The MLB Playoffs Format is Just Fine

My deepest sympathies to the Pittsburgh Pirates. They had a spectacular season, winning 98 games, and qualified for the playoffs. That’s no easy task in baseball, just 33 percent of the teams make it. Normally Pittsburgh would have been a surefire division champion, probably even the No. 1 overall seed with such a gaudy win total. But, alas they play in the same division as St. Louis, and the Cardinals are almost always great — winning 100 games this year.

For the third-straight year the Pirates hosted a one-game Wild Card game and for the second-straight year they lost. Naturally many people believe Pittsburgh got a raw deal, and there are some compelling arguments.

But in my eyes the Pirates didn’t, because this playoff system works just fine.

(Side note: The above link touched upon a two-division format, an idea I like, but likely wouldn’t be possible without further MLB expansion.)

Purists will argue that baseball is supposed to be a game of series, testing the depth of a rotation and mitigating fluky results.

But I also think that if a league is going to place an emphasis on divisions those divisions should mean something. The NBA tried to do it both ways — have a division title, but reward the “best” team with home court. A division champion was seeded top three, but if it had a worse record than a wild card the lower seeded team had home court.

This, obviously, makes absolutely no sense. It led to situations like in 2006 where the Clippers tanked to the Grizzles in the last week of the season knowing it would get to face the weaker Denver Nuggets at home as the sixth seed instead of traveling on the road to the 60-win Dallas Mavericks (who by the way won the Western Conference that year). 

The system rewarded losing, and that’s not fair.

Baseball’s system, however, rewards winning. While it’s true that two Wild Card teams at 98 and 97 being subjected to a one-game Wild Card game as opposed to two weaker division champions (at least by record) may not seem fair, the underlying principle of the system is to force teams to compete for their respective division titles. 

Win the division, avoid the random game. Fall short and you have to survive the opening night.

I would tweak one element of the format, and that’s making sure that the team with the second-best record in the field doesn’t play the No. 1 seed in the divisional round. The Cubs and Cardinals have the two best records among the four National League teams remaining. I’d rather see Cardinals/Mets and Dodgers/Cubs — still rewarding the division winner with home field, but at least breaking up the top two remaining seeds so that they don’t meet before the National League Championship Series.

In other words — reseed the bracket if the wild card team has a better record than the third division winner. That would also force some of these division winners who clinch early to keep playing in an effort to avoid the No. 1 seed in the divisional round.

Other than that, while it’s unfortunate that a 98-win team only had one chance to advance in the postseason, the Pirates didn’t win enough games to win their division. If they want to avoid a similar fate next year, they’ll need to find a way to wrangle the division away from St. Louis.