A New MLB Playoff Format For a Modern Sports Fan
It’s September, sports fans, and you know what that means…
MLB playoffs just around the corner. With the season nearing its end, we are starting to get closer and closer to seeing what the playoff picture could look like. In the NL, it’s a tight race all around - multiple teams fighting for the division and the wild card. However, in the AL, it’s looking like things are more or less set with a really stacked field of heavy hitters (Red Sox, Astros, Yankees, A’s and Indians). But this article is not about who’s going to the playoffs - rather, how Major League Baseball chooses to have their organizations battle it out and how I personally believe it should be changed. But first, let’s look at the past formats.
The History
The current format is much different from what it originally was when the playoff format was introduced to the league back in 1969. First it was a one-round system - with the winner of the NL facing the winner of the AL in a 7-game series. Then in 1969, they changed it to a 2-round system - with the winner of the West division slated to play the winner of the East division in each league in a 5-game series called the League Championship Series (LCS). After a controversy in 1993 where the two best teams in the NL (Braves: 104 wins, Giants: 103 wins) were both in the NL West, the Giants ultimately didn’t even make the playoffs that year. This forced the MLB to change its format once again.
In 1994, the playoffs were changed to a 3-round system - adding the Divisional Series (LDS), a 5-game series between two divisional winners, to the format and changing the LCS to a 7-game series. This changed the East and West division in each team to change to three divisions, where the winner of each made it to the playoffs and a “Wild Card” team (best record in the league to not win the division) to be the last spot - with four teams in each league facing off to find one winner to face the winner of the opposing league.
Now for a long time, no one really had an issue with this format. But the league continued to expand and every year 2 to 3 teams fell just short despite having very good records in the regular season. So in 2012, the MLB changed the format again - with five teams in each league going to October to battle it out: three division winners and now two Wild Card (WC) teams. The two WC teams facing off in a 1-game playoff to decide who goes on to face the team with the best record in each league in a 5-game series. Wild, right?! Originally, I was very excited for this new WC game because that meant my beloved A’s could still make the playoffs - with the juggernaut Texas Rangers likely taking the division. (To everyone’s surprise, Texas ended up losing the division to the A’s in the final game of the season only to lose the first WC game to the Baltimore Orioles.) But recently I’ve very much changed my mind.
Why It Currently Isn’t Working
For starters, to have two teams’ seasons come down to just one game to make or break what they’ve been playing 162 games for is absolutely absurd. A six month season to come down to 1 game! ONE GAME? Why, it disrespects the hard work these players have put in all year and is heartbreaking for the fans of the team on the losing side. Trust me, I know (the 2014 Oakland A’s lost to the Kansas City Royals in the AL Wild Card Game in 13 innings).
Five teams per league is not enough teams to make it to the postseason (10 total). That’s one third of the league. Almost every sport does almost twice that with the exception of football - because it being such a violent sport, the wear and tear on players’ bodies is just too much. Every season, there are at least three teams who get cut short by one or two games because the club is just far too exclusive. This is the reason why, for so long, teams like the Cubs never made it to a World Series until a few years ago, or teams like the Mariners haven’t been to the playoffs in over 15 years.
Money. Simple as that. Major League Baseball is missing out on a TON of money by only making the playoffs one month long. Look at the NBA, for example - the ratings for their playoff games are through the roof because no matter how uneven the matchup, the ratings for their games are massive. People want to watch games that matter and in a sport that has 162 games, that’s definitely not the case in the majority of regular season games. The NBA playoffs are almost 2 ½ months long and they make a killing in those months, so why is the MLB cutting themselves short? The past two World Series were the highest-rated in the last 15 years - people want to watch the playoffs. In fact, you could argue it’s the only time of year that the general viewer does so outside of their market team.
My Proposal For A New Format
Alright folks, you’ve been waiting the whole article to read this, so here it is. MLB Playoffs version 5.0:
10-teams-per-league playoff system (20 total). Eight-team tournament with two pigtail games to make it into the tournament.
The first and second place teams from every division (3 per league, 6 total) automatically make it into the tournament which makes 6 teams in each league to get automatic bids. The next four teams who have the next best records that didn’t receive first or second in their division are Wild Card teams. These four WC teams play in 2 play in 3 game series to get into the AL/NL tournament. Enough of this one-game playoff nonsense! Kind of like the First Four games in March Madness that are on the bubble and barely snuck in.
The winners of those series make it into the tournament playing against the #1 seed and the #2 seed in the AL/NL tournament, and these eight teams in the tournament play a 5-game series in the first round, then 7-game series the rest of the way.
Now I know what you’re thinking - “Chris, that’s like almost 200 games these teams are playing by the end of the season!” and “That’s cutting deep into football season!” Well, that’s why I am also proposing the season be cut to 142 games so that the playoffs start in the beginning of September. This will make the “boring” months during the summer, like July and August, more exciting because the games will be more meaningful. And it’ll also give sports fans more to watch in the beginning weeks of the NFL and NCAA season when they’re so pumped up for football and looking to watch anything from the excitement of the football season. Not to mention, this makes the the beginning of the meaningful, regular-season MLB games start right when the NBA playoffs end - giving fans exciting content to keep them more involved in the middle of the slow MLB season.
So that’s my pitch. You could argue it isn’t perfect, but there isn’t any playoff system that’s really perfect. I felt that this one made the most sense for both competitive fairness, popularity, and financial benefit. As a die-hard MLB fan, it’s frustrating to watch the current format slowly kill Major League Baseball’s popularity every season. The times have changed - our generation is impatient, and we want to watch meaningful content. This system allows for most of the long season to be meaningful and exciting. I think, at least…