horrible teams in the NL West. Even the last place Giants are 45-49. There just aren't any good teams besides the Dodgers.

The Royals may have been innovative and surprising, but the 2014 version still wasn't that good, and played over their heads in the postseason.

162 games is a lot. They need to mean something.

You've talked about load management. 100% the Dodgers are going to do this later in the season. They've basically already won the division, and they just need to stay ahead of Atlanta for the best record in the NL. As long as they can maintain that (right now it's a 4.5 game lead over the Braves), they will start fielding minor league looking teams in September.