Sunday, August 17, 2003
Wild-Card Rant
Baseball's wild-card system sucks. No one has yet to explain, convincingly, how expanding the playoff field in this manner has made it better for baseball.
Usually the proponent's argument begins like this: "Well, you're just another one of those purists who doesn't like to see change." As for me, I don't mind change if there is a reason for it. If baseball is broken, you fix it, and you fix it reasonably and rationally. Take this year's All-Star Game: Baseball decided that the winning league in at least this year's game and next year's game will receive home-field advantage in the World Series. Now, while I admire the decision to try to spice up an All-Star Game that, in the opinions of some (not me), has grown old or maybe somewhat boring, the change didn't make nearly enough sense to warrant it, especially considering that last season's All-Star fiasco, the tie game called off in the 10th inning, was not the fault of baseball itself but because of a bumbling commissioner.
Bob Costas, during his radio appearance on the Jim Rome Show Friday, decried the use of the term "purist" in this manner:
Baseball's playoff system did not need fixing. As it stood, prior to 1994, it was the only one of the four major sports that was perfect. You finished first or you missed the playoffs, period. The argument for the change here was that having only four of 28 teams make the playoffs meant that fans of most teams were left with, never mind a meaningless September, but also a useless August, July and sometimes June. And these fans would avoid the game, having given up on their team's chances much too early in the season.
So the two leagues expanded the playoffs to include two more teams each, recklessly disregarding the negative effect it would have on the pennant races, namely that exciting "pennant races"--or "division races" as they would come to be called--between two great teams would become scarce, if they would remain in existence at all. As Costas pointed out on the Jim Rome Show,
Case in point: In 1996, the Padres and Dodgers were tied for first place on the last day of the season. And, they played each other on that final day. Ordinarily, this is the situation baseball fans should be dreaming about: a one-game, winner-take-all finale that embodies the same kind of atmosphere present at the Giants-Dodgers playoff game in 1951, or the Yankees-Red Sox game in 1978. But in fact, here is what the wild-card system gave us: a game in which neither participant really cared who won, because both teams had already locked up playoff spots: The winner would get the division title and the loser would get the wild card. These two teams, instead of playing a dramatic winner-take-all final game, where probably their best pitchers would be in the lineup, were simply organizing their rotations for the playoffs, giving their stars the day off. The drama was absolutely non-existent. I find it incomprehensible, that baseball fans would opt for this scenario rather than a last-day, winner-takes-all, loser-goes-home ballgame. But yet, that's essentially what they are asking for. The system showed its flaws that September day.
When the Braves and Giants battled it out down the stretch in 1993, and both wound up winning over 100 games, was anybody saying, "This race would be so much more exciting if they both got to be in the playoffs, instead of having one team, obviously an outstanding team, get knocked out before the postseason even starts?" I don't remember anyone saying that.
Here is what Joe Morgan of ESPN wrote in a recent inexplicable column extolling the virtues of the wild-card system:
Morgan also adds a common argument:
How many times have these same people complained about the NBA letting too many teams into the playoffs, or the NHL regular season being dismissed as worthless because only the playoffs really matter. Why is it bad for those leagues to water down their playoff field but good for baseball to do so? I wonder. And what's wrong with going to a baseball game whose outcome really doesn't matter? Isn't baseball fun enough that you can sit back and watch the Tigers and Orioles play a game in August without feeling like there has to be wild-card implications? It's ironic that baseball, at the expense of die-hard fans who understand the nature of pennant races, is trying to kowtow to fans who don't care enough about baseball to just go see a game for the sake of seeing a baseball game. These are the fans who don't care nearly as much to begin with. They're the kind of people who would see Bad Boys 2 because they think Martin Lawrence is a hoot, despite all the negative reviews, while shunning an Oscar-caliber, subtitled foreign film downtown that gets great reviews because they don't like to read during movies.
It's especially grievous for Major League Baseball to allow more teams into the playoffs because of the nature of the sport of baseball. It's not a five-on-five situation like in basketball, where it's the same five guys every night. In baseball, it's one-against-one, in a sense, pitcher vs. batter, and different pitchers mean different levels of ability. The Red Sox can trot out Pedro Martinez once every four games or so, and will have to depend on three or four other pitchers with decidedly less talent than Martinez. It is easier for the Tigers to beat the Yankees than it is for the Clippers to beat the Lakers.
