The New York Yankees finished with the best record in the American League this season, thus earning home field advantage for the first two rounds of the postseason. Although, you could forgive the Yankees for not really considering it much of an "advantage" at all. Because of Bud Selig's insistance to add the wild card games starting this year, the entire postseason schedule got screwed up. And the Yankees were the team that felt the effects of that new schedule the most.
Now, the purpose of this post is not to do some Yankee-fan bitching. I'm sure it'll probably get taken that way, but that's not my intent. There are plenty of reasons why the Yankees lost the first two games of the ALCS that have very little to do with the postseason schedule. (Those reasons are named Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Nick Swisher and Alex Rodriguez.) However, the way this year's postseason schedule was constructed had the opposite effect of what was intended. There was no advantage in earning the No. 1 seed. In fact, it might've been a disadvantage.
All of this can be blamed on the Commissioner's Office. This season's postseason schedule was already set when Bud decided to add the extra playoff team this year instead of waiting until next year like he should've. Since Selig wanted wild card games this season, they had to cram them into the existing schedule while keeping the start dates for the ALCS, NLCS and World Series the same (which they had to, since the TV schedule was already set with FOX and TBS). As a result, they had to get a little creative. They had to eliminate the off day in the Division Series and go from the 2-2-1 format to the 2-3 format that everybody hates. But the worst flaw in this schedule was that the Yankees-Orioles Division Series ended on Friday and the ALCS started on Saturday.
It's, of course, not Major League Baseball's fault that the Yankees-Orioles series went five games. And if it hadn't, they wouldn't have had this problem. But even knowing that it was a possibility should've sent up enough red flags to make it not happen. Anyway, here's the situation. The Tigers wrapped up their ALDS in Oakland on Thursday night. Detroit then flew home and waited to find out who (and where) they would play. The next day! They at least got a day off, though. The top-seeded Yankees, who just finished an intense five-game series, didn't have to go anywhere, but they did have to play the day after that series-clinching win. Had the Orioles won Game 5, they would've had to travel to Detroit immediately following the game. (Perhaps the best thing about Oakland failing to advance is that you didn't have a team flying cross-country in the middle of the night and playing that night.)
Let's not even get into the fact that the team with the best record started the playoffs with two road games. Let's focus on this: The Yankees ended up with a five-game homestand. That's obviously not unheard-of. During the regular season. When teams are usually home for a week at a time. But a five-game homestand in the playoffs? On five consecutive days? Playoff baseball's a lot different than regular season baseball. For starters, the games are significatly more pressure-packed. Second, you're not giving any of your regulars an off day in a playoff series like you would for a meaningless day game after a night game in June against Kansas City. Not to mention the fact that you need an off day just to recharge the batteries after a playoff series. Most importantly, though, you're only using four starting pitchers in the postseason.
Because they didn't have an off day, the Yankees were put into a situation where one of their starters had to start on three-days' rest. Hiroki Kuroda started Game 3 against the Orioles on Wednesday, then Game 2 against the Tigers on Sunday. Since the Tigers also went five in their Division Series, they weren't able to use Justin Verlander until tomorrow's Game 3. The Yankees will counter with CC Sabathia, who was brilliant in Game 5 against Baltimore on Friday. Sabathia will be pitching on three-days' rest against a fully-rested Verlander. The original plan was to have CC go in Game 4 on normal rest, then pitch Game 7 against Verlander on three-days' rest, while Verlander would again be fully rested. Remind me again: which team is the one that had the supposed "advantage" in this series?
The National League teams got a day off, but that didn't mean things were perfect there. After finishing their Division Series, the Giants had to hang out in Cincinnati because they didn't know where they were going to play either. It would've been stupid for San Francisco to fly home, only to have to come all the way back to the East Coast to start the NLCS in Washington. Instead, they found out at midnight Friday/Saturday that they were, in fact, headed home to start the NLCS. The Giants probably got to San Francisco only a few hours before the Cardinals did, despite finishing their Division Series more than 30 hours earlier.
This is a situation that Baseball easily could've avoided. There was absolutely no need to start the new playoff format this season and create all of these headaches as a result. They might've dismissed the "what-ifs" as hypotheticals, but they shouldn't have been simply ignored. Especially since those hypotheticals became reality. (The fact that the wild card games themselves are completely unnecessary is irrelevant in this argument.)
The good news is that it'll be fixed next season, when the schedule goes back to the way it should be. Opening Day will be on a Monday (like it should) and the season will end on a Sunday (like it should). The wild card games will be on Tuesday (NL) and Wednesday (AL), with the Division Series, which go back to the 2-2-1 format, to start on either Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday, allowing both LCSes to open on the weekend and the World Series on a Wednesday.
But in my opinion, next season is one year too late. The 2012 Postseason has been amazing so far. I can't help but wonder, though, how much better it would've been had the schedule not been so flawed.
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