So, as you know, they will probably add another wildcard team to the baseball playoffs next year. Nobody knows for sure how it will work -- a one-game playoff between wildcards, a three-game playoff, whatever -- but this extra round seems likely to happen and soon.
I think many people like the concept of adding a playoff. I can see why: I think many of us have been waiting for something meaningful that separates division champions from wildcards. Giving the division champs homefield advantage (which is the only real advantage now) is clearly NOT meaningful enough and the governors of baseball understand that -- heck, they give homefield advantage in the World Series to the team that wins a pointless exhibition game.
A one-game playoff between the wildcard teams would certainly provide that separation. Right now, the Yankees and Red Sox are going through an almost entirely pointless August and September, which is sad because they really are great teams and only a half-game separates them in the American League East. Trouble is: So what? They are both going to make the playoffs. The so-called loser in the A.L. East will probably play Texas, while the so-called winner might play Detroit, meaning that the team that takes the division might get the grand privilege of facing Justin Verlander in the opening game. Wow, that should make the last few weeks of the season exciting.
So, yes, I think many baseball fans -- most baseball fans -- want a system that can bring back some tension to the great pennant races. Imagine now if the Yankees and Red Sox loser would have to play a one-game play-in game just to get into the real playoffs. That unquestionably would add all sorts of excitement to September. And we would get to see even MORE Yankees and Red Sox on television!
I've been going back and forth on how I feel about all this -- not that Bud Selig is waiting for my approval. I really like the effort to make pennant races thrilling again; I miss great pennant races. I'm not opposed to reducing the status of wild card teams -- I think if you don't win your division, you don't have any right to complain. I'm not a playoff guy when it comes to baseball, but I can see the value of bringing the do-or-die playoff into baseball's regular rotation. I do not even mind adding another playoff round to the season, as long as baseball goes with a proposal that I am writing for the back page of Sports Illustrated this week.
So, theoretically, I can see the value. And hey, I'm always for more baseball.
No, my only problem comes when I actually look at the standings.
This year, for instance, the Yankees-Red Sox loser would probably play Tampa Bay or the Angels in a one-game playoff. In the National League, the Braves would probably play the Giants-Diamondbacks loser, or perhaps St. Louis.
Well, does that seem fair? Sure, the wildcard teams have no right to complain. But the Red Sox, who are currently in second place, are CLEARLY better than the Rays or Angels -- especially the Rays, who are obviously in the same division. The Braves, at the moment anyway, are a few games better than the Giants, Diamondbacks or Cardinals. I mean we are talking about a noticeable gap between those teams.
-- In 2010, the Yankees (or Rays, who might have lost the division had it mattered) would have had to play a Boston team in a one-game playoff even though they had beaten the Red Sox pretty convincingly over 162 games.
-- In 2009, the Rockies would have had to play the Giants, even though THEY had beaten the Giants pretty convincingly over 162 games.
-- The 2008 season is the only one in the last 16 seasons that the Yankees did not make the playoffs … but in the new wildcard scenario they WOULD have made the playoffs, and the Red Sox -- who were six games up at season's end -- would have had to play them in a one-game playoff. Could you imagine if THAT Yankees team -- the one hopeful moment for Yankees haters everywhere -- had knocked out the Red Sox, beaten the miracle Rays, and then gone on and won the World Series?
-- In 2007, the Tigers and Mariners tied for the wildcard, which seems to suggest they would have had to play in a one-game playoff, and the winner of THAT would have played the Yankees in a one-game playoff even though the Yankees were six games better. That same year, the Mets collapse might not have meant anything since the Mets would have still made it as the second wildcard, and they might have knocked the Rockies out of the playoffs before they even began their run to the World Series. This is something else: We talk about how the wildcard would bring back tension to pennant races. But, realistically, it would take some tension of out pennant races too.
-- In 2006, the 95-win Tigers would have played the 90-win White Sox in a one-game playoff. Every time these wildcards match up teams in the same division -- and as you can see, that's happening fairly often -- it's plain weird. Suddenly the five game difference between the Tigers and White Sox means nothing?
And so on. Some years, the match-ups come out great. And I suspect that we will all start to feel the rhythms of this new wildcard thing. But as of now, there's something odd and unsettling about it. Sure we want the Yankees-Red Sox race to matter again. But unless you hate the Red Sox or Yankees -- as many of you no doubt do -- do you really think it would be fair to have them play the clearly beaten Tampa Bay Rays for the 20th time for the right to go the playoffs? That feels like some second-chance on a game show.
See: While the one-game playoff would indeed be punitive for the BEST team to not win a division, it's a golden ticket for the SECOND BEST team to not win a division. And, if you look at the standings, there's often a pretty wide gap those two teams. In 2001, the 102-win Oakland A's would have played an 85-win Minnesota Twins in a one-game playoff, which would not have made for a pleasant scene for Brad Pitt.
