Missing the obvious about the new tournament rules.

A friend sent this link:

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/taking-the-long-road/

I posted this reply:

You did a lot of work but missed the main point.  Baseball is different than football and basketball because it's most important player changes every game for the first four games of a tournament series.  That's the starting pitcher.  Pitching match-ups are what's critical, not winning percentages over 162 games.

If a team's number one starter does not pitch until game three in a five game series as I think is likely to occur, that team has little chance.
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I'm amazed at how people are standing on their heads in order to miss the obvious.  Look at the 1960 World Series.  It was all about pitching match-ups.  If you line up the scores of the Yankees and Pirates in descending order the Yankees could have swept.  Not four games but all SEVEN games!

Scores vary primarily because of the pitchers and the starter pitches by far the most innings.  It's not like the Celtics and Lakers playing seven games in the NBA finals in the 1980s with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson leading each team in each game.  In baseball even the greatest players can be marginalized.  See Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays in the 1962 World Series.

If a team's pitching is in good shape and it lines up properly, that team has a chance.  If not, it has little chance.  That, unfortunately, is the nature of what baseball has devolved to.  Pitchers dominate, not baseball players.