11/05/24
November 01, 2010
Baseball Playoffs May Add Two More Wild-Card Teams: Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig gave strong hints before Sunday's World Series game that two more wild-card teams will be added to the playoffs, though not at the expense of shortening the 162-game season. "Is eight out of 30 enough? Is that fair?" he asked. "Two more would give us 10, and 10 out of 30 I still think is a rational mix."
"Is eight out of 30 enough? Is that fair?" he asked. "Two more would give us 10, and 10 out of 30 I still think is a rational mix."
Is it fair? Hell yes. It was fair when it was four out of 28. But it's evidently not enough for Bud "My eyes are bigger than my stomach" Selig. Playoffs = money and that's all that matters.
So now you're going to add another round to the playoffs -- basically, a play-in round between the league's two wildcard teams -- without shortening the 162 game regular season. And how long is that additional playoff round? Well, it could be just one game...hey, it works for March Madness...but no, Selig claims that "some managers" have told him that a one-game playoff just isn't fair. We can't have things come down to a single game, can we? Why, that just wouldn't be fair! There's always got to be a do-over. So it will be at least a three-game playoff, which means at least one and probably two travel days, unless someone has an uncharacteristic rush of common sense to the head and says "enough already". Guess what? You just tacked an extra five days onto the postseason, plus the before-and-after-this-series horseshit.
Meanwhile, as I type this, we're about half an hour from the opening pitch of game 5 of the World Series. This series is being held in reasonably warm places this year, but it won't always be. It's forecast to get down to 22 degrees here tonight, and snow on Thursday. Anyone want to lay odds on a World Series game being played in snow within five years of this insanity going into effect? Because I don't believe that Selig can be stopped, not when he smells blood money in the water.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 07:25 PM on November 01, 2010
I'm all for two more wild-card teams if the regular season is shortened. Adding teams and keeping a 162 game season is absurd.
I've been to a World Series game where hot chocolate was being served in the stands and fans were huddling together in the concourse before the game. That isn't baseball weather.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 07:40 PM on November 01, 2010
It seems that Selig is too worried about making a legacy for himself. No matter what he does....allstar game determining home-field in playoffs, expanded playoffs, instant replay, etc... his legacy will be performance enhancing drugs and incompetancy on his own part.
posted by sgtcookzane at 08:36 PM on November 01, 2010
Another factor against pushing the baseball playoffs deeper into the fall-losing out in TV ratings to the NFL. The more money Selig hopes to make better not be from TV contracts.
posted by Bonkers at 07:52 AM on November 02, 2010
Heh heh. He said "Bud".
- Tim Lincecum (giggling)
posted by owlhouse at 10:24 AM on November 02, 2010
Crap idea. Tilts the playing field that much more in the Yankees (and Red Sox, etc.) favor. The AL playoffs with 2 wild cards this season (and many recent seasons) is an AL East benefit, funneling more money to the big payroll teams.
posted by deflated at 11:54 AM on November 02, 2010
The playoffs are a crapshoot. I don't see how it helps the Yankees to have another team in them.
posted by rcade at 12:01 PM on November 02, 2010
Dating back to 2003, an extra two wild cards would have only helped another AL East team make the playoffs twice*
The Blue Jays and White Sox finished with the same win percentage in 2003. I'm too lazy to calculate tie breakers so it is possible that the number could turn out to be three times
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 12:35 PM on November 02, 2010
Crap idea. Tilts the playing field that much more in the Yankees (and Red Sox, etc.) favor. The AL playoffs with 2 wild cards this season (and many recent seasons) is an AL East benefit, funneling more money to the big payroll teams.
I agree that it's a crap idea, but how do you figure it's a gimmee for the Yankees and Red Sox and Etc, whoever they are? The two wildcard slots in each league would go to the two teams with the best record that didn't win a division. Is your argument that wildcard standings would always be determined by a team's market size?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 02:57 PM on November 02, 2010
The Blue Jays and White Sox finished with the same win percentage in 2003. I'm too lazy to calculate tie breakers so it is possible that the number could turn out to be three times
If they follow the same rules as they do now, there would have been a one-game playoff to decide who gets the wild card.
posted by grum@work at 04:04 PM on November 02, 2010
For the last 10 seasons, an extra two AL wild card spots would have granted extra playoff opportunities to each of the following teams:
Chicago: 3.5*
Seattle: 3
Boston: 2
Texas: 2
Detroit: 2
Minnesota: 2
Oakland: 2
Cleveland: 1
Los Angeles: 1
New York: 1
Toronto: 0.5*
* Chicago and Toronto would have had to have a 1 game playoff in 2003 to determine the 3rd wild card spot
Extra playoff spots, per division:
AL East: 3.5
AL Central: 8.5
AL West: 8.0
It looks like the Central and the West would have taken more of an advantage than the East with those two extra spots.
There would have been two seasons (2004 with Texas and Oakland, and 2001 with Minnesota and Chicago) where both extra teams would have come from the same division.
In summary, Baltimore and Kansas City have sucked for the last 10 seasons.
posted by grum@work at 04:21 PM on November 02, 2010
The playoffs are a crapshoot. I don't see how it helps the Yankees to have another team in them.
It helps the Yankees because it increases the likelihood of them making it into the playoffs, more so than other teams. Thanks to Gen. Steingrabber's win-now-at-all-cost approach to free agency, they are almost always going to be in the thick of their division race. Had there been a second wild-card two years ago, they would have made it into the only playoffs they have missed out on in the last 15 years.
posted by billinnagoya at 07:56 PM on November 02, 2010
It helps the Yankees because it increases the likelihood of them making it into the playoffs ...
Given that the Yankees have made the playoffs 15 out of the past 16 years, there's no room for a significant increase. It is already a near-certainty.
posted by rcade at 08:04 PM on November 02, 2010
Leave it to grum to put my research to shame.
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 11:51 PM on November 02, 2010
Had there been a second wild-card two years ago, they would have made it into the only playoffs they have missed out on in the last 15 years.
Now that's a cherrypicked statistic if ever there was one. Take a proposed rule that would apply to every year, choose a single year where your hated Evil Empire team would have made the playoffs as a result of this rule...and ignore every other year of the last 15 here some other team would have benefited. Sorry, I'm not convinced.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 08:50 AM on November 03, 2010
Perhaps, but if you're looking to certain teams in big markets to drive viewership in the playoffs, this one extra spot would have had the Yankees in the playoffs (9+1=) 10 times and the Red Sox (6+2=) 8 times out of the last 10 years. That's 60% of the time when they wouldn't have otherwise made it! I suspect that those 3 additional playoff appearances would be worth a lot more than any of the other teams getting in.
That said, this change is dumb no matter who the beneficiary is. The season is already too long, and given the nature of baseball with late-season momentum surges and pitching rotations in playoff series, I don't like the idea of 6/10 teams sitting idle while 4 teams have a play-in round. IF it would be limited to one game, it might be worth considering, but baseball's playoffs do not need adjusting.
posted by bender at 09:50 AM on November 03, 2010
Make it 20, Bud, and the Brewers still won't get in.