Plus, yes, as I mentioned above, it would mess up as many pennant races as it currently helps. Sure, in the American League this new system would make the Yankees-Red Sox race more exciting. But at the same time, doesn't it inject a sort of consolation prize to the Giants-Diamondbacks race? Last year, another wildcard unquestionably would have muted that thrilling final weekend with the Giants, Braves and Padres battling for two playoffs spots.
Not that any of this really matters or is even particularly relevant. There's money to be made in playoffs, and so baseball will plunge forward. I suspect that even if it starts as a one-game playoff, it will eventually become a three-game thing, maybe a five-game thing before too long after that. And while it doesn't seem especially likely now -- and undoubtedly baseball people will shout that this will be the last playoff addition they will ever make -- well, I think once you go down that road of adding an extra playoff round, it will keep expanding. They call it "bracket creep" in the NCAA basketball world.
I guess the point is that I can see in the abstract how the added wild card could be fun and exciting. But when I actually plug it in, no, I don't think it will make the game better. I guess we'll all get used to it, though.
Joe, I am very glad you made the points about the ridiculous "4 vs. 5" matchups this could create.
ReplyDeleteBut it gets even worse than that: Not only could the Yankees and/or Red Sox get beat in one game by a team they left easily behind in their own division (say, Tampa Bay). It is even likely that, as the Red Sox and Yankees battle until the very last game for the division, Tampa could align their rotation for the one-game playoff. And suddenly Tampa has David Price going against AJ Burnett or John Lackey in that one game and likely wins. That would be utterly insane and reverse everything a 162 game season is meant to be.
The ONLY way that I can think of to make this work is a playoff between 4 and 5 in which the team with the better record already starts with a one-game lead (first to two wins goes to the division series). Thus, the 5th best team would have to beat the 4th twice, while the 4th only needs one win. I would not like this scenario either, but it would be a hell of a lot more fair that the first one.
In sum, while I in theory would like the addition of a fifth playoff team, as you say, there is not really a way to make it work and fair.
You seem to be arguing against the underdog/cinderella team. I find that curious. I think that for most fans, the possibility of a cinderella 5th seed making it to the LCS and possibly beyond would trump any questions of "fairness". If there's one thing that North American sports fans adore it's a cinderella run - possibly even more than seeing the Red Sox play the Yankees again.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as you say, a wild card really shouldn't have any right to complain - win your division and none of this matters to you.
This "extra wildcard" proposal makes no sense. The problem is that the wildcard has taken the excitement out of the pennant races; the solution is to add more wildcards? No. If the problem with the wildcard is that it makes playoff spots too easy to come by and makes winning the division less relevant, adding more wildcards isn't going to help.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that a lot of the problems that you have identified here would be solved by simply requiring the additional wildcard team to come from a different division; i.e., only second-place finishers are eligible. The unbalanced schedule provides the rationale; comparing records across divisions is not apples-to-apples.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I liked it better when you had to win your division to make the playoffs. I wish that MLB would add two more teams and put them into eight divisions to make this possible again.
Here's a thought: Why are the division leaders exempt from this one-game playoff? Winning 85 or even 90 games in a weak division doesn't make you automatically better than the team that wins 95 in a much stronger division. The whole point of the exercise is to add more value to the regular season by giving the teams with the best records an advantage, right? Then give the advantage to the teams with the best records, even if they happen to come from the same division. Take the three division leaders and two wild-card teams and rank them in terms of winning percentage, 1-5. The top three are in, and 4 and 5 play a one-game (or three-game) series, regardless of whether they're division leaders or wild cards.
ReplyDeleteUnder this scenario, the Red Sox and Yankees would BOTH make the playoff, and Tampa Bay would play Detroit or Texas (whichever had the worse record) for that fourth playoff spot. Sure, that could result in three playoff teams from the best division, but that doesn't seem terribly unfair to me.
the possibility of a cinderella 5th seed making it to the LCS and possibly beyond would trump any questions of "fairness"
ReplyDeleteI am probably an outlier, but I don't root for cinderellas. I want the best teams to be battling it out for the championship, not some team that got on a hot streak at the end of the season. That's why I still prefer baseball over the other sports: it's the major sport that least rewards mediocrity.
Why not four four-team divisions? It restores the pennant races, makes the division important, and gives teams what looks like an easier path to the playoffs (you only need to beat three teams).
ReplyDeleteThat Boston and New York would be in the same division is a feature, not a bug.
Finally, a voice of reason. The idea seems terrible as it has been expressed so far. Expanding the playoffs can certainly work, but not with a "5th wildcard"/one-game playoff format.
