In 1993, one of the best teams in baseball – the 103-win San Francisco Giants – missed the postseason by one game.
In the following year, Major League Baseball made sure that would never happen again. The league quickly created and approved the Wild Card and Division playoff format to appease teams like the Giants.
From then on, teams that were good enough to make the playoffs – but not quite good enough to win their division – would get a chance to play for the game’s ultimate prize. After the small-debacle of 1993 – when a 97-win Phillies team reached the postseason over the 103-win Giants – MLB changed its playoff format for the second time in 25 years.
On Friday, the league did the same thing to conclude a year-long response to the 2010 New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays admitting they didn’t care about winning the division if they had the Wild Card to fall back on.
But now, wildcard winners will get a slightly-more-difficult road to become a league champion. Starting in 2012, the league’s playoffs have expanded from eight to 10 teams. The new format will add an additional Wild Card game, and push the two Wild Card winners into a “play-in” game to enter the final eight teams.
After a winter of discussion, Commissioner Bud Selig and the league’s owners felt it was time.
The problem, though, it’s a terrible and rushed idea.
The expansion is a pet project of Selig, so it’s not surprising that it will make its debut in 2012. One offseason, though, is not enough to make such a dramatic change to the postseason.
With the new format, the league will force the one-game playoff of each league’s Wild Card opponents in between the three-day gap between the end of the season and the beginning of the playoffs, the date of which couldn’t be moved because of network agreements.
So each team that does earn a Wild Card berth will have to play a game one day after the end of the season – creating the chance that the team’s best starting pitcher couldn’t participate.
And if a team has to go through an extra game to see who earns a postseason berth – whether it’s for one of the two Wild Card spots or a division championship – when are they supposed to play? They can’t play the day after the season because one team will be traveling.
But beyond the possible scheduling conflicts, the true issue is the loss of drama. What has been great about the baseball postseason – or the road to get there – is how only a few teams get in.
Unlike basketball and hockey, where more than half of the leagues’ 30 teams make the postseason – only eight did in baseball.
Playoffs – in all sports, really – should be an reward to the elite. The postseason is supposed to represent the best of the best, and in baseball it truly did.
Sure teams in the AL East struggle to make the postseason because of the divisional powerhouses Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees – the Tampa Bay Rays could be included as well – but that doesn’t mean the league should reconfigure its postseason.
If this policy was implemented last year, the frantic finish of the season’s last game – where the Rays and Cardinals earned postseason berths – wouldn’t have happened.
Instead, there would have been a play-in game.
One of the greatest things about baseball’s long history is the pennant race. A long season comes down to a month, where teams in each division fight for one of the few playoff spots.
In baseball, that playoff spot is a rare feat that’s celebrated with champagne. It’s an important moment. But with this change – and two more teams – it’s that much easier to become a part of the playoff club.
