MLB's Playoff "Problem"

As the calendar flips to September, that means the start of football season.  But it also means we're entering the stretch run of baseball season.  There's just about a month left until the MLB playoffs and we already have a pretty good idea of who'll make up the field (at least a majority of it).  Teams are jockeying for position or just to get in, and the American League will almost certainly have a team (possibly two) that's right around .500 while the AL East could very well have three 90-win teams, two of whom will have to face each other in a Wild Card Series!

Some people will point to the fact that a not great Astros or Rangers team will win the AL West and the third AL wild card being basically a .500 team as proof that the current system is "broken."  I think it's proof that it works perfectly.  They'll also point to the fact that the Yankees will likely have the second-best record in the American League and end up as a wild card...who has to play an extra round, then face the best team in the AL in the Division Series as further evidence that it's unfair.  I respond to that with the immortal words of the late, great John Sterling: "That's baseball, Suzyn."

It's true that we're looking at an AL East side of the bracket for the second straight year.  Which just shows how much of a gauntlet the AL East is!  Beyond that, it puts even more of an emphasis on winning your division.  Which is exactly what MLB wanted when they added the third wild card team and eliminated tiebreaker games.  Winning the division is so important because it's such a huge difference between winning your division and not winning it.  It gives you extra incentive to win your division.

Last year, the Yankees and Blue Jays were both 94-68.  Toronto won the season series between the two 8-5.  As a result, they got the No. 1 seed and home field in the playoffs.  They kicked the Yankees' asses in Toronto all regular season, then did it twice more in the playoffs.  Think having home field advantage for that Division Series made a difference?  Meanwhile, if the regular season series had been 7-6, the Yankees would've been the 1-seed, gotten the bye and had home field in the Division Series.

In the World Series, Toronto had home field against the 93-69 Dodgers.  You know how the Blue Jays ended up with World Series home field?  Because of a game on August 10.  The Dodgers took the first two games of their series with the Blue Jays in Los Angeles, but Ernie Clement hit a homer in the ninth inning of the Sunday game to give Toronto a 5-4 win in the series finale.  The Dodgers win that game, they have World Series home field (and the Blue Jays are a wild card team instead of the AL East champions).

Every regular season game is important.  The current playoff format makes that point crystal clear.  A game in August determined World Series home field advantage last year.  The Yankees and Red Sox played their final game of this season on Sunday with the season series tied at 6-6.  They both knew what a win in the rubber game meant.  Especially since the Wild Card Series is played entirely in one stadium, which will be Yankee Stadium if the rivals meet in the postseason again.

Those who've suggested the current playoff format is unfair are absolutely right.  It is unfair.  And?  Who ever implied it's supposed to be fair?  Was it "fair" when the 14-3 Vikings had to go on the road while the 8-9 Panthers had a home game in the NFL playoffs two years ago?  That's the benefit of winning your division as opposed to being a wild card.  Chances are a wild card team probably will be better than one of the division champions.  But everyone knows the deal going in, so it's not like the wild card team is being screwed over in any way.

Likewise, the rules stipulate that the second-best division winner gets the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye.  Nowhere does it say they need to have the second-best record in order to receive that benefit.  Oftentimes they do.  This year's battle for the No. 2 seed in the NL figures to be intense!  But that's not a guarantee.  Especially when one division has two really good teams.  Why should that second division winner be penalized for winning their division just because it was weaker?  And why should they be put behind a team that didn't even win its division?

Before MLB instituted wild cards and the Division Series, you had teams who easily could've won the World Series missing the playoffs entirely.  In 1993, the last year before MLB split into three divisions, the San Francisco Giants won 103 games.  The Atlanta Braves were also in the NL West (don't ask) and won 104, so the Giants ended up missing the playoffs.  That was significantly more unfair than what we currently have!

And it's not like "mediocre" teams haven't won the World Series before!  The 1987 Twins were 85-77.  Four teams in the AL East had a better record than Minnesota.  It was the Twins who won the World Series that year.  The 2006 Cardinals, who played in the wild card era?  They were 83-78, the worst record for a World Series winner in history.  And let's not forget the sixth-seeded Phillies and Diamondbacks representing the NL in the World Series in the first two years of the six-team playoff format.

When MLB first expanded the postseason to four teams, they made it so that two teams from the same division couldn't meet in the Division Series.  That was their buffer in case two teams from the same division had the two best records, and, in an era where the schedule was so division-heavy, it prevented you from having to face a team you saw regularly.  It's what gave us those back-to-back classic ALCS between the Yankees and Red Sox in 2003-04, as well as back-to-back NLCS matchups between the Cardinals and Astros in 2005-06.  That rule remained in place until the second wild card team was added in 2012.  After the playoffs were further expanded in 2022, they kept the 2012 changes and left it so that there are no restrictions on interdivision matchups in the postseason.

Among the suggestions I've seen to "fix" the MLB postseason is the idea of simply ignoring the divisions and seeding the playoffs strictly by the best record.  I can see why this is a popular one, and it does have some merit.  What would be the point in even having divisions then?  I make the same argument when people want to change the football playoffs.  If the teams are going to be separated into divisions, winning the division has to mean something.  I, frankly, don't even know why the NBA bothers with divisions since they ignore them come playoff time.  (And, yes, I realize I hate the NHL's division-based playoff format, but my argument here is based on the division winner getting priority playoff seeding, which I still favor in the NHL.)

Logistically, the idea of reseeding wouldn't work, either.  That's why they took out the same division restriction when the Wild Card Game was added.  Reseeding works in the NFL because they have a week between games.  In MLB, they might only have a day between series.  Teams need to know where they're going and who they're playing, and a fixed bracket is the only way to do that.  Even if it means you have the AL East side of the bracket and three weaker teams on the other side.

There's another important thing to keep in mind, too.  It's all cyclical.  Yes, this'll be two years in a row where the AL East places three teams in the playoffs and they (likely) have the three best records.  But that's not going to happen every year, and it would be foolish to assume it will.  So, you may end up making a change for nothing.  Worse, it would be an overreaction to an anomaly that has overarching ramifications.  Should that continue to be the case year after year, it would be one thing.  But I think what we're seeing is more the result of the AL Central and West being much weaker that the AL East over the last two seasons than anything else.

So, yes, it is "unfair" that three AL East teams will have to play each other while the other three AL teams don't have to deal with any of them until the ALCS.  But that's just the way it goes sometimes.  That doesn't make it a problem or mean the system needs "fixing."  It's simply the result of a format that rewards teams for being the best team in their division over the course of 162 games.  (Although, I'm sure the AL East winner won't think it's much of a reward this season.)

That, I think, is actually the biggest benefit of this playoff system.  It puts value on winning your division.  Which should be the priority.  It also doesn't guarantee you anything.  You've still gotta go out there and win 11 (or 13) games in October.  Regardless of who you play.  Which is easier said than done.