ReplyDeleteCome on people, obviously the only FAIR solution is to put all 30 teams in one league and whoever has the best overall record wins the championship, right? Because no matter how you configure the playoffs, some of those playoff teams will have better records than others, sometimes drastically so. This is the logical endpoint of every argument for utter fairness.
ReplyDeleteNot to mention, campaigning for "fairness" deprives a lot of baseball fans some excitement down the stretch. Is a meaningful September for the two most popular teams in baseball a bad thing? Wouldn't this stretch run be much more exciting and entertaining if good teams like the Angels, Tampa Bay, Toronto, etc. had some hope?
I like a one-game wildcard playoff. I think it makes competitive sense and it sure as hell makes economic sense.
I think it would be interesting to have three leagues now with 10 teams each. The three winners are in the playoffs, and then there's a tournament for few days with a predetermined number of teams, probably eight, to decide a wildcard entry. A third of the teams could hope for postseason play, but it would mean something to win the league.
ReplyDeleteMeantime, the three league winners play some exhibition games against groups of former stars, international players, future prospects headed for instructional league, etc. to stay fresh and involved while having the advantage of resting regulars. Maybe in Cooperstown. Hype can be built up for the three winners and they can line up their rotation.
Every playoff scheme that can be devised has flaws as can be seen by the way Joe outlines year to year scenarios from the past. The "5th team" scheme doesn't fix anything. My problem is with MLB's representation that it does. It clearly waters down the regular season.
ReplyDeleteWhy not just do a double elimination tournament at the end of the year with all 30 teams? Give everybody orange slices in the 7th inning stretch and a trophy at the end so nobody feels like they are a loser. Whoops - better not say that too loud. Bud Selig might be listening.
I disagree, Frank. Introducing a one game wildcard playoff makes actually winning your division more important than it is currently, which seems to me the opposite of watering down.
ReplyDelete"I really like the effort to make pennant races thrilling again; I miss great pennant races. "
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only person to express this sentiment, Joe; in fact, that's partially where the idea came from. And it's true that this year looks to be nearly wrapped up already -- We're not even to September and the only drama is whether Cleveland and San Francisco can hang in there to make it a race.
But other than the AL East, there have been plenty of great pennant races in just the last few years. Last year, the Padres were leading their division much of the year, but were overtaken in the last two weeks and ended up missing the playoffs by a game. In 2009, we had the one-game playoff between the Twins and Tigers. '08 saw the Mets leading their division by 3.5 games with 17 to play, and end up 3 games back and even out of the wild card, and again there was a 1-game playoff in the AL Central. '07 had the incredible Rockies run. And so on.
The problem isn't that there aren't great pennant races under the current system. It's that the two richest teams are usually just running out the string in September, and so there's money to be squeezed there, along with increasing the number of playoff games. Fairness be forgotten.
What I always find curious is the statement that there aren't any good pennant races anymore. Really? We have had 3 or 4 one game playoffs to determine races just in the last half dozen years and at least one of those games was a classic game (Rox v. Pads)
ReplyDeleteNow, maybe what we are saying is that we want the Yankees and Red Sox to be playing for something at the end of the year every year, because Rockies/Padres, Giants/Padres, White Sox/Twins, Tigers/Twins doesn't really interest most of us, but still, I don't think you can say that there has been no good races (or even that we haven't had good to great 1 game playoffs)
I think they should add two teams, make 8 four team divisions, and forget the wildcard - only division winners make the playoffs. I think two more teams would create more revenue than two more "play-in" games.
ReplyDeleteI find it fascinating and bewildering that, after the institution of the wild card destroyed the concept of the pennant race, people believe the way to fix it is to throw more wild cards into the mix.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to bring back pennant races is to eliminate the wild card and return to four divisions. But baseball will never do that, because that would lose them money, so Braves-Giants 1993 will remain the last great pennant race in baeeball history.
If they're going to add another layer of playoffs, even if it's only one game, they need to shorten the season. I seriously doubt that there's any chance of this happening, but baseball is a SUMMER sport. They should not still be playing in November.
ReplyDeleteNo, the Mets' 2007 collapse would still have counted. Because of the collapse, the Padres--and not the Mets--would have met the Rockies in the play-in game...which, as it happens, they actually did that year. And Holliday's foot still hasn't touched home plate.
ReplyDeleteA really good way to make things worse is to assume that they can be improved somehow.
ReplyDeleteA fifth wildcard (I continue to support the one game Wild Card play-in) *might* create better pennant races - it seems unlikely that every year there will be two teams in the same division that are neck and neck, down to the last weekend of the season (even with Boston and New York in the same division).
