Baseball gets a little wilder
MLB adds a second wild-card team in both leagues, with the two wild cards playing one game for the right to advance.
Another team will qualify for the postseason in each league, with a one-game playoff.
Is it a good thing that a thirdplace team could win the World Series?
The Dodgers and Angels voted yes, endorsing baseball’s new and expanded postseason because it enhances the chance of a firstplace team to survive the playoffs and land in the World Series.
“I’m excited,” Angels Manager Mike Scioscia said, “because I think it leans more heavily on the integrity of the season than the old system.”
Major League Baseball added a second wild-card team in both leagues Friday, with the two wild cards playing one game for the right to advance in the playoffs.
In each league, the survivor would play the team with the best record in the best-of-five division series, with the other two division winners in another best-of-five series.
The wild cards will be the two teams with the best records beyond division champions — and regardless of division, raising the possibility that a third-place team could qualify for the playoffs.
“I love it,” Angels pitcher Dan Haren said of the new system. “There’s more incentive to win the division, and it puts the wild card at a slight disadvantage, which is the right thing.
“The one-game playoff is going to be exciting for fans, for TV, for us. It doesn’t make the playoffs any longer. I don’t see anything bad about it.”
The World Series originated in 1903, matching the winners of the National League and American League. In 1969, when baseball expanded from 20 teams to 24, the leagues split into two divisions apiece, with division champions facing off to determine each league’s entrant for the World Series.
In 1994, the NL and AL split into three divisions apiece, with a four-team playoff field in each league — the division champions, plus the “wild card” — that is, the team with the best record among all the second-place finishers.
The Angels won the World Series as a wild-card team in 2002, the first of six consecutive seasons in which a second-place team reached the Series. In 2010, the New York Yankees clinched a wild-card spot, then rested their best pitchers for the playoffs rather than challenge for the division title.
“The division title was rendered meaningless the way the setup was,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman told the New York Daily News this spring. “It really meant nothing more than a T-shirt and a hat.”
Under the new system, winning the division championship means avoiding a one-game playoff, and, with the best record, waiting with your best pitcher to face a wildcard team that presumably used its best pitcher in the suddendeath game.
“It seems fair to me that the team with the best record gets an advantage by winning their division,” Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly said.
That advantage could be enhanced, Mattingly said, if a wildcard team needs to use its ace on the final day of the regular season, or in a tiebreaker.
“If you had to use the 1to get to that playoff and then you have to use your 2 in that game, you might have to start the playoffs with your 3 guy,” Mattingly said. “I think it’s fair.”
The baseball playoff field now includes 10 of the 30 teams. In the NFL, the playoffs include 12 of the 32 teams. In the NBA and NHL, 16 of the 30 teams qualify.
“This change increases the rewards of a division championship and allows two additional markets to experience playoff baseball each year,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement, “all while maintaining the most exclusive postseason in professional sports.”
With six potential powerhouses in the AL — the Angels, Yankees, Texas Rangers, Boston Red Sox, Tampa Bay Rays and Detroit Tigers — one or possibly two 90win clubs could have their seasons come down to a one-game playoff.
“I never thought of that,” Angels right fielder Torii Hunter said. “I guess you’ll just have to play one extra game. But if you win your division, you’re in no matter what.
“That’s your main goal, not to win the wild card. If you happen to get in through the wild card, thank you, you have new life.” bill.shaikin@latimes.com twitter.com/billshaikin Times staff writers Mike Digiovanna in Tempe, Ariz., and Dylan Hernandez in Phoenix contributed to this report.