JOHN MCGRATH; THE NEWS TRIBUNE Modified March 03, 2012
It took 17 years for Major League Baseball to address the flaws of inviting wild-card teams to the playoffs. But later, in this case, beats never.
A persistent quandary was solved Friday when commissioner Bud Selig announced that each league will add a second wild card to the playoffs, beginning this October.
At first glance, playoff expansion appears to dilute the significance of the regular season. Glance some more. The extra wild card sets up a one-game showdown for the right to compete in a division series, which is to say: Finishing in first place just became a whole lot more important.
Since the 1995 introduction of wild-card teams, the difference between qualifying conventionally and qualifying as a wild card was nonexistent.
Besides taking home a T-shirt and a hat, what gave playoff-bound teams an incentive to win a division championship?
Nothing.
The 2010 Yankees actually preferred to finish in second place. It set up a playoff series against Minnesota ? a better matchup, the Yanks believed, than Texas.
With a division title at stake during the last weekend of the schedule, manager Joe Girardi essentially ceded the race to Tampa Bay by resting ace starter CC Sabathia.
Didn?t matter that the Yankees were facing the Red Sox, their archrivals. Didn?t matter that the franchise is steeped in gaudy tradition.
What mattered to Girardi ? and who could blame him? ? was a fresh Sabathia taking on the Twins in the playoff opener.
That kind of thinking no longer is an option, because the status of the wild card has been degraded from Virtual Division Champion to Hold On And Pray For Another Day. Thanks to the revised format, wild-card teams will be forced to start their best available pitcher in a one-game playoff, which seriously impacts the winner?s chances in the division series.
If this sounds unfair for the wild-card survivor, well, it?s supposed to be unfair. A division champ should have a perceptible advantage over a wild-card opponent, and for the past 17 years, it didn?t.
The Marlins, for instance, twice have won the World Series, yet never have finished first in their own division. There?s something wrong about a playoff format like that, and Friday, the format was fixed.
Meanwhile, a new word is about to become a staple of baseball argot: Tiebreaker.
Potential wild cards with identical records will play one game for the right to keep hope alive. According to research provided by the MLB office, expanding the postseason field from eight to 10 increases the chances of a tiebreaker by 68 percent.
It?s conceivable a team could play four games, in four days, in four different cities: The regular-season finale, the tiebreaker, the wild-card game and the division series opener.
Be prepared to hear some grousing about cruel and unusual travel itineraries, but for the rest of us, such a four-day whirlwind ? four games, with three of them possibly containing win-or-go-home ramifications ? will be a blast.
In case you?re wondering how the Mariners might?ve fared had MLB implemented the new format in 1995: They would?ve played the White Sox in a one-game tiebreaker in 1996, and the Red Sox in a one-game tiebreaker in 2002. They would?ve advanced outright to the wild-card game in 2003 ? also against the Red Sox ? and faced the Tigers in a tiebreaker in 2007.
Let?s suppose the Mariners don?t win any of these elimination games, because, I mean, we?re talking about the Mariners.
Still, for a team that has gone to the playoffs four times in 34 seasons, four more seasons extended into an urgent overtime phase adds some fascinating chapters to a history confined to the joyous and triumphant campaigns of 1995 and 2001.
All too often around here, the baseball season devolves from a race into a late July conundrum over which veterans to move in a trade for prospects.
An expanded playoff field doesn?t mute the annual discussion about trading and waiting till next year, but it discourages the temptation to wave a white flag.
Furthermore, the expanded playoff field enhances the relevance of September.
Consider 2007, when the Angels came to Safeco Field for a pivotal series that began Aug. 27. They swept, turning a two-game lead in the standings into a five-game lead. Salvaging the season from there depended on a hugely improbable collapse by the Angels.
If the revised playoff format is in place in 2007, the Mariners don?t spend the final month in a fruitless, ultimately boring pursuit of a better team. They spend it finding ways to win one more game than the Tigers.
Making the stretch drive meaningful for fringe contenders is one reason Selig wanted to add a pair of wild cards to the playoffs, but it wasn?t the primary reason.
Selig?s primary reason? To turn a day or two in October into the MLB version of March Madness.
Nothing in sports compares to the drama of a sudden elimination, and nothing in baseball compares to the drama of compressing a 162-game schedule into a few hours of gut-wrenching tension: Either win and advance, or lose and go home.
The improved wild-card format assures two of these games every season, and that?s only the minimum. There will be tiebreakers.
Bud Selig is 77 years old, and not the most physically imposing guy you?ll ever meet. OK, let?s be frank about this: He?s a dweeb. But give the dweeb his due.
He just hit a home run.
john.mcgrath@thenewstribune.com
Source: http://www.theolympian.com/2012/03/04/2015349/selig-draws-a-royal-flush-with.html
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