Does Baseball Need More Playoff Teams?

The ugliest trophy in all of sport.

 The discussion over Major League Baseball's playoff format has long been a favourite topic of pundits (especially in Toronto). It is the league with the longest regular season (in terms of games played), and the fewest teams progressing to the post-season, so the question is regularly asked, should MLB have more teams in the playoffs?

When discussing this topic, it is important to specify from which direction you are approaching it from. Are you talking about what is good for baseball, or are you talking about what is good for the Blue Jays?

If you are a Blue Jays fan, and I am one, the question doesn't even need to be asked. Of course we need more teams in the playoffs. The Blue Jays, Orioles and Devil Rays are in an almost impossible situation (obviously the Rays success throws a bit of a kink into the argument, but who cares about the Rays anyway?). While teams in all five other divisions enjoy an ebb and flow of opportunity, success and failure, the Blue Jays are left to try and compete with big spenders 1 and 1A every single season.

So yes, if you are a Blue Jays fan, obviously you want post-season expansion. Obviously post-season expansion is going to help create drama and importance for you, but is that necessarily any good for Major League Baseball?

Is this good for anyone?

Some posit that it is a simple equation; more playoff teams, equals more playoff contenders, equals tighter playoff races, equals more excitement for everyone.I however  don't really think that it is such a logical assumption. I think it is more likely that adding playoff teams simply, shifts the excitement down a rung. So instead of having an amazing, last night finish for the wild card spot, the new wild card spot becomes that action packed, last night drama, while the first wild-card spot is settled early, ike the division titles usually are.

"I Love This Game"

That said, I am still of the opinion that Major League Baseball should add more playoff teams, but only because they have already made themselves "half-pregnant". That baseball has playoffs at all (even more egregiously, a best 3 out of 5 round) already sullies the sanctity of the regular season, so why not go one step further?

If any North American sport ought to be run like a European football league, it is baseball. Baseball is a numbers game. A game of aggregates. It is 162 games of monotony designed to weed out the pretenders from the contenders. A pitcher can't fluke his way to 20 wins, a batter can't fluke his way to 40 home runs, and a team can't fluke it's way into the playoffs.

So nice, the Prem trophy has its own hat.

 A team can however fluke it's way through the playoffs. For a game that spends such a long period of time to arrive at it's conclusion, it seems crazy to then decide the ultimate winners and losers via a playoff system that rewards immediacy and fortuitous timing.

If any sport should award a "League Title" to the regular season champion, based purely on that regular season, it should be baseball. The original World Series format followed this formula perfectly. The two league winners would win their pennant (a huge deal back in those days), and then play what was ostensibly a "Cup Tournament", known as the World Series.

But since baseball has gotten away from that purity, than why not open it up just that little bit more? To refuse to do so is really just another example of a professional sports league selectively sticking it's head in the sand. It isn't as if an added wild card spot would hurt the MLB's darling Yanks-Sox post-season presence. All this change would do would be to fix the problem that clearly exists throughout the league, wherein 20-24 teams know that their final month of games are all but meaningless.

At this point, with 3 rounds of playoff baseball, there is no principle to be upheld. The sanctity of the playoffs and World Series have already been compromised. Open up the playoffs MLB!


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