Some people have cited the 1995 first-round series between the Mariners and Yankees as a reason the wild-card system is good for baseball. "Hey, there were basically five really exciting games, and the last game came down to the final at-bat. It was riveting. Without the wild-card system, those games wouldn't have even been played." That much is true. But the wild-card system did not make those games exciting; the excitement within those games, especially the deciding Game 5 where the Mariners scored two runs in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Yankees by a run, was due to the nature of baseball itself. And to be fair, whoever cites that series as a reason the wild-card system is good for baseball should also be forced to cite the first round series that contained the wild-card winner in the National League. The wild-card system allowed those games to be played too, but would any of these people remember which two teams even played in that series, let alone remember what happened in the games themselves? I should be able to cite that series--a nondescript 3-games-to-1 victory by the Braves over the Rockies--as a reason the wild-card system is not an improvement.
And let's not forget that the way baseball sets up its postseason matchups for the first round is in direct opposition to the wild-card concept itself: A wild-card team will not have to play the top-seeded division winner in the first round if the two teams are from the same division, because the first-place team shouldn't have to defeat a second-place team again right away after having done so over the course of a 162-game regular season. If this is the case, why have a second-place team in there at all?
Soon, I'll analyze how the playoff races would be stacking up right now if we were still in the old two-division, no-wild-card format. (Hint: The races would be better.)
Usually the proponent's argument begins like this: "Well, you're just another one of those purists who doesn't like to see change." As for me, I don't mind change if there is a reason for it. If baseball is broken, you fix it, and you fix it reasonably and rationally. Take this year's All-Star Game: Baseball decided that the winning league in at least this year's game and next year's game will receive home-field advantage in the World Series. Now, while I admire the decision to try to spice up an All-Star Game that, in the opinions of some (not me), has grown old or maybe somewhat boring, the change didn't make nearly enough sense to warrant it, especially considering that last season's All-Star fiasco, the tie game called off in the 10th inning, was not the fault of baseball itself but because of a bumbling commissioner.
Bob Costas, during his radio appearance on the Jim Rome Show Friday, decried the use of the term "purist" in this manner:
That always casts it in a light that makes it difficult to have a rational discussion, because the implication there is that any opposition to it must come from someone who's so deeply entrenched in baseball tradition, that if he really had his druthers, we'd all arrive in games on streetcars, wearing straw hats, and ladies would get in for a quarter on 'Ladies' Day', that someone who is a purist never wants to see the game change, and therefore the discussion can never take place on its merits, because this picture of a guy sort of in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, drawing on a pipe and having a baseball conversation with intellectuals who think baseball is a metaphor for everything in life, that's the image that's created, so it's easy to just say, "Oh, what do you expect?"Spoken like a true Costas.
Baseball's playoff system did not need fixing. As it stood, prior to 1994, it was the only one of the four major sports that was perfect. You finished first or you missed the playoffs, period. The argument for the change here was that having only four of 28 teams make the playoffs meant that fans of most teams were left with, never mind a meaningless September, but also a useless August, July and sometimes June. And these fans would avoid the game, having given up on their team's chances much too early in the season.
So the two leagues expanded the playoffs to include two more teams each, recklessly disregarding the negative effect it would have on the pennant races, namely that exciting "pennant races"--or "division races" as they would come to be called--between two great teams would become scarce, if they would remain in existence at all. As Costas pointed out on the Jim Rome Show,
It is an absolute impossibility, not unlikely, it is impossible to have a meaningful race for first place among any of the three best teams in the league under the wild-card system. The only time a race for first place matters above all is in a division like the Central in both leagues this year, where the team that finishes second is very unlikely to have any shot at the wild card.Meaning, of course, that the teams involved there are mediocre enough to be unable to inspire even the casual baseball fan to proclaim that race a sensation. And as it stands now, virtually the only instance in which you can see a playoff game at the end of the regular season would be between two of these mediocre teams. The occasion of a great race between two great teams--like the Braves and Giants had in 1993, where Atlanta won 104 games and the Giants won 103--is ruined by the presence of the back-up wild-card spot that the loser would inevitably take. That is, unless you have two more teams who battle it out in another division with similar outstanding records, and one of them would miss out on the postseason, having a record that was worse than the wild-card team. They don't bother with playoff games where both teams would wind up making the playoffs; they just use an NFL-style tiebreaker. Ho-hum, right?
Case in point: In 1996, the Padres and Dodgers were tied for first place on the last day of the season. And, they played each other on that final day. Ordinarily, this is the situation baseball fans should be dreaming about: a one-game, winner-take-all finale that embodies the same kind of atmosphere present at the Giants-Dodgers playoff game in 1951, or the Yankees-Red Sox game in 1978. But in fact, here is what the wild-card system gave us: a game in which neither participant really cared who won, because both teams had already locked up playoff spots: The winner would get the division title and the loser would get the wild card. These two teams, instead of playing a dramatic winner-take-all final game, where probably their best pitchers would be in the lineup, were simply organizing their rotations for the playoffs, giving their stars the day off. The drama was absolutely non-existent. I find it incomprehensible, that baseball fans would opt for this scenario rather than a last-day, winner-takes-all, loser-goes-home ballgame. But yet, that's essentially what they are asking for. The system showed its flaws that September day.
