E.K. NATION

Reader Josh wrote in with comments about my wild card rant, so how 'bout we dive right back in?

Joe Morgan had written, "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." I responded, "What Morgan doesn't grasp is that both first-place teams were playing in October."

Josh then asked, "My question to you is: Why does the fact that the 1993 Phillies were a 'first-place team' make any kind of dent at all in Morgan's argument?"

Looking back, I think my comment needs more explanation; the confusion is understandable. Indeed, I was trying to be as brief as possible in my rant (“brief, E.K.??”). I contend that the three-month-long stretch drive between those two teams was infinitely more interesting than it would have been if both teams were pretty much guaranteed playoff spots back in June due to their superior records. Morgan would sacrifice the drawn-out drama of a race between two awesome teams in favor of letting them both get in the playoffs and have that race mean absolutely nothing. In a sense, instead of advocating a system where fans of most, if not all, teams could be kept interested until the end of the season, Morgan would be advocating a system where fans of the league’s best teams would be completely bored for three months while everyone else played the season out, while fans who ordinarily don’t care enough about baseball to watch games in September would be appeased.

Josh continues:

You yourself have been decrying the terrible Central divisions and the fact that because of them an undeserving team will be playing in October. But then you contradict yourself by saying the Phillies deserved to be in the post-season despite being worse than the Giants simply because they carried the artificial title of division champion. With that logic we could just make five separate three team divisions and have all five "Division Champs" in a playoff round robin tourney and that would be okay because they would all be "Division Champs" (no wild cards).

First off, the Phillies were not “artifically” the division champion; they did indeed win it legitimately, and I think baseball’s divisions now are still legitimate (although the A.L. West, with a mere four teams, is pushing it. Good thing the West has had some great teams in it over the last few years, otherwise I’d cite this tiny division as a bad precedent, and probably should be doing so anyway). Teams that finish in first place are still legitimate winners in my book. Once we get down to three-team divisions, as Josh suggests, tongue-in-cheek, that’s stretching it quite a bit.

In fact, I have often said that if keeping more teams alive until the very end of the season makes baseball better, as wild-card proponents suggest, why not have fifteen two-team divisions, and allow all division champions and nine second-place finishers to make it? That way only six teams are denied an exciting postseason appearance, and fans of those teams theoretically will have had almost a full season of excitement. Of course, that idea is ridiculous and flies in the face of the more-teams-means-more-excitement argument. People of all opinions tend to agree that the NBA regular season, for example, is pretty pointless because so many teams get into the playoffs.

Josh writes, “Remember, under 1968 rules the 1993 Phillies would've finished third to the Braves and Giants and missed the post-season (then just the World Series).” Of course, under 1968 rules, the Giants would have missed out too, making race for first place during the regular season important again.

Up until this point, I’ve understood Josh’s concern. Here, however, is where Josh and I completely part ways:

Then you follow your poor argument with an out and out falsehood:

[W]hile 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.

Under ANY divisional system the possibility exists that a team will not make the playoffs even though they have a better record than a team which achieved the postseason. But to call the 2001 scenario "similar" is a stretch at the very, very best. While the Giants did have a better record than the Braves, by defition, they did NOT have one of the best two records in the league or they would have made the postseason. In fact, they had the FOURTH best record in the league. Not much to brag about. I can't remember one single cry of the Giants being screwed out of their rightful spot as I did in 1993.

First, I understand that the 1969-1993 system did not guarantee that no team would make the playoffs while a better team got left out any more so than the current system doesn’t guarantee that. Second, I still say the scenarios are similar, because it seemed to me part of the fuss in 1993 was over the Giants being denied a spot in the playoffs while a lesser team (the Phillies) got in. In 2001, the Giants had the better record than the Braves and yet the Braves got in and the Giants didn’t. Complaints about the 1993 situation should be paired with references to the one in 2001, I believe. Third, I never suggested that the Giants were ripped off; they finished second, and to me, that’s good enough for an exclusion from the playoffs.

Fourth, and most important, Josh says that the fourth-best record in the league is nothing to brag about. And yet he has no problem with the wild-card system, which guarantees that not only will the fourth-best team in each league still be in the running for a playoff spot, but also that the worst team in the playoffs in each league will be no better than fourth. In fact, in 1994, the strike-shortened year, the Texas Rangers were headed to the playoffs despite having —get this—the eleventh best record in the American League. Had they stayed at that pace, the Rangers would have been given by the wild-card format a playoff spot despite being a full ten games under .500. This is an absolute atrocity, and it turns out that one good thing to come out of the strike was that this situation was avoided.

One last comment from Josh: “But I will give you this: the concept of the unbalanced schedule—which I once favored strongly—makes absolutely no sense when taken in the context of a wild card race.” This is true, but the unbalanced schedule concept is the only reason I believe all division winners still have legitimacy; if the schedule were balanced, division titles would often be the result of an arbitrary alignment.

One last argument from me for now: Isn’t it better to have the focus be on finishing first instead of second? Isn’t a division title race more interesting than a wild-card race, especially between teams in separate divisions?

Thanks, Josh, for writing to me and taking an interest in the site! I welcome all opposing comments.