Henry Schulman has a very bad idea, in this column entitled: Should Major League Baseball do away with divisions?
In one proposal making the rounds, Major League Baseball should do away with divisions and simply choose the five teams with the best record in each league for the postseason. The two teams with the worst records would be the wild cards and have that one-game play-in. The survivor would be seeded fourth for the Division Series, with the top three teams seeded according to records.
Henry is disappointed the Cardinals and Pirates can’t meet in the NLCS, at least the way the standing shake out right now. That’s a fluke of the Pirates have the second best record in the league. It used to be that if two teams in a division had the best two records in the league, the second place team was out of luck. Now they are guaranteed at least one post-season game. I used to like the tragedy of a great team failing to make the playoffs by losing the regular season to an even greater team, but San Francisco fans weren’t happy with 1993, so we got the wild card.
The current set up is good because it creates drama in different places. There are interesting races for first in most of the divisions, and the Nationals and Giants are going to be a bit more desperate down the stretch because they are far out in the wild card race. If we go to no divisions, everyone is just going to be chasing the second wild card, and that should be a last resort.
I’d like to see them redefine all the divisions, and even change the leagues to something like the NBA has – East & West.
I often wonder how the 1980 playoffs would’ve played out if there was a wild card round.
This actually encapsulates well the main advantage and drawback of the wildcard. The advantage is that you guarantee that the team with the second best record will always be in the playoffs. The drawback is losing the drama of the old school all-or-nothing pennant races. Instead, you guarantee that the divisional race in the strongest division in each league will lack drama.
Well, keep the divisions, but probably expand to either 3 or 5 wild cards. With 3 wild cards the best two records sit while the other division winner plays, 3/5 to get to LDS. With 5 wild cards you just have an opening round with everyone playing seeded by division title. 3/5 then next round 4/7.
Shorten the regular season and lengthen the playoffs and increase the number of playoff teams. The season should be around 140 G long and about 16 teams in the playoffs. Long playoffs. Better ratings and more money.