MLB to add 2nd Wild Card Team per league?

[UMFan83]

If the 2nd wild card team isn't the 5th best team, then you're giving the 5th (or potentially worse) best team in the league a bye ahead of 2 teams that were better. I'm not advocating scrapping divisions, but it seems odd to reward a team for happening to be better than 4 (or 5 or 3) teams that happen to be located near them.

 

I am ok with just taking the 4 best teams, seeding them, and holding a playoffs, but to do so they have to balance the schedules.

 

As of now, divisions make sense because you play the other teams in your division for almost half of your games. So if you play in a division that has 3-4 decent teams that beat up on each other, you might have a 87 win team that finishes 1st and has the worst record of all playoff teams. I think its fair that the division champion should be rewarded with a playoff spot.

 

As far as the existance of divisions, it does seem to create a lot more excitement, and due to geographical closeness seems to really create and maintain rivalries. There are some negatives of course but nothing is going to be perfect.

[TruffleShuffle]

I really don't get the obsession with eliminating the non-best team from having a chance. If an 89 win team wins the World Series, so be it.

 

the problem i have with it is that you can have a 98 win team, maybe the second-best team in their league, lose a division by a game and have to play a one game playoff to advance to the wild card round. say they're pushing hard to win the division so they don't have to play in that playoff, and they burn their ace in the last couple of days of the regular season - now they have to pitch their #2 or #3 against the other wild card, who might have made the playoffs without much trouble and have their ace ready to go.

 

then the winner of the wild card game probably goes on to play the 5-game series only using their ace once. do not like the one game playoff idea.

[jiml60]

Win your division and they don't have to worry about pitching match-ups. That should be the first goal in this playoff scenario, win the division, if you don't you put yourself at a disadvantage.

[TruffleShuffle]

Win your division and they don't have to worry about pitching match-ups. That should be the first goal in this playoff scenario, win the division, if you don't you put yourself at a disadvantage.

 

nobody is disagreeing with that, what people are disagreeing with is how much of a disadvantage is fair to a team that loses their division by a game. the 2004 red sox won 98 games, had the third-best record in baseball and went on to win the world series, but under this system even though they were 6 games better than either of the other division winners, they'd have been forced to use schilling in a one-game playoff against the a's, probably having like a 60% chance of even advancing to face the angels. seems like it punishes the #1 wild card team way too much for playing in a division with a really good team.

[CubColtPacer]

I really don't get the obsession with eliminating the non-best team from having a chance. If an 89 win team wins the World Series, so be it.

 

the problem i have with it is that you can have a 98 win team, maybe the second-best team in their league, lose a division by a game and have to play a one game playoff to advance to the wild card round. say they're pushing hard to win the division so they don't have to play in that playoff, and they burn their ace in the last couple of days of the regular season - now they have to pitch their #2 or #3 against the other wild card, who might have made the playoffs without much trouble and have their ace ready to go.

 

then the winner of the wild card game probably goes on to play the 5-game series only using their ace once. do not like the one game playoff idea.

 

I do see that as a significant disadvantage for the first wild card. But I think the many pros outweigh the cons.

 

In that scenario under the current model, the teams don't fight too hard for the division down the stretch but just pack it in for the playoffs. They would now fight hard for that division title.

 

It would keep more teams and fanbases in it for a longer period of time.

 

As others have mentioned, the 1 game playoffs would be very exciting to watch

 

It rewards division winners.

 

It rewards the #1 seed. Right now, there is little incentive to go after that #1 seed because the wildcard is frequently not the worst team in the playoffs.

 

The cons:

 

It hurts the 1st wildcard

 

It probably makes the trading deadline even less interesting as there will be less sellers (although if that causes teams to pay higher prices for talent, maybe that's a good thing for parity sake? But that's just a guess so this is still a con)

 

It might make the #1 vs the wildcard team a less interesting series (you can decide if this is fair for the #1 team or bad because it's bad for entertainment)

 

Division imbalance becomes even more important.

[TruffleShuffle]

i agree it's good as far as fan interest and excitement, but bad for fairness. making the ASG determine home field advantage for the world series has also been a big positive as far as the ASG ratings; do you also agree with that move?

[erik316wttn]

I'd like the whole "Wild Card and Divison Winner cant meet in 1st round if they're from the same divison" thing to go away. It should be 1 vs 4/5, 2 vs 3. Period.

[SouthSideRyan]

Every time the topic of the ASG deciding HFA should be required to inclued a note saying it was formerly determined by alternating every year.

[erik316wttn]

Every time the topic of the ASG deciding HFA should be required to inclued a note saying it was formerly determined by alternating every year.

 

That was stupid, too. He just replaced a bad system with a worse one. It should be decided by regular season record, not in a game where WS HFA could possibly come down to an AB between a pitcher and a hitter on teams who have no shot of making the post-season.

[SouthSideRyan]

How is the current method worse?

[imb]

Every time the topic of the ASG deciding HFA should be required to inclued a note saying it was formerly determined by alternating every year.

 

levin, could you re-write this

[SouthSideRyan]

Every time the topic of the ASG deciding HFA should be required to inclued a note saying it was formerly determined by alternating every year.

