Throughout the history of baseball, we saw a format exist, for a good majority of it's time as a professional sport, which lead to a true exclusivity of sorts. Teams play a very long season of 154 or 162 games, and at the end, only one, two or four teams make the post season in each league. We currently see a format that has added a wild card as a result of a 1994 vote to expand each league to three divisions.
After the American and National leagues expanded to three divisions, the only logical way to keep the playoff system balanced was to add a fourth team to the playoffs. Only one owner voted against the wild card system: George W. Bush, the owner of the Texas Rangers. Despite overwhelming evidence that the Rangers would benefit from the wild card system, he felt that it was a vote that the owners would look back on with regret.
Prior to 1969, the Major League Baseball playoff format allowed for only two teams to make the post season. These teams were the American League and National League teams with the two best records. After the final game of the regular season, these two teams would simply meet for the World Series title. This system was seriously flawed. We see upon looking quickly at the World Series matchups from 1921 to 1968, that the Yankees made the World Series 29 times, winning the World Series 20 times.
In 1969, a vote took place that expanded the league into two divisions. With divisional play came divisional championships, and a league championship series was created. This meant that two teams from each league would play each other for the league pennant, and the right to move on to play for the World Series. From 1969 to 1993, the Yankees made the World Series just four times, going 2-2. Since 1994, the Yankees have made the World Series seven times, going 5-2. This is largely due to escalating salaries, and the Yankees have been the most willing to set standards in contracts given to the best players in the league.
This has created a culture in baseball where we are seeing the largest disparity between the poorest and richest teams in terms of salary. A salary cap was introduced in 1994 and lead to a strike that shut down the season prematurely. Since a salary cap is clearly off the table, the best way to combat this problem of disparity in spending and revenue sharing would be to add a team to the post season. An old adage in sports is that once you're in, anything can happen.
We have seen wild card teams win baseball's World Series four times, while making the World Series eight times so far. In 2002, we got an all-Wild Card team matchup between the Wild Card Anaheim Angels and the Wild Card San Francisco Giants. The Angels won in seven games. Wild Card format has added a much more level playing field to the league, especially given the fact that there are now thirty teams in the sport.
With thirty teams, I feel that at least 33% of the league should make the post season. The NFL currently allows 12 teams into it's playoffs, which means 37.5% of the league makes the post season. In the NBA and NHL, which have identical playoff formats and number of teams in the league, we see 16 of 32 teams making the post season, 50%. In MLB, 8 of 30 gives you just 26% of the teams making the post season, the lowest percentage in all of the four major sports. With ten teams making the post season, this would mean 1/3 of the league makes the post season, a number I would be happy with personally.
Expanding the playoff format prior to 1968 would have had a profound effect on my own personal favorite team's history, which could have been drastically different. The White Sox have the second most second place finishes in MLB history(19), behind only the Red Sox(23). The White Sox and Red Sox finished in 2nd place very often, when second place was not given a playoff spot. This lead to the White Sox(1917-2005; 88 years) and Red Sox(1918-2004; 86 years) putting together two of the longest World Series championship droughts in league history. Both teams could have had drastically different histories with the better format.
Adding one more team to the post season would require a retooling of the playoff format itself. Personally, I would like to see the two Wild Card teams square off in a five game series to start off postseason play. Then in the next round, the current format would resume.
A less likely way to deal with the extra team, would be to have the team with the most wins in the league get a bye into the LCS, while the two other division winners play the two wild card teams. The two winners of the first round would play in the second round for the chance to face the team with the best record in the LCS. I personally hate that idea, I think it gives the best team too much of an advantage, but I have seen it floated around. Bud Selig has stated publically that he would support adding the extra wild card team to each league's playoff format.
A less likely way to deal with the extra team, would be to have the team with the most wins in the league get a bye into the LCS, while the two other division winners play the two wild card teams. The two winners of the first round would play in the second round for the chance to face the team with the best record in the LCS. I personally hate that idea, I think it gives the best team too much of an advantage, but I have seen it floated around. Bud Selig has stated publically that he would support adding the extra wild card team to each league's playoff format.
Either way, MLB wins by having a more competitive and meaningful season, with better results. More is better, and more teams with a chance to win the title each year means more revenue and more fans interested in the World Series. It will not water down the playoffs, but add much needed spice into the somewhat exclusive mix.
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