ReplyDeleteWhat it WILL create every year is much more interest in all the teams vying for the 5th wildcard spot. That means that there will be more cities paying interest to their teams as the season wears on, more people going to games in September, more people watching games in sports bars, more people tuning in after dinner, more excitement in more cities about baseball.
I fail to see how this is a bad thing? It's not like we need to preserve the sanctity of the wildcard or anything...
And somewhere out there is a guy yelling that the last real pennant race in baseball history was the American League race in 1967 (before divisions). Things change.
ReplyDeleteThe purists kvetched in 1994, but there have been a lot more September races since then than there were before. More playoff chases, more playoff games, and more fans. The wailing was even louder in 1969, I'm sure. The blogosphere might have self-destructed back then, had there been one.
What this change would do would be to create more interest late in the season for more fanbases, and also create a real distinction between being a division winner versus being a wildcard.
"Sure, the wildcard teams have no right to complain."
ReplyDeleteYou should have ended the post right here.
I have zero sympathy for WC teams. Ostensibly, the purpose of the playoffs is to determine the best team. If you couldn't even win your division, you don't have much of a claim to being the best.
"And somewhere out there is a guy yelling that the last real pennant race in baseball history was the American League race in 1967 (before divisions). Things change."
ReplyDeleteThey sure do. Quite often for the worse.
I guess whether one believes that there have been "more September races" depends on whether or not one believes that an assortment of 86-win teams jousting for a wild card is a "race". Certainly we will never, ever see two great teams duel it out down the stretch as we did in 1993. As for more playoff games and more fans, all the wild card has done is push the World Series into November and fill the early part of October with a glut of playoff games that struggle to sell out and play to miniscule ratings on basic cable TV. We can let more and more teams in, as the comment above about "bracket creep" notes, and then eventually we'll be playing the WS on Thanksgiving at a neutral warm weather site. Noticed the rain problems baseball has had in recent postseasons? That's thanks to the wild card pushing the games back too late in the season.
I'm against anything that adds one more team or one more game to the postseason. You can throw as much poop as you like onto a pile of poop but that just makes a bigger pile of poop.
I like the idea that was floated earlier - ranking the top 5 teams, giving seeds 1-3 an extra two/three days off (the advantage obviously being able to align their rotation). Seeds 4 & 5 have to do the one game playoff and the winner faces the one seed.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure everyone's plan would have a "perfect" example season, but for this I look at the 2006 NL. The way it wound up being seeded was the Mets (97-65) #1, the Padres (88-74) #2, the Cardinals (83-78) #3, and the Dodgers(88-74) #4. Adding a 5th seed would have bumped the Dodgers up to #3, added the Phillies at #4, and dropped the Cards to #5. And then we don't have a World Champion that barely finished above .500 in the regular season.
The biggest problem currently with division winners is not mentioned. Several times in the last decade the difference in a close division race was that one of the teams had a decidedly easier interleague schedule. I hope for a two team expansion with the each league having 4 divisions of four teams, everyone in the division having the same schedule, including interleague, and no wild cards. Yes, it would mean that either the Yanks or Red Sox would make the playoffs, not both, but if you can't win a 4 team division then you stay home, and too bad.
ReplyDeleteThat does not address the current problem though. I don't like adding another team , but if having 5 playoff teams is inevitable, I would prefer to have the wildcards play each other in a short series, and then have them play the division winner with the best record. (Putting the back end of their rotation against the rested, front end of the best team's rotation.) In a way, this would actually favor division leaders as there would be less chance of them being knocked off by the wild card. As to the best wild card team being hosed, to heck with them, they did not win their division.
Anytime there are playoffs there is a chance of an inferior team making or winning the World Series. This was inevitable when we went to division play. (The team with the worst regular season record to win it all actually won their division)
The funny thing in all of this is that MLB has announced that it will happen, but seems to have no idea why (other than money) or how. Typical Selig.
Why not a playoff system in which the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, and Mets are guaranteed spots in the league championship series? The purpose for the extra wild card idea is to decrease the likelihood of those four teams missing the playoffs. And as verified by the espn/tbs/fox national broadcasts, those are the only teams that all of us really want to see anyway.
ReplyDeleteI don't like this idea of expanding the playoffs at all. Baseball plays 162 games to determine who the best teams are, and now that will be tossed away with a one-game playoff each year? That just seems crazy to me. This just dilutes the playoffs and lets in teams that aren't worthy. More often than not I think the wildcard works. If it were up to me, I would go back to 2 divisions and the winners play to advance to the World Series. I know that isn't going to happen, but it seems like a better way to reignite pennant races.
ReplyDeleteYou know how many times a 100-win team missed the playoffs in the divisional era?
