This post appeared originally at http://www.knuckleballsblog.com

Right up front, I LIKE the expanded playoffs adopted officially by MLB today. I went on record supporting this concept a couple of years ago and I stand by that support.

Beginning this fall, there will be TWO Wild Card spots in both the AL and NL, instead of one in each. In a perfect world, I’d have no Wild Cards at all, but that realistically is never going to happen. This is the next best thing.

I know that scheduling issues meant that, for 2012 only, the LDS will have a goofy format where the first two games are played in the lower seeded team's stadium and the following three in the higher seeded team's place. That's not ideal, but they'll go back to a 2-2-1 format next season, so whatever.

The primary reason I like this concept is that it returns emphasis where I believe it belongs… on winning your Division title.

Players and managers (and thus most fans) have become conditioned, since 1995, to establishing their team’s season-long goal as being to “make the playoffs.” This is the way it is in the NFL, NHL and NBA, and while MLB has had fewer playoff spots than other major sports leagues, that same mentality has established itself in baseball since the Wild Card was implemented starting with the 1995 season.

Since that time, it has no longer mattered if you win your Division or not, as long as you managed to win enough games to beat out all of the other Division “runners up.” Several times over this period, teams that have locked up the Wild Card spot have stopped bothering to even compete for their Division championship, preferring instead to rest players and set their rotation for the playoffs. In at least one case, a team very clearly tried NOT to win their Division, in an effort to get the first round match-up they felt most comfortable with. That cannot be allowed to happen.

It won’t happen again.

There are only two real objections raised to the new plan.

One is that it results in the likely outcome that a strong second place team in one Division is placed at too great a disadvantage to Division winning teams of lesser talent and abilities. We’ll call this "the Yankee objection" and it goes something like this:

“The Yankees are always the best team in the American League, even when they let another AL East team win the Division and this format will mean that when the Yankees do allow someone else to win the AL East, they won’t get in to the playoffs on equal footing with the AL Central and AL West Division champions who are never ever as good as the Yankees. Therefore, the Yankees will gain their rightful place in the World Series less often than they deserve.”

To this I say, “If you’re so much better than everyone else, win your f’ing Division or shut up.”

The other objection, raised by a lot of players and managers, is that it just isn’t fair to make a team go through a 162 game season and then have their playoff hopes hinge on a single game. Everyone is conditioned to believe that you’re supposed to get a series of some sort in the postseason to establish your right to move on or go home.

And I agree… for Division champions.

But we’re not talking about Division champions here. We’re talking about two teams that didn’t win a damn thing over the course of that 162 game season. By all rights, they shouldn’t get to play ANY more baseball. They finished no better than 2^nd place in their Divisions.

But we need an even number of teams in the “real” playoffs for each League, so one of those losers has to be let in to the postseason party. That’s fine, I guess, but this business of letting that also-ran team enter the playoffs on equal footing with the teams that DID win their Division needed to end.

So, once again, my answer to the whiners who think their 2^nd place finish should entitle them to getting to play more than a single play-in game is pretty similar to my response to the first objection… “If you don’t want your playoff hopes determined by a single Wild Card game, win more games.”

In the end, Major League Baseball is saying that they want Division Championships to matter more than they have since 1995 and this change absolutely guarantees that teams will go flat out to win their Division, rather than settle for a Wild Card spot.

There are other benefits of this change, of course, but they are not so much real reasons to make the change as they are pleasant byproducts.

More teams will be in contention for one of those Wild Card spots late in the season. This is important, not only to fans in the markets directly affected by their team continuing to have a shot, but across the entire fan base, because it will mean more fans continuing to pay attention to more games at a time of year when baseball loses a number of eyeballs to football games. The playoffs and even World Series have become less watched in part because, by the time the playoffs roll around, fans in most markets have lost interest in baseball and have been watching football for over a month.

I also really like knowing there will always be two “win or go home” games every season. The down side of having playoff “series” is that there are years when not a single postseason game has the drama of both teams needing a win to avoid elimination, because there are years when no playoff series goes the full five or seven games. That will never happen again.

The handful of “game 163” contests in recent years have been instant classics. Now there will be at least two of those games every season (though not many of them are likely to have the drama of the Rockies, White Sox and Twins wins this decade). And it won’t come at the cost of other potential game 163s because there will still be potential tie-breaker games.

I understand that there are plenty of people who don’t like this change. That’s fine. As always, I acknowledge that everyone is entitled to their opinion… even if it’s wrong.

- JC

Disagree with you on this one. It was pointed out that in 2001 the A's won 102 games and finished second to the Mariners who won 116. The Twins would have been the second wild card with 85 wins. Does it really make sense to have a winner take all one game playoff when the entire game is built around the 3-game series and the need to go deep into your pitching staff to win? Under this format we are playing an entirely different game than the one that is played for the other 162 games. For the record, I hate the playoff format with days off. I think we should play the game the same way in the fall as we do in the summer. Doesn't make sense to me. We should go to a 32 team league with 8 four team divisions.

Thanks for the comment, even if we aren't in agreement.

The 2001 season was clearly an exceptional situation. Even so, that inequity is as old as the World Series itself. There have always been seasons where a second place team in a particular division or league was perceived to be much stronger than another division/league winner. Before divisional play, did anyone say, "hey the 2nd place team in the NL won 10 more games than the AL pennant winner, why the hell should the AL be guaranteed a spot in the World Series if clearly the two best teams in baseball are both in the NL?"

As I wrote in the post, the WC game is no more than a way to determine which loser should get in to the real postseason, so I have no problem with a single game determining that. Why hold up the whole postseason process while a couple of teams that shouldn't be playing any more anyway face off? Let's just play a single game, which will provide great theatre, and move on with a system that rewards actual Division winners.

I agree that inserting days off for no reason is wrong, but most off days in postseason are travel days, which is a necessity that goes back for as long as the WS has been played.

If the wild cards are 'losers who don't deserve to play any more games,' then why have wild cards at all, let alone more of them?

It would be a better idea to treat all playoff teams equally. This is a victory for the "Yankees Objection" and MLB greed. It is not about the fans at all.

The only reason for a wild card is because there's an odd number of divisions in each league, so they need some way to create a 4 team playoff in each league. That doesn't mean you have to give the WC equal footing with the Division winners. I actually don't think this system makes it anyn more likely that the Yankees qualify for the postseason more often. Let's be honest, they're already qualifying almost every year. In the AL, this system will mean that some OTHER team besides the AL East runner up will get a one-game shot at making the real playoffs... and it will also mean that, unless the Yankees win their division, they will have a much more difficult time advancing.

I agree with the expanded playoff concept totally! If you look at times before we had any WC teams, it was all about winning your division and if you were in a tough division, your team might be screwed for years. The WC format changed that and allowed the 2nd best team in each league to get in with little or no penalty for being the fourth best team in your league. Yes, I know who were slotted to play the best team in your league unless your were from the same division. This just ended up with the Yankees and the Redsox playing other teams every year. Now we expand playoffs to one more team in each league and allow for much longer regular season drama. Then the playoffs start and the teams that squeaked into the playoffs have to fight for there lives to win a one game playoff to get to the next round....How can that possibly be bad for baseball? Fantastic move and I applaud MLB for doing it!