Major League Baseball And The Flaws Behind Expanded Playoffs
It’s official, Major League Baseball has added a second “Wild Card” team. Essentially the two teams with the best records in each league that don’t win the division will be awarded a one game “playoff”, allowing them to compete for a playoff spot. The move was designed to create more playoff races, and to make things interesting for an additional team. It’s also supposed to make teams work harder to fight for the division, and make the road to the playoffs for a wild card team more difficult.
Unfortunately, the second wild card spot accomplishes none of these things.
First of all, the second wild card team doesn’t actually reach the playoffs. Major League Baseball can call it a playoff game all it wants, but really it’s just a tie breaker. It’s game 163 for all intents and purposes. When the San Diego Padres lost to the Colorado Rockies back in 2007 in their tie breaker game, would anybody say the Padres reached the playoffs? Absolutely not. The addition of a second wild card spot is nothing other than a gimmick designed to increase baseball ratings, forcing a game that is not even remotely necessary.
Unlike hockey, football, or basketball, baseball has a 162 game schedule during the regular season that separates the pretenders from the contenders. Creating a second wild card to have a one game playoff doesn’t prove which team belongs in the playoffs. It shouldn’t. It cheapens the regular season because a 95 win team can effectively miss the playoffs now because of an 88 win team.
Say that out loud – the new system allows the fifth best team to make the playoffs instead of the fourth best team. Does that make any logical sense? Of course not. Nor does it make sense that a 95 win team should have to prove it deserves a spot in the playoffs over an 88 win team. That’s why we have the regular season, to prove which teams belong in the playoffs.
Over the past 16 years the average wild card team won 93 games, while the hypothetical second wild card team would have won 89 games. Major League Baseball has effectively decided that baseball is more “interesting” when an 89 win team that didn’t win their division can make the playoffs over a 93 win team that didn’t win the division. It’s complete insanity. Bud Selig and MLB have created a system where a third place team can leapfrog over a second place team to earn a playoff spot.
Even beyond the ridiculousness of having a 93 win team play an 89 win team is the fact that it’s a one game playoff. Baseball is not like football – it simply can’t be decided over a one game period. Scheduling nightmares prevent a three game series, but realistically that’s the only way to prove anything. The Houston Astros could win one game against the New York Yankees. Anything can happen in one game of baseball. To fight for a playoff spot the entire season, posting a better record than your opponents, only to lose out because of one game is disingenuous at best and a pathetic attempt to force “drama” or “excitement”.
Expanded Playoffs were rushed for 2012, and the result is nothing but a sad joke. The wild card teams will be guaranteed two home games in the first playoff series, while the division winners will only be guaranteed one. Meaning that this year, the wild card teams, and not the divison winners, will be guaranteed the most home field games. If the series goes to 5 games the division leaders will have the most home games, but it’s pretty pathetic that the wild card team will have such a significant advantage in the first round of the playoffs. At this point, it’s just adding insult to injury.
The original concept behind the one game playoff wasn’t a bad idea. Wild card teams had an easy route to the playoffs, with the lone disadvantage being that they had one less home team than a division winner. If Major League Baseball wanted to punish the wild card teams, while ensuring that the best teams in the regular season (the 93 win teams) got in over the fifth place teams (the 89 win teams), then I have a few solutions for Major League Baseball:
Giving the Wild Card significantly fewer home games. In the ALDS or NLDS, round one of the playoffs, the Wild Card team would only be given one home game. Game 3. Games 1, 2, 4 and 5 would be played in the division winners ballpark. For the next two rounds, the ALCS/NLCS and the World Series, the wild card team would only be guaranteed one home game (game 4) and if it goes to game 5 they would get that one as well. So the division winners would get 5 home games if the series went to 7 games.
The second one, and this will be quite controversial, is that the American League wild card teams would lose the use of their DH when they don’t play in their home ballpark. It’s a radical change, but it would put the wild card team at a significant disadvantage. Can you imagine Boston having to go through the majority of the playoffs without David Ortiz? Or the Tampa Bay Rays being unable to use Luke Scott? Potentially losing their DH when they are not in their home park would be a crushing blow to a wild card team. The reason why this strategy works, is because it puts the wild card teams at a tactical disadvantage. It’s an extreme move, but it makes more sense then losing their right to be in the playoffs over a team that performed worse than they did during the regular season.
As the NL teams don’t have access to the DH, a different punishment for them could be that they can not move the pitcher position in the batting order. A key tactic in the NL is to use the double switch, allowing teams to move the pitcher in the batting order so that their turn in the order does not come up for a few innings. This allows teams to maximize the innings by a reliever, ensuring that their spot in the order won’t come up so that they won’t need to be replaced by a hitter. What this does is force teams to either pinch hit for a key reliever, or use a lesser reliever in a key spot as they wouldn’t want a set up man to hit in the following inning.
Obviously these strategies are extreme, and will likely never be used. But the point is, if you want to punish a wild card team, make it a meaningful punishment that will have an in game consequence. It’s the wrong decision by Major League Baseball to have a one game playoff between the fourth and fifth best teams in a league, as under no circumstance should an 89 win non-division leader be in the playoffs over a 93 win non-division leader. Major League Baseball dropped the ball on this one, and it’s the fans who will suffer the most as both the regular season and the playoffs have been cheapened by this terrible decision.
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