ReplyDeleteTwice.
Mediocre teams have been winning the division since the divisions started.
Who the hell cares about that argument anymore?
I hope that some year, a great AL team and a great NL team both get knocked out early—and then mutually decide to play an exhibition series. Say that the World Series ends up being (yawn) the Tigers and Diamondbacks, but the Phillies and Red Sox decide to play an unofficial series. I know which series I'm watching.
ReplyDeleteVidor - I agree with you 100%. I remember, on the morning after the Giants lost the division on the last day of the season in 1993, listening to a radio show talking about what a great pennant race it had been. At the end of the show, one guy says something to the effect of "what a shame they couldn't both make the playoffs."
ReplyDeleteI wanted to scream! Had there been wildcards, there would never have been such interest and certainly not that great discussion. There would have been nothing at stake.
If we had the 5th team as currently proposed, we set up the scenario that a 102-win (division losing) team would be playing some 85-win team in a one-game playoff. Perhaps that is twisted justice for not winning the division, but there is not much satisfaction, either.
Omniart - I agree with you. I love the thought of exhibition series. Kind of like the post season barn-storming teams in the 1920's.
Early on Poz states that "if you don't win your division, you don't have any right to complain." Then he spends the bulk of the post complaining on behalf of teams that didn't win their divisions. Absolutely baffling.
ReplyDeleteAnd why would the additional wild card add drama to Yanks-Sox but detract from Giants-Dbacks? A meaningful division title is at stake, and the loser would face the prospect of a one-and-done playoff. (I guess the theory is that the NL West runner up would be eliminated this year, but still, the incentive to win the division and not finish second would be almost indistinguishable under either scenario.)
I think it's a good plan that adds more drama and meaning to the regular season, especially since two AL playoff spots are virtually locked up in perpetuity by the teams that can outspend the world. Now division titles have more meaning, and the there's a little more room at the table for teams fighting to compete in a rigged, anti-competitive economic model.
How about if MLB plays a 162-game round robin playoff that starts in April to see who the best team is? It's so crazy, it just might work!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think we should have a 7-team playoff in each league. Best team in the regular season gets a bye to the league championship series. Other 2 division winners and the 4 wildcards go in to a 6-team single-elimination playoff (I'll give the other 2 division winners byes). You'd create interest up and down the standings. The difference between winning the league and being a WC would be huge, so Boston and NY would still battle it out, leaving everything on the field, and the difference between winning a division and not is still significant. It would make each game of a 162 game season matter more for more teams.
ReplyDeletePlus, with 2 single-elimination games Tues->Fri followed by single-elimination games on each day of the weekend, the TV viewership for the knockout rounds would be tremendous. The playoffs would even end earlier.
I hate the idea of a wildcard team with a better record than two division winner being placed at a disadvantage due to geography. It's ridiculous. If one team clearly outplays another and another over 162 games, why should it be treated with disdain? If they're going to go to two wildcards, have them be determined purely by record. Screw the divisional races. Just try to make it as fair as possible.
ReplyDeleteI'm not for this, although I'm sure it's going to happen. Baseball already plays a six month 162 games season. Why cheapen the effort further with a quickie playoff? The schedule is already imbalanced with an overloaded intra divisional schedule and random chance when it comes to your inter-league draw. People have argued that the Red Sox and Yankees will dominate-well, if that's true why must Tampa and Toronto have to claw their way through 72 games in the AL East, and then compete with other AL teams that had much weaker schedules. If you really want to make this type of free ride availaible, then re-shuffle the schedules so that teams play a more even distribution in their own leagues, and reduce the number or eliminate entirely inter-league games. But I just don't like it. You ought to earn a lot by grinding it out through a grueling season-certainly more than just the chance to get knocked out by a team you were 15 games better than because Bud wants to add a few bucks to the bottom line
ReplyDeleteIf they're going to have wild cards, two is better than one. It creates pennant races again. Before 1969, it wasn't "fair" that multiple teams in one league might all be better than the other league's champion, but it made for some great pennant races. In 1993, it wasn't "fair" that either the Braves or Giants had to miss the playoffs when both had better records than the Phillies, but it made for the last great pennant race. With two wild cards per league, it won't be "fair" that a 102-win team has to play an 85-win team, but it will make for a great pennant race between the 102 and 103-win teams. It will be better than no real pennant races at all between top-level teams, which is what we have been stuck with for the last 16 years.
ReplyDeleteI'm not crazy about this idea either but it's coming as sure as I'm sitting on the train typing this.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'd like to see is the current eight playoff teams but with a bigger disadvantage for the wildcard team: no home games in the DS round. Top seed hosts all five against the WC. If the two teams are from the same division so be it.