When the Braves and Giants battled it out down the stretch in 1993, and both wound up winning over 100 games, was anybody saying, "This race would be so much more exciting if they both got to be in the playoffs, instead of having one team, obviously an outstanding team, get knocked out before the postseason even starts?" I don't remember anyone saying that.
Here is what Joe Morgan of ESPN wrote in a recent inexplicable column extolling the virtues of the wild-card system:
I like the wild-card system, because it guarantees that the two best teams in each league will be in the playoffs.This much is true. However, he goes on to say this:
In 1993, the Giants won 103 games but missed the postseason because the Braves (then in the NL West) won 104 games. The Phillies won the NL East with 97 wins that year, so the NL's best two teams weren't playing in October.What Morgan doesn't grasp is that both first-place teams were playing in October. Plus, while lamenting the exclusion of a very good Giants ballclub from the playoffs that year because they were one game poorer than the Braves, Morgan forgets that in 2001, the Giants won more games than the Braves, and yet the Braves made it to the postseason and the Giants were again shut out. The wild-card system, in effect, did nothing that year to prevent a scenario similar to the 1993 scenario he decries.
Morgan also adds a common argument:
The wild card also keeps more fans interested down the stretch because more teams have a chance at the postseason. It's been a great addition to the playoff system.If that's the case, if more playoff spots means more teams having a shot at the playoffs, and that means the fans will be more excited, how about extending the playoff field to eight teams per league? That way, even the worst ballclub's fans will have a chance to remain interested until the last few weeks of September. Or better yet, how about making it twelve teams per league getting to the playoffs? As long as we think more playoff spots means more exciting baseball, right? Using Morgan's logic, maybe 24 teams should make the playoffs. To paraphrase Costas, baseball is adding fast food while taking filet mignon off the menu.
How many times have these same people complained about the NBA letting too many teams into the playoffs, or the NHL regular season being dismissed as worthless because only the playoffs really matter. Why is it bad for those leagues to water down their playoff field but good for baseball to do so? I wonder. And what's wrong with going to a baseball game whose outcome really doesn't matter? Isn't baseball fun enough that you can sit back and watch the Tigers and Orioles play a game in August without feeling like there has to be wild-card implications? It's ironic that baseball, at the expense of die-hard fans who understand the nature of pennant races, is trying to kowtow to fans who don't care enough about baseball to just go see a game for the sake of seeing a baseball game. These are the fans who don't care nearly as much to begin with. They're the kind of people who would see Bad Boys 2 because they think Martin Lawrence is a hoot, despite all the negative reviews, while shunning an Oscar-caliber, subtitled foreign film downtown that gets great reviews because they don't like to read during movies.
It's especially grievous for Major League Baseball to allow more teams into the playoffs because of the nature of the sport of baseball. It's not a five-on-five situation like in basketball, where it's the same five guys every night. In baseball, it's one-against-one, in a sense, pitcher vs. batter, and different pitchers mean different levels of ability. The Red Sox can trot out Pedro Martinez once every four games or so, and will have to depend on three or four other pitchers with decidedly less talent than Martinez. It is easier for the Tigers to beat the Yankees than it is for the Clippers to beat the Lakers.
Some people have cited the 1995 first-round series between the Mariners and Yankees as a reason the wild-card system is good for baseball. "Hey, there were basically five really exciting games, and the last game came down to the final at-bat. It was riveting. Without the wild-card system, those games wouldn't have even been played." That much is true. But the wild-card system did not make those games exciting; the excitement within those games, especially the deciding Game 5 where the Mariners scored two runs in the bottom of the 10th to beat the Yankees by a run, was due to the nature of baseball itself. And to be fair, whoever cites that series as a reason the wild-card system is good for baseball should also be forced to cite the first round series that contained the wild-card winner in the National League. The wild-card system allowed those games to be played too, but would any of these people remember which two teams even played in that series, let alone remember what happened in the games themselves? I should be able to cite that series--a nondescript 3-games-to-1 victory by the Braves over the Rockies--as a reason the wild-card system is not an improvement.
And let's not forget that the way baseball sets up its postseason matchups for the first round is in direct opposition to the wild-card concept itself: A wild-card team will not have to play the top-seeded division winner in the first round if the two teams are from the same division, because the first-place team shouldn't have to defeat a second-place team again right away after having done so over the course of a 162-game regular season. If this is the case, why have a second-place team in there at all?
Soon, I'll analyze how the playoff races would be stacking up right now if we were still in the old two-division, no-wild-card format. (Hint: The races would be better.)
