Here are your updated playoff seeds:
AL: Boston (1) vs. winner of Tampa Bay (WC1) and Texas (WC2), Oakland (2) vs. Detroit (3)
NL: Atlanta (1) vs. winner of Pittsburgh (WC1) and Cincinnati (WC2), St. Louis (2) vs. Dodgers (3)
Notes: The Rays’ 12-inning, 4-3 victory over the Rangers at home gave Tampa Bay (83-68) a one-game advantage over Texas (82-69), and it’s worth noting Cleveland (82-70) blew an opportunity to leap over Texas for the second wild card by losing to the Royals.
Following this tremendous AL wild-card race has got me thinking, in a way that last year’s race didn’t. Even though last year’s Yankees-Orioles marathon for the AL East title was pretty good in its own right.
Here we are, enjoying this terrific stretch — multiple relevant games every night, with Rangers-Rays and Orioles-Red Sox both going extra innings Wednesday night while the Yankees mounted a late, furious rally in Toronto — and the result, once four of the six teams go home empty-handed, will be a one-game wild-card “round.”
One and done. So that means five of these six teams will go home before you even have a chance to settle in.
It feels cheap to me, and it also cheapens the occasional 163rd games we see when the regular season concludes with the need for tiebreakers. What makes those games awesome is the “your whole season comes down to this” drama. That should be unique.
I get the support for the current format. TV loves the brevity and the very drama we’re discussing here, and Bud Selig loves it, too. And for sure, while the division winners like the idea of sitting out the extra round and resting guys, they don’t want to hang on the sidelines for so long that they fall out of sync.
This is why I like an idea Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein pitched at the 2011 general managers’ meetings, one that an industry source shared with me (Epstein himself declined comment on the entire matter). It wasn’t a formal proposal, just something that came up in a group discussion:
Best-of-3 with a doubleheader.
The top seed hosts a doubleheader on Day 1. And the lower seed hosts a Game 3, if necessary, on Day 2.
Simple enough for you?
The benefits are multiple:
1. It indeed differentiates the wild-card round from the 163rd game. Qualifying for the playoffs should earn you the right to lose at least one game without your season ending.
2. It gives every playoff team the chance to have a home game. This is another benefit I believe should come with qualifying for the postseason.
3. Getting it done in two days limits the down time for the division winners and keeps the entire postseason calendar tight, as everything has to be lined up to start the World Series on the Wednesday night Fox wants (Oct. 23 this year).
4. Doubleheaders! Come on, how awesome would that be? It also would further test the teams’ strength and wear them down for the next round, and therefore the incentive to win the division would remain intact.
Drawbacks? I can think of only two:
1. TV prefers the current format (TBS televises the wild-card round). And let’s not be naïve idealists here. You pay what TV pays to sit at the table, you have a say in the matter.
2. If the two teams are located far apart, an East Coast team and a West Coast team, then travel to Game 3 without a day off would be grueling.
My response to the second one is easy: Don’t put yourself in that position. Win the division or sweep the opening doubleheader.
From 1998 through 2006, the Division Series had no day off between Game 4 and Game 5, and though the players hated it (and changed it), they managed. Something has got to give to make everything work.
My response to the first one isn’t as easy, as I can’t pretend to be a TV programming expert as easily as I pretend to be a baseball expert. Nevertheless, let’s give it a shot: You televise Game 1 in the daytime, when your weekday ratings expectations are pretty low, anyway, and then Game 2 that night is already a win-or-go-home for one of the two teams.
And if you get a Game 3? Well, TV people love those winner-take-all games, which is of course why they like the current format. Given how hard it is to sweep a doubleheader, I’d bet that most of these series would reach that Game 3, anyway.
I’d like to see this become reality.
Will it? No time soon. The powers that be are happy with the status quo. Feelings change, though, and if momentum drifted toward this format, the already great baseball months of September and October would be further enhanced.
Have a great day.