For those of you who aren't fans baseball has two leagues, with three divisions each. Until this year, each division winner made the playoffs along with one team from each league with the next best record overall called a "wild card." This year, there is a second wild card team. The two wild card teams will play each other in a one-game playoff, with the winner advancing to a five game series against one of the division winners.
Now, even under this new, marvelously accommodating system, my Boston Red Sox will not make the playoffs.
$175 million doesn't buy what it used to. Also the Cubs aren't even close because don't EVER forget that God hates the Cubs.
In any event, my personal tendency in situations like this is to be skeptical of altering a traditional approach. Had I been older in 1994 when the wild card was added in the first place, I think I would have bemoaned the fact that we now had divisions, and multiple series, and not simply just two League Championship Series, and the World Series. But that ship having sailed, I actually think this new system might be an improvement.
What, ideally, are we trying to do with playoffs? Hopefully we achieve two compatible goals: 1) the system, more often than not, allows the best team the best chance of winning, and 2) fans are entertained by the process. The concern with adding in a fifth team is that it reduces the best teams overall chances of winning, and I agree that if it turns out that either the fourth of fifth team in ends up winning an unusual amount of the time, then the system isn't working like it should.
But here, I think the winner of the one-game playoff between wild card teams will put the winner at a pretty big disadvantage as it moves to the next series. Presumably the wild card teams will use their best available starting pitcher for the play-in game, which means he won't be able to pitch again until Game 4 or 5 of the next series, if there IS a Game 4 or 5. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's enough of a disadvantage that I suspect the wild card teams will win less often than they used to, and I think rewarding the division winners by doing this is OK. If you don't want to burn your best pitcher in a one game playoff? Well, you should have won the division.
So let's assume for the moment that the new system isn't actually worse at giving the best team the best shot at winning, and I actually think it might give that team an extra advantage compared to the old system. I don't think the second criteria is even debatable. This is going to be wildly entertaining. One game playoffs are awesome, after which I don't anticipate any drop-off in entertainment from the rest of the post-season. Furthermore, even more teams will be playing for that extra playoff spot, so the end of the regular season may be more exciting too.
Mere excitement would not be a good enough reason to change the rules. There might be lots of things that would make a game more exciting but would either fundamentally change the parameters of a baseball game itself, or might not further the goal of having the best team rise to the top. BUT: here I think baseball has - perhaps despite itself - found a way to enhance excitement while still maintaining such a goal.
More broadly, it's of note that the way the rules guiding post-season play are (re) structured changes the strategy of teams involved: those who are still in the hunt may elect not to test young talent, but instead chase a playoff spot, teams in the one-game playoff may elect to use their best pitcher or not depending on circumstances. The change is comparatively minor, but it's good to be mindful of the knock-on effects of a rule change.
That's all for today. Happy September!
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