 

levin, could you re-write this

 

Erik had no problem understanding it.

[erik316wttn]

How is the current method worse?

 

I explained why in the post.

 

If the Cubs one day make the World Series and HFA is something that matters to you, would you want it possibly decided in a game months before possibly decided on a HR by, say, a Royals batter off of a Pirates pitcher, assuming those two teams are still lousy at the time? It makes no sense.

 

Selig only did the HFA because he got embarrassed in Milwaukee. If that tie doesn't happen, the ASG stipulation doesn't happen. WS HFA should be decided by best overall record in the majors.

[SouthSideRyan]

How is the current method worse?

 

I explained why in the post.

 

If the Cubs one day make the World Series and HFA is something that matters to you, would you want it possibly decided in a game months before possibly decided on a HR by, say, a Royals batter off of a Pirates pitcher, assuming those two teams are still lousy at the time? It makes no sense.

 

 

I'd prefer that to being pissed off that they happened to make it in an even year.

[erik316wttn]

How is the current method worse?

 

I explained why in the post.

 

If the Cubs one day make the World Series and HFA is something that matters to you, would you want it possibly decided in a game months before possibly decided on a HR by, say, a Royals batter off of a Pirates pitcher, assuming those two teams are still lousy at the time? It makes no sense.

 

 

I'd prefer that to being pissed off that they happened to make it in an even year.

 

Fair enough. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

[davearm2]

Win your division and they don't have to worry about pitching match-ups. That should be the first goal in this playoff scenario, win the division, if you don't you put yourself at a disadvantage.

 

nobody is disagreeing with that, what people are disagreeing with is how much of a disadvantage is fair to a team that loses their division by a game. the 2004 red sox won 98 games, had the third-best record in baseball and went on to win the world series, but under this system even though they were 6 games better than either of the other division winners, they'd have been forced to use schilling in a one-game playoff against the a's, probably having like a 60% chance of even advancing to face the angels. seems like it punishes the #1 wild card team way too much for playing in a division with a really good team.

If you've got an idea that's 100% fair with no downsides or trade-offs, we're all ears.

 

This new system would have more pro's than con's. It'd be a net improvement, despite being imperfect (as all postseason setups will inherently be).

[davearm2]

FWIW in the NFL, the 2nd best team in the conference can end up a wildcard, be seeded 5th, be on the road throughout the playoffs. Yet you don't hear a lot of complaining about the NFL's setup.

[SouthSideRyan]

An NFL season is 16 games long.

[KingCubsFan]

Win your division and they don't have to worry about pitching match-ups. That should be the first goal in this playoff scenario, win the division, if you don't you put yourself at a disadvantage.

 

nobody is disagreeing with that, what people are disagreeing with is how much of a disadvantage is fair to a team that loses their division by a game. the 2004 red sox won 98 games, had the third-best record in baseball and went on to win the world series, but under this system even though they were 6 games better than either of the other division winners, they'd have been forced to use schilling in a one-game playoff against the a's, probably having like a 60% chance of even advancing to face the angels. seems like it punishes the #1 wild card team way too much for playing in a division with a really good team.

If you've got an idea that's 100% fair with no downsides or trade-offs, we're all ears.

 

This new system would have more pro's than con's. It'd be a net improvement, despite being imperfect (as all postseason setups will inherently be).

Maybe they should just have the two worst teams play in the one game playoff, wild card or not.

[davearm2]

An NFL season is 16 games long.

Golf has 4 majors

[Guest]

I still like the World Series + Champions League type setup, even though it doesn't have a prayer of happening.

[SouthSideRyan]

An NFL season is 16 games long.

Golf has 4 majors

 

 

YEAH!!!

[jersey cubs fan]

I still like the World Series + Champions League type setup, even though it doesn't have a prayer of happening.

 

What does that even mean? You want the 4 best MLB teams to go play Asian and South American teams and have that schedule somehow woven into the next season?

[ConstableRabbit]

Completely on-board for this.

[Guest]

I still like the World Series + Champions League type setup, even though it doesn't have a prayer of happening.

 

What does that even mean? You want the 4 best MLB teams to go play Asian and South American teams and have that schedule somehow woven into the next season?

 

No, it was the most concise way to say the concept.

 

-Best record in each league plays in the World Series

 

-Top 12 other teams play in a playoff of best-of-3 series, remaining division winners get byes

 

You can do lots of variations on the concept, have this year's standings determine next year's playoff field, add/subtract teams to your liking, have a couple playoff slots for NPB teams, etc. In the simplest form above, you achieve pretty much all your goals.

 

- Regular season remains important(best record plays for most prestigious prize)

- Winning division remains important(division winners avoid one round of short series variation)

- Keeps more teams interested(~20 teams are in the hunt until the last week or two)

- Keeps interest in baseball up(short series mean lots of elimination games, potential cinderella runs, etc)

 

I personally like the idea of this year's standings determining next year's field, because it forces teams to keep contending rosters together for multiple years, and also keeps a few more teams interested late in the year(Minnesota and Cincy this year, for example).