One thing I've claimed in the past, and continue to stick by, is that large playoff formats are bad for competition. The NHL and NBA allowing more than half of the league into the postseason does little more than create chaos rather than reward teams who played well over the 82-game season as opposed to a hot streak in the spring. Even in college football, I'm a fan of a smaller playoff, four to eight teams at the very most, because I've never heard any sort of argument as to why the 12th ranked team should have a shot at a National Title merely because they won the C-USA.
Over the years, baseball was the one exception to the rule. For everything that people don't like about baseball, I believe they get more right than wrong. No salary cap? It hurts, but notice which league the lockouts have occurred in over the past 14 months (NFL, NBA, NHL). Nevertheless, that's a post for another day (and I promise there will be one on that). Prior to this season, baseball had been allowing eight teams to reach the playoffs each season out of thirty. I've never been a big fan of the wildcard, but I can understand the need for a multiple of four when it comes to teams.
This year, Bud Selig in his continued attempt to make a name for himself with no regard for the game, added two more teams to ten. Of course, fans of this move will point out it is a one-game series (played today for both the American and National Leagues), and it leaves the winners in the same position as the previous wild card teams. If there was a Congressional bill that declared it would remain this way for the next century, I could live with it, but sadly I feel this is just the beginning of expanding the playoff system. Look at the history of every other league, and you will see the expansion just builds off of itself.
To be fair, the now 10 teams out of 30 (1/3 obviously), still make it the smallest playoff field of any of the major leagues. The NFL is the next smallest at 12 out of 32 teams. However, while fans in St. Louis or Los Angeles or Milwaukee might enjoy seeing their team play meaningful games in late September, fact of the matter is that they didn't deserve to be.
There is always going to be the argument that it makes for a better playoff race in September, but does it really? In another decade, some will argue that if we added two more wild card spots, all the teams above .500 could be in the race. The Major League Baseball season is 162 games for a reason. It isn't meant to cater to every average team. The only grueling part about the sport of baseball is the length of the season, so finishing a 162-game season above everyone else should be followed by a reward like the post-season.
An article on Yahoo by a former detractor of the new system has given praise to it now, saying it made the race far more interesting. I could not agree less. Let's look at the National League first. Suffice to say there was not much to be said for the last week of the MLB season. The Los Angeles Dodgers trailed the St. Louis Cardinals by three games, and they cut the lead to two. That is the only additional excitement this new wild card added to the NL this season. If it was not there, the playoffs would have been locked up one week earlier with the Braves grabbing the last spot, and they still gave the Washington Nationals a little bit of a chase for the division title. Therefore, I think we can conclude the wild card did nothing here.
In the AL on the other hand, no one knew who was making the playoffs until this past weekend, BUT that did not have to do with the new wild card. Ironically, the new format played no role at all in this equation except for keeping the Tampa Bay Rays in the race longer. The wild card teams of the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers will face off today in a one-game series. If there was no additional wild card team, these teams having already tied in the standings...would have faced off today in a one-game series. IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE TO THE OUTCOME!
The article points out the great races in the AL this year, but they were for division titles and had no baring on the new wild card spot. All three division titles in the AL were decided this past weekend, with or without the extra spot!
For anyone who might shrug this year off as an anomaly, does one recall the end of the 2011 MLB season? Last year may have been the best playoff races since the wild card was introduced in 1995. On the final day of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays capped off amazing comebacks on the final day of the season to beat the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox. It was arguably the most terrific September for baseball I recall, and that's coming from a Mets fan who saw his team finish with 85 losses. Introduce a second wild card for last year, and the entire month would have been ruined because rather than a playoff race, you have all of the aforementioned teams in the playoffs, including those who choked on their way out.
For a more analytical point of view, let's look at it this way. If we ignore the National League division winners (Washington, Cincinnati, and San Francisco), and look just at the remaining NL teams, we can get an idea of how much better the Braves were over the Cardinals (the two wild card teams). After all, the MLB season is 162 games, and the best teams compared to the worst ones only win about 30% more of their games.
Atlanta: 94-68 (.580)
St. Louis: 88-74 (.543)
...
Houston: 55-107 (.340)
Let's suggest the entire season was replayed without the three division winners. Maybe the records wouldn't be quite the same, but they should be close. After all, we're taking the best team from each division out, so all the teams should do slightly better.
If we determine the best remaining team (Atlanta Braves) is 100% better than than the last place team (Houston Astros), we can say 39 games is the exact difference between the first and last place teams, and it was here. The Cardinals finished six games back of the Braves. Assuming the Braves are 100% better than the Astros by record alone, we can decide that (6/39 = .154) the Braves are 15.4% better than the Cardinals.
That number probably does not seem like a lot, but in baseball, that 15.4% is huge. If the best team each year went 162-0, and the worst went 0-162 (think about football where undefeated records and winless season are not impossible), that would put the Cardinals an entire 25 games back of the Braves.
For you NFL fans, in 2007, the New England Patriots went 16-0 on the year, and the Indianapolis Colts went 13-3. Would anyone have really suggested the Colts were as good as the Patriots following the regular season that year? The difference between those two teams were merely 18% when you look at their record.
The point is, in baseball, all the teams generally finish within a winning percentage of .325-.625, a small margin that when played over 162 games looks only slightly larger, so when a team finishes six games back in a playoff race, do they really deserve a shot at the team that finished six games ahead? Making matters worst, should a series ever be decided by one game when a team consists of a five-man rotation? The Cardinals only need one Cy Young candidate to pitch one good game, and they will have passed a team that truly outdid them over the course of a season.
The answer to the above mentioned questions is a simple no.
As a testament to how much I've paid attention to baseball the past two years. I had forgot about this until the games today. What a silly idea. In a game where the most successful hitters fail 70% of the time, and one pitcher can dominate any single game, the season is designed to have the best teams rise to the top after 162 games. Furthermore, in a playoff series (best of 5 or 7), the better team should (not always) come out on top. I hate this idea of a one game playoff. If it must be done, make it an extra series.
ReplyDeleteJimmies
ReplyDeleteI so knew it was you.
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