I love articles like the one by Dan Fox that question conventional wisdom in this manner.  Obviously, the CW on this is that pitching quickly ensures better defense and being deliberate makes it more likely to get poor defense.  It follows the rationale that -- if you say something often enough, people will assume it to be true.  The same is true, Baseball Prospectus has found, of the idea that good baserunners cause pitchers to lose concentration, thus increasing hitters' abilities.  If you repeat it often enough, it's assumed to be true.

There's a logic to it, but as Carroll points out, that may work in Little League but Derek Jeter's not going to fall asleep b/c a pitcher takes an extra 15 seconds between pitches.  Fox's research bears that out.  People will have a hard time with this b/c it does make sense but, the bottom line is, there's no empirical evidence to support it.  Sure, people will be able to point to the time where Pitcher X was taking forever and the next ball was hit to an infielder who promptly booted a double play ball, causing his team to lose the game.  But Fox's research shows that there's no evidence to suggest that the first, necessarily, caused the 2nd.  In other words, he probably would've booted the ball anyway.  I love this stuff.

As for adding 2 teams to the Wild Card, I think it's a horrible idea -- not b/c I'm a traditionalist who hates the WC.  I don't; in fact, I quite like the WC and think that often teams deserve to make the playoffs when they're very good but end up in a tough division.  I hate the idea b/c adding 2 teams to the playoffs gives the top 2 teams a bye in the first round of the playoffs.  That's a huge imbalance to create.  

You might argue it's unfair b/c it gives the 2 best teams the time to set their rotations and get everyone healed, while not risking them to a first round knockout.  It might also be unfair b/c they'd have to go about a week from playing, while their opponent's hitters will have their timing and their pitchers won't be rusty.  If the point of the playoffs is to determine who the best team is at that point in time, it should be as level a playing field as possible and the extra 2 teams would create 2nd round matchups that are horribly imbalanced.  If WC teams are added, I think you'd have to add 4 so that everyone still plays a first round series, but I wouldn't do that b/c undeserving teams would end up in the playoffs.

OK, so I didn't want to start my own thread on this one.  I'm not responding to the original thread but adding an interesting article as well.  This is from the PD.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/jeffgordon/story/6E70B5B68F89D136862573450055 0BBD?OpenDocument

It is a compare-contrast of Jocketty/LaRussa to Purpura/Garner.  It really shows how well the Cardinals have done with their money the last few years, with the decline of certain players due to many circumstances, AND with the reloading of the system for future years.  I am very impressed with the simplicity with which this depth of material was stated.

stlfan