How would the NL team with best record in baseball play a one game playoff against an AL team tied for the worst record?
Going to 7 game series, I would change that. Wild Card #2 versus the best team in the league, Wild Card #1 vs the second best, etc.
Oh, that’s the part you’re objecting to? Of course that wouldn’t happen. I think @Jasmine was just using an extreme example to highlight the randomness in a one-game playoff, not positing a scenario that could happen under the current rules.
ETA: to clarify, I think she’s saying the worst team in the league can beat the best a material percentage of the time. As an aside, she thinks that’s lame. I think it’s awesome - sucks to be the wildcard! Win your division, suckers!
I should point out that further expansion probably means killing interleague play, which I’m fine with; it’s not important to me that teams play every other team. There isn’t anything wrong with it, but baseball is played in series, typically of 3 games, and so you get 50-54 series a year. The more teams you play, the harder it is to find a way to spread those 50-54 series a year out in a way that keeps things balanced and makes sense.
In a system with two leagues (and shit, reorganize them into east and west for all I care) and three six team divisions per league, you can arrange it so teams play six games against the twelve extradivisional opponents, a home and away series of 3, which is 72 games, and then play each of five divisional opponents 18 times to add things up to 162. Alternately, knock the in-division games down to 16 to make the season 152 games long, which accommodates a longer playoffs.
Alternately, eliminate the “leagues,” which aren’t really leagues at all now.
To follow up on @What_Exit wanting to talk Yankees, I remain a little amazed that it hasn’t occurred to the Yankees to move Gary Sanchez to first base. He is not a good defensive catcher, and has regressed as a hitter at the ages a guy usually gets better, which might be in part due to the distraction of playing a position he stinks at.
It would have made a lot of sense to try him at first. I know we’ve* talked about for years. Now it just might be a little late.
My friends and I, IRL
That’s what they used to do when there was a single WC. They played the team with the best record. But there was little disadvantage to getting a WC spot vs winning the division, it just determined the seeding. When they added a second WC spot we now have 5 teams per league so there needs to be a way to get it down to an even number. It could be a 3, 5, or 7 game series, but there’s not enough calendar for that.
There also was a desire (I believe) to put the WC teams at a disadvantage. They have to play this elimination game, burn their best starting pitcher, and get less rest. They want them to play the regular season games hard in order to avoid being in the WC position. It wasn’t intended to be fair.
It is also an extraordinarily bad idea to make all the division winners have to wait 4+ days to play again. So disruptive. If the Wild Card was more than 1 game it would be a lot worse than it is.
While we’re on this tangent, going into the last day of the season, it was possible for four AL teams (SEA, NYY, BOS, and TOR) to be tied for both wildcard slots. How would that have gotten resolved?
There’s no good reason, other than money, to have the WC games on different days. Make ‘em both play on Tuesday, and start the divisional series on Wednesday.
Oh look! We just cleared 2 days on the calendar. Maybe now we can expand the DS to best of 7. Look at us, we’re fixin’ baseball!
Good idea. They could put one in Lowell, we lost our Single A team this year.
the antelope valley would like their jethawks back too which I don’t know why we lost other than the fact the Dodgers have had their California League teams for 50 years…
And I like interleague play … lets the dodgers kick the crap out of the angels 3-6 times a year …
I agree, but keep Blake.
Gary is a free agent after next season, so let him go all out for his payday and then wave goodbye.
As Rickjay pointed out, offense was the big problem. I’m confident that Gleyber, Urshela and DJ will rebound next season, so the holes to fill are centerfield and first base.
Players I’d like to get rid of in trades or whatever: Chapman, Gallo, Frazier, Odor and German.
LeMahieu will be 33, so I dunno. Urshela had a weird season - his K/W ratio got weirdly bad. Torres lost all his power. Sanchez doesn’t progress. Maybe Marcus Thames needs to go.
The way the NFL resolves them, through a tiebreaker formula. It’s not rocket science.
No byes, period.
I’m amazed that many of you are bringing up objections that have already been successfully dealt with in the NFL. If a Wild Card team can beat the #1 seed in the opening round, the #2 or #3 seed in second round, and the winner of the other league’s pennant in the World Series, then they have truly earned the title despite the fact that they were a wild card team. Every major sport has a playoff format like that except baseball.
That’s not how the NFL playoffs work.
Isn’t that what the Nats did two years ago?
Exactly. Even with this new-fangled 3 wild cards per conference, the top seed in the NFL gets a free bye in the playoffs, i.e. a measurable advantage.
It’s literally impossible in the NFL for a #1 to lose to a wild card in the opening round because the #1 seed doesn’t even play that weekend. And, yes, expanded playoffs in the NFL have led to louder complaints there that winning in the regular season has, as a result, been diminished in importance.