If the stakes in this year's AL East race were that the winner got to host the entire best of five against the loser I think we'd see a great battle to the wire.
Division winners are often no better than wild cards. The 2005 Padres barely made it over .500 with an 82-80 record and still won their division. They had the seventh best record in the NL that year, and that was with the advantage of playing the bulk of their schedule against even weaker teams. If we go to four divisions per league as many have suggested, it will only be a year or two before a sub-.500 team makes it in. In spite of the problems already discussed with the wild card, it is still more fair than allowing a team with a losing record to make it to the post-season.
ReplyDeleteWhy not realign with 2 divisions in each league (East/West, like the old system) and include 4 wild card teams per league. The wild cards play each other immediately after the regular season ends in a best-of-3 playoffs which takes place over 4 days; the winners immediately play the division winners, who have had (essentially) a 4-day bye. The Division Series are best of 5. Championship and World Series remain best of 7. This would work, right?
ReplyDeleteI think I speak for most when I say that the biggest problem with the baseball playoffs, as currently configured, is that it no longer resembles baseball.
ReplyDeleteBaseball is an everyday, 5 man rotation, 162 season long grind. Days off are the exception. But suddenly, come playoff time, a team that makes the WS finds itself with more days off over the course of the most intense month of the year than it did between April and September. There is no flow, no 5 (or sometimes even 4) man rotation, no day-in-day-out. With all the time off teams lose their timing, and reset their rotations. And in large part because of this baseball's ultimate series is no longer played in baseball weather, but rather to the gravelly tones of Steve Sabol intoning about the frozen turf of Lambeau...
I totally support making winning a division mean something (or, conversely, making the wildcard mean something less). The one game play-in idea is great.
But it only works if the season ends on Sunday, the two wildcards play on Monday (Tuesday at the latest), and the winner of the wildcard goes on to play the division winner on Wednesday. Thus the penalty is not just the sudden death single game, but the loss of the prime of your rotation.
My great fear is, knowing Bud Selig as we have come to know him, baseball will institute a second wildcard and *further* bog down the slow pace of the playoffs by making the 2 wildcards play a 3 or 5 game series followed by more days off before the playoffs begin in earnest. So as much as I love the idea of a single game sudden death with the 2 wildcard teams, if they aren't going to do it that way the status quo is *much* preferable to another series and more days off.
I agree with the commenters who said that the biggest problem with who makes baseball's postseason isn't due to wildcards, but rather the unbalanced schedule. Fix the schedule so everyone plays everyone else in their league the same amount of times (10-12 games each) and then go from there. As a fan, I'm sick of seeing of my team play almost half their games against just four opponents.
ReplyDeleteI want to second Shawn's sage suggestion.
ReplyDeleteIn my dream world, baseball re-aligns to two leagues, each with four divisions. No wildcard, straight playoff. That way you have the longer playoffs and you have more teams in and you don't arbitrarily punish teams for being in a stacked division - but you DO get the real pennant races, since there's no wildcard copout. You'd probably need to expand (the AL would need 2 more teams to ensure that each division would have at least 4 teams) but I think that's doable.
ReplyDeleteOr you could get rid of the wild-card entirely, which I'd be happy with but which is far enough into my dream world that it's kind of pointless.
Personally, I think the wild-card would be a great addition, if done in it's 1 game format. The best argument was laid out by Tom Verducci. As an earlier reader suggested, Selig will find a way to screw it up.
ReplyDeleteThere is a great test case of how wild-cards can prove to be exciting: its called the NFL playoffs. I think the NFL reaches a good balance between playoff excitement and regular season importance. There's plenty of drama the lats 4-6 weeks of a season as playoff positioning occurs.
A bad example of regular season drama is NBA/NHL. 16 teams making the playoffs, including plenty of sub .500 teams. The only "drama" in April of an NBA season is if this or that team can avoid the 3rd or 4th place Thunder.
What the NFL also gets right is fairness with it's scheduling. It properly weights the importance of winning your division. It doesn't create scenarios where the Mets play the Yankees for 6 games and the Brave play Not the Yankees. I'm not sure people have really cared about the interleague games anyway, especially for teams in Seattle or San Diego. When divisions come down to 1 or 2 games, or even 163 game seasons, things need to be fair. MLB needs to choose fairness or geographical interleague rivalries. It doesn't seem possible to have both.
Part of what I love about baseball is their restrained playoff system. I'd prefer to see them go backwards and have two divisions and allow four teams in the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteThey won't obviously.
What we need is two more teams and then have 8 four team divisions. You win your division you go to the playoffs.
