MLB Playoff 'Fix' Will Do More Harm

Major League Baseball appears to be tinkering with something that's not broken in the sport, its postseason.

Word is, the league and its players' association are close to announcing a playoff expansion that would give one-third of all teams a berth in October starting this year.

Under the new playoffs, the fourth and fifth place wild-card teams in each league would meet in what will likely be a one-game playoff with the three division winners sitting out awaiting the winner.

Commissioner Bug Selig has pushed hard for an extra wild-card team to 'fix' the perceived problem that game do not matter September off. In fact two years ago, the New York Yankees purposely lost the division to Tampa so they could get extra rest and draw a more favorable matchup with Minnesota.

The new playoff structure would put the onus on winning a division. Wild-card teams will have to throw everything, just to make sure they keep playing. But giving division winners an added October advantage will come at the expense of the regular season.

More mediocre teams will have a chance to get hot at the right time and make a postseason run.

If the five team playoff structure had been in place over the past five years, that fifth place team would have averaged just 88 regular season wins. What baseball does not need is another slightly above .500 team playing in October.

Baseball's last postseason change came in 1995, when the field doubled from four to eight teams. That's the number baseball should stick with. It rewards good teams for the 162 games the slug it out, and means every so often a good team stays home.

Less is way more, and adding more playoffs teams will just water down one of the most special postseasons.

Expanded Playoffs Reward Mediocrity

Major League Baseball has decided to dramatically change its October look, and not for the better.

The playoffs will be expanded by two teams as early as next year. That means one-third of baseball's 30 teams will make the postseason, in what feels like another Yankees-Red Sox exception.

The first Yankee-Sox playoff exception states if the team with the best overall record and the wild-card team are from the same division, the wild card team will face the team with the second-best record.

Since Boston has been absent from the last two postseasons, and New York was left out four years ago, a fifth playoff team appears they are getting a backdoor playoff admittance. If a fifth playoff spot existed, the Red Sox, and their rabid fans, would have watched at least one game in October.

Ensuring more big market teams make the playoffs isn't the whole story.

Commissioner Bud Selig and Co. are trying to fix the September problem that many division pennant races, particularly in the AL East, lack drama because both teams are resting up for October.

In order to put the premium on winning a division title, MLB is only further watering down its laborious 162-game season.

This past year, the additional wild-card teams would have meant the most exciting night of baseball in years wouldn't have mattered. All teams would have lived another day.

"You don't do things for one year. You do things for a long period of time," Selig said.

Rewarding mediocrity is not going to help over the years.

Under the expanded playoffs, it will happen that a 97-win wild card team is going to lose to a team that finishes seven to eight games behind them.

Playoffs ought to reward the best teams, and expanding the postseason will do just the opposite.

MLB is breaking something that isn't broke.

Winning Isn't Key, Timing Is

The Cardinals were only the best team when it mattered (AP Photo)

Fresh off their second World Championship parade in six years, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to go into the history books as one of the baseball's more improbable champions.

The Redbirds were 10 games out of playoff contention on Aug. 1, a strike away from defeat before staging a legendary comeback in Game 6, and erasing an early deficit in Game 7 to claim its 11th World Series title, second-most all-time.

They'll no doubt go down as the "Comeback Cards" or "Cardiac Cards."

But it shouldn't come as a surprise that St. Louis, who eked into the postseason, rolled to another World Series title.

With the advent of the Wild Card, baseball's playoffs are not about the best team winning anymore, it's now about who's the hottest team come October.

Over the past five years, World Series winners share one common factor, they all carried winning baseball from September in to October.

Just one World Series Champ in the past five years can truly claim to be the best team. The 2009 New York Yankees had the best record in the regular season (103 wins), but the Bronx Bombers played great in September that continