Working In the Wild Card Series

Almost as soon as Major League Baseball announced that this year's postseason field would be expanded to 16 teams, people began wondering whether that change would be permanent.  While opinions on that subject seem to be mixed, there's an overwhelming sense that at least some sort of postseason expansion will become permanent.  It probably won't be 16 teams, which I think everyone agrees is excessive and unnecessary, but it also seems likely that the field will be larger than 10.  How big?  That's up to the owners and players to decide.

There's also a question of whether they'll go back to the single Wild Card Game in each league or stick with the best-of-three Wild Card Series, which is something that a lot of people have been clamoring for ever since the Wild Card Game came into existence.  Doing that, however, would also result in the schedule having to be altered, which is not a good idea.

Just like in 2012, when they didn't add the Wild Card Game until the postseason schedule was already set and had to shoehorn it in, they had to adjust this year's postseason schedule to accommodate the Wild Card Series.  Suddenly one day had to become three, then another day afterwards for travel.  They were able to do this, of course, by eliminating the unnecessary travel days during the Division Series and LCS.  But, as we've seen, that's having an impact, too.

The Rays played five days in a row during the Division Series, had one day off, then were scheduled for seven games in seven days against the Astros.  That's normal in the regular season, but it's something totally foreign in the playoffs.  And, I'd argue, how we've seen the no off days thing play out hasn't exactly been a good thing.

Houston's pitching staff was so depleted that they used six rookies in Game 5--of a series they were trailing 3-1!  If that had been by choice, that'd be one thing.  But they used six rookie pitchers in an elimination game out of necessity.  They didn't have anybody else.  It worked out for the Astros, but the point remains.  Playing 14 straight days in the middle of June is one thing.  You can get away with doing a staff game or all rookies.  Trying to do it in Game 5 of a postseason series is vastly different.

We've seen more openers and staff games than ever before this postseason.  And, again, it's not by choice.  It's out of necessity.  Some might argue that this is good, since it more closely mirrors the regular season.  But it's asking too much of relievers to be available for such high-stress games on so many consecutive days.  And not to mention how teams can't line up starters!

Critics love to complain about the number of off days in the baseball playoffs, but I think we're seeing this year how necessary they actually are.  MLB is able to get away with not having any this year because they're doing the Texas/San Diego bubbles, but this change will almost certainly be limited to this year.  They'll need to have travel days again next season, when teams are (hopefully) playing in their own ballparks in front of their fans.

And that brings me to the problem that permanently turning the Wild Card Game into the Wild Card Series would create.  The regular season ends on Sunday, with the Wild Card Games on Tuesday and Wednesday and the Division Series starting on Thursday and Friday.  But if you change that single game to best-of-three, you're going from Tuesday-Friday, which means the Division Series can't start until Saturday and Sunday.

I'm just playing a hunch that MLB's TV partners wouldn't be too keen on starting the Division Series on the weekend, opposite college football on Saturday and with four games opposite the NFL on Sunday.  Especially with their new TV contracts with FOX and TBS set to kick in.  Likewise, the midweek daytime Wild Card Series games probably won't go over as well with TBS, FOX or the owners after life returns to normal and people are at work/school during the day.

But, for the sake of argument, let's just go with it and say they expand the Wild Card round to best-of-three.  It takes seven days to play a five-game Division Series with travel, so now you're starting the LCS on Sunday and Monday.  That moves Game 7 off Sunday night, which FOX actually likes since they can promote it all day during football.  Instead your Game 7's would be on Monday and Tuesday night.

When MLB moved Game 1 of the World Series from Wednesday night to Tuesday night, they eliminated the extra off day after the LCS.  That also eliminated their rain out buffer.  It hasn't happened, but the potential exists that, if there was a Game 6 or 7 rain out in the LCS, a team could have to play Game 7 on Monday night, then turn around and immediately start the World Series the next night.  I've always thought that was an unfair thing to ask.

Since FOX has Thursday Night Football, though, the World Series can't start on a Thursday.  Which means they'd have to put the buffer day back and put the World Series on a Friday-Saturday, Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, Friday-Saturday schedule.  On the surface, that isn't horrible since it avoids the NFL's two big nights.  But it also puts a potential Game 7 on a Saturday night, which they wouldn't like.  (The World Series started on a Saturday and Game 7 was on a Sunday for years until they changed it in 2007 because they got tired of the lower weekend ratings.)

Here's how that schedule would work, compared to what the usual schedule is:

Wild Card: Tuesday-Thursday, Wednesday-Friday (Tuesday, Wednesday)
Division Series: Saturday-Friday, Sunday-Saturday (Thursday-Wednesday, Friday-Thursday)
LCS: Sunday-Monday, Monday-Tuesday (Friday-Saturday, Saturday-Sunday)
World Series: Friday-Saturday (Tuesday-Wednesday)

It could easily be done and it would work.  I'm not sure it would actually be better, though.  So, it really might come down to how agreeable everyone is to making those adjustments.  Either way, teams will eventually travel again, which means the off days will have to return.  And teams traveling means actual home games in packed ballparks.  Which something I think we can all agree we want.