Here are your updated playoff seeds:
AL: Boston (1) vs. winner of Tampa Bay 💃(WC1) and Texas (WC2), Oakland (2) vs. Detroit (3)
NL: At𒆙lanta (1) vs. winner of Pittsburgh (WC1) and C൩incinnati (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 Tex🐽as (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 wa🔯y that last year’s race didn’t. Even though last year’s Yankees-Orioles marathon for the AL East t♔itle 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 teaꦚms will go home before you even have a chance to settle in.
It feels cheap to me, and it also cheapens the occasional 163rd ﷺgames we see when the regular season concludes with the need for tiebreakers. What makes t🌱hose games awesome is the “your whole season comes down to this” drama. That should be unique.
I get the support for the cur🎃rent 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 outꦉ 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 for🀅m🌜al 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 neces☂sary, on Day 2.
Simple enough for you?
The benefits are multiple:
1. It indeed differentiates the wild-card ro🍎und 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 com𝐆e 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 lineꩵd up to start the World Series on th🌠e Wednesday night Fox wants (Oct. 23 this year).
4. Doubleheaders! Come on, how awesome would that𒆙 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 (TꦫBS televises the wild-card round). And let’s not be naïve idealis🐽ts 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, thenꦍ 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 positio♔n. Win the division or sweep the opening doubleheader.
From 1998 through 2006, the Division Seriesꦇ 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 yo♍ur 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.