I think there definitely needs to be some type of wild card showdown, because the original wild card concept was terribly flawed and ruined the concept of a pennant/division race in two divisions each year. And, the way to look at it is to start over and decide what wild card teams are entitled to. They have lost the division race and, therefore, are entitled to nothing. So, as wild card, anything they get is a bonus. The bonus probably should be a 3 game play off with the other wildcard team, but regardless of whether it is a one game or a three game playoff, they are getting something they did not earn. The fact that a 95 win team gets the same chance as a 81 win team does not bother me. They did not earn the playoffs and they are getting a bonus chance to get in the playoffs.
ReplyDeleteI don't care for any change, really; can anyone argue there was a team left out unfairly last year? A team so royally ripped off we must remedy the system? This isn't like the BCS where someone is always left out. No one deserving really missed out. So why worry about who else gets included?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, how long until some chump 5th place team dislodges a much more qualified 4th place team to great anger and gnashing of teeth?
I think the most humorous thing in this discussion are all the complicated scenarios people are imagining with seeding and special series rules and qualification. These scenarios don't make anything better, and change a simple and relatively elegant system for no reason.
Why mess with success? If you really wanted fairness you would do something like the FIFA groupings with aggregate scores and staggered entrances, but that is complicated and not at all like baseball. The system is simple, easy, and always includes all deserving teams. Keep it that way.
8 Divisions, 15 teams in both leagues and interleague is an every day thing so the schedule balances out. LDS should be best of seven and schedule more doubleheaders so you don't play into November. What they should be doing is making sure the best team wins in that LDS instead of adding yet another short series where a fluke team can get by in 1 or 3 games. What's the point of 162? Even when we beat the Cubs in 08 i feel it should have been best of 4 so it would have been convincing and given them a shot to win a few games, it just didn't seem right that such a good team played so horribly all of a sudden.
ReplyDeleteAnd to answer what Joe mentioned a while back, no i wouldn't want my team to win a championship on a blown or controversial call, i'd rather they lose. If it isn't legit people will always throw in that "yah but" and i wouldn't want them to win in a shady manner.
Guess I might be a minority, but expanding baseball's playoffs would be horrible. The bigger the playoffs are, the less they mean.
ReplyDeleteSemantic point: if you're going to have playoffs, they have to be pretty much fair (other than seeding and home-field advantage). Letting a team in and then handicapping it by making it play an extra round strikes me as not what playoffs are about. If you want to give a non-entitled team a shot at getting into the playoffs and having a roughly fair chance to compete, great, but call it a play-in.
ReplyDeleteMy preferred solution would be to go back to two divisions in each league, top team in each division gets in, the next two best teams "at large" regardless of division get in. Here's how the AL playoff would look if that's how it worked today (putting Detroit and Cleveland in AL East):
Yankees (AL East): .613
Texas (AL West): .575
Wildcards go to Boston (.608) and TB (.548). Sorry Detroit, no playoffs for you.
In the NL, Cincinatti, Pittsburgh, and Chicago go to NL East. Playoffs:
Philadelphia (NL East): .653
Milwaukee (NL West): .591
Wildcards go to Atlanta (.591) and Arizona (.548).
Is there some compelling reason we would want more sub-.550 teams in the playoffs?
All the different takes are interesting. The starting point is to decide whether the current format is a problem. I think yes because it has repeatedly ruined division races. If there is agreement that it is a problem, then the solutions are: (1) either eliminate the wild card concept (this would require 8 divisions, which also would require 2 more teams -- find wiht me, give more cities baseball); or (2) come up with a format that makes the reward for wild card status significantly less than the reward for a division champion (this would require adding a wild card team and having the two wild card teams in a showdown (1 game or 3 games).
ReplyDeleteI think either approach is okay, but I like the extra wild card team because it adds at least one additional exciting moment to the post season (the wild card showdown) and gives us fans more high quality and exciting baseball.
If the goal is to add more meaningful playoff games, how about just sticking with 8 playoff clubs and making the LDS and LCS series each best of sevens and making the WS a best of nine series (a la the 1920s)?
ReplyDeleteHow about saying that if the 5th best team isn't within 4 games of the true wild-card team than there is no 1 game play-in. If the 5th seed is 4 games back or less than we have a game. By simply adding a stipen to the rule we can prevent nonsensical match-ups like the 2001 A's vs. Twins.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty complicated. It seems like a lot of the angst about the Wild Card comes from Yankees-Red Sox fatigue. While it seems today like the current wild card system must have been initiated to keep both the Yankees and Red Sox, both very popular clubs with well-known rosters, in contention, both of those clubs were pretty inconsistent in the years leading up to the reform. The Yanks finished last in 1989, the Sox in '92.
ReplyDeleteThat both of those clubs are both really strong year-in, year-out is a recent phenomenon, and one that might not last as long as people think.
