Major League Baseball is planning to add an extra wild card team from each league to the playoffs. The fourth round will be a winner-moves-on game between the two wild-cards. This could be great for baseball fans especially after last years exciting end to the season. However, baseball should not be about one game. It's tradition was built on a long season and winning a series of games to prove who is the best team. Sure the team that wins their division has an obvious advantage entering the playoffs, but now a third place team in that division has the chance to win the World Series. Furthermore, pitching staffs are set up for a series. Unlike the NFL where you know who the starting quarterback will be for one game, a pitching rotation might mean that a team will lose that game by not having their ace on the mound. In a best-of-seven series a team's ace will pitch two maybe 3 games. If you can beat the other team's best pitcher two or three times you definitely earned the right be called World Champions.
This new format will give teams such as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto Blue Jays, and Washington Nationals a chance to reach the playoffs quicker. This is great for the fans of these teams if they get into the playoffs, but what does it really mean? If they lose that one game in the wild-card-round it just might mean that they were the best third place team that year. If they win that one game it makes it easier for the team that they face in the Divisional Round, thus watering down the playoffs. Does the best third place team still get champagne?
Another issue with the new playoff round is that it will take away from the drama at the end of the regular season. Last year the Boston Red Sox missed the playoffs by losing to the last place Baltimore Orioles on the final day of the season. The Orioles season was over and the Red Sox were not only playing to get into the playoffs, but also to avoid the biggest collapse in the history of the game. Were the Orioles a better team than the Red Sox? Of course not, but they won that day, the Sox missed the playoffs and the collapse is in the books. One game does not sum up an entire 162 game, marathon season, and should not be used between playoff teams. In the case of the 2011 Boston Red Sox, the final month sealed their fate. If the regular season standings end in a tie, than a one-game-playoff between two teams, that have battled all season, is great. What baseball fan could forget the 1978 tie-breaker game between the Red Sox and Yankees. Bucky Dent became an instant hero that day and the Yankees won the American League East by one game. The Red Sox season was over and the Yankees went on to win the World Series. Would a casual fan of the game even know who Bucky Dent is if that game never happened, and both teams just got into the playoffs?
A new format of the Major League Playoffs produces both pros and cons. Just like anything else that disrupts tradition, some people will like it and some will not. We will just have to wait and see, and who knows a new hero of October might be born this season in the Wild-Card Round.
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