MLB playoff format is good; here’s how it could be great
As the 2018 Major League Baseball playoffs continue to roll on with league championships in Boston and Los Angeles, the way this year’s version of MLB’s postseason has played out exposes a glaring problem which the game needs to address, and soon.
What is the ultimate goal of a playoff system in any sport, at any level?
Isn’t a playoff system in any league ultimately designed to produce the best team in the sport by its conclusion? At the very least, the format of a playoff system should allow for the possibility of a Cinderella story, but it shouldn’t do so at the expense of teams which were better over an entire regular season.
In baseball, a playoff system with a lot of wonderful qualities exists now, but a potential problem came with the 2012 addition of the one-game wild-card “round” prior to the divisional series in both leagues. After 162 games this season, a team with a legitimate case for being the second- or third-best team in all of baseball, the New York Yankees were forced to participate in a one-game, winner-take-all matchup versus the Oakland Athletics.
The Yankees (100-62, second place in the A.L. East in 2018), as they did in 2017, won the WC game and advanced to play in the best-of-five divisional series. Sound like a fair deal to you? Unfortunately for the Bronx Bombers, the team awaiting them in the ALDS was the team with the best regular-season record in the entire sport and the AL East division winners for the third consecutive season: the Boston Red Sox (108-54).
So as a reward for being one of the best teams this season, the Yanks got to play the best team. And even that bittersweet reward was only afforded after New York knocked off the pesky Athletics in what amounted to nine innings of sudden death.
Boston could file a complaint as well. How is it that a team which won 108 games in the regular season, and is (at least by name) the No. 1 seed entering the postseason, was rewarded with a matchup versus a team which won 100 games?
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things to like about the MLB playoffs. The tension and electricity present (tangibly so) on every pitch is so elevated from the regular season, it’s not even close to being comparable to the monotony of a mid-summer Sunday afternoon snooze fest.
Meaningful games
The addition of a third division in each league, along with the introduction of the wild-card team (both changes took place in 1994) by former commissioner Bud Selig, have helped provide a glimmer of postseason hope to teams in the middle of the standings come the annual July 31 trade deadline. With a glimmer of hope comes meaningful baseball for more teams, in more cities and on more TV networks.
Scheduling is another positive for the playoff format as it currently stands.
Unlike other leagues, such as the NBA, the MLB playoff system doesn’t take two months to complete. Almost every night during the playoffs, a baseball game is being played on national television. That matters with the shortening attention spans in today’s sports culture.
For all the good, there’s plenty to improve.
If the goal is to determine the best team in baseball every year, baseball has to fix the one-game wild card. I think by changing both the wild-card and divisional rounds to a best two-of-three series, baseball could solve two problems with one change.
A 103-win team wouldn’t have to play one game for all the marbles, and the division winner would still receive the important advantage of having almost a week off before playing the winner of the
wild-card series.
Adjusting the playoff format only slightly would improve a product which is already one of the best in sports. If commissioner Rob Manfred’s track record is any indication, he will be for implementing any change that brings with it more money.
(Savannah Morning News/TNS)