The reform was intended at the time to benefit a team like the 1993 Giants, who were much better by record than three of the four playoff teams, who had 97, 95 and 94 wins. The Giants had nine games on the White Sox! The other races were decided by 3, 7, and 8 games in much weaker divisions.
So if the idea is to have the best teams in the playoffs, right now such a system should be flexible enough to deal with a situation like we have in the AL East, in which there is one division with a fourth place team that would be a credible contender in a couple other divisions. One Wild Card does that better than two, in my estimation.
Whatever they do, I would like to see either a more balanced schedule or a more sophisticated acknowledgment of differences in strength of schedule. The unbalanced schedule really makes using raw win-loss records unfair. Anaheim (68-59) has better record than Toronto (64-62), but they play an awful lot of games against Oakland and Seattle, and only have one really strong divisional rival, while Toronto only has one weak team in their division and three very strong opponents. I suspect that Toronto might have a better team than Anaheim.
If the season ended today, New York would win the East by a half game. But they would also have a 2-10 record against Boston. Which team is better?
"I don't think it will make the game better. I guess we'll all get used to it, though."
ReplyDelete***
Sadly, we find ourselves saying this about MLB's decisions most of the time.
Nick Valvo,
ReplyDeleteYour post is thoughful, but it does not address how the wild card tends to ruin pennant races. As I noted above, the starting point is whether that flaw in the current system is a significant enough problem to change the format. I think it is, and the fact that a new wild card showdown would occasionally produce a poor matchup seems to be not very important in comparison to restoring the importance of the division race.
I don't have as much of a problem with a 102-win #2 team playing a 90-win team for the play-in. It's a penalty for not winning the division.
ReplyDeleteI like it as it is, though. More often than not, it seems like there's something of a wild card race, where three or four teams are battling for that final spot. Now, obviously that's not happening this year since it looks like it's going to be the AL East loser and the Braves, but the tight races we've had, the one-game playoffs make me support the current system over changing it again.
"It's a penalty for not winning the division."
ReplyDeleteI believe this comment, and variations on this theme that you sometimes see, reveal that even the partisans who regard the wild card as an objective good don't REALLY think it's a good thing. That's why we hear so much chatter about giving division winners an advantage for winning the division.
I have an idea for giving the division winners an even better reward for winning their division and putting the wild card team at even more of a disadvantage: eliminate the wild card.
Victor,
ReplyDeleteYou can't really eliminate the wild card unless expand to 8 divisions, which you can't do with 30 teams. So, add 2 more teams and have 8 four team divisions. That will be fine, and a shot in the arm for baseball.
Years ago, Bill James (I think) used to argue that there should be plenty more teams because there are good baseball players all over. He said look at every town, every school, every college. There are enough good ball players to field plenty of teams. I don't know if James still feels that way, but I do. Look at Avilles in the minors and now the guy they got for him. Each of them could be a major league shortstop playing everd day for the 31st and 32nd teams, and there are plenty of other players just like them.
If the goal is to add more meaningful playoff games, how about just sticking with 8 playoff clubs and making the LDS and LCS series each best of sevens and making the WS a best of nine series (a la the 1920s)?
ReplyDeleteMr. Martial Arts
I see two significant problems with the current system: the unbalanced schedule, and interleague play. If you want the 2,3 or 4 best teams from each league in the playoffs, dump interleague play (which is mostly a snooze, anyway), play a balanced schedule within each league, and send the top 2, 3 or 4 teams into a playoff.
ReplyDeleteThe focus is not just on meaningful playoff games (although I tend to think any playoff game woudl be meaningful). It is to promote both good pennant/dvision races and meaningful playoff games. So the answers are either 32 teams and 8 divisions or 2 wildcards with a wild card showdown.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be great if competing teams played the same schedule, but it is a minor issue (that probably would be solved with 32 teams and 8 divisions). Interleague play also is a minor issue. Who cares if one team plays a slightly easier schedule. In baseball, the worst team beats the best team abotu 1/3 of the time, so it is not a big deal.
Look, the only fair way to have the playoff is this: The team with the best record in the N.L. plays the team with the best record in the A.L. in the World Series. No divisions, no wild-cards. The best N.L. versus the best A.L. team.
ReplyDeleteEverything else becomes unfair in some way. Oh, well. So it goes.
The wildcard in baseball has always sucked and it always will. A 162 game season DOES NOT NEED A WILDCARD. I would be in favor of more playoffs if they shorten the regular season. End it on Aug 31. Have the top eight teams in each league make the post season. Play a double elimination or even a triple elimination tournament to determine the league representatives in the World Series and have it over by Oct 1. Otherwise, I would rather they eliminate the wildcard and go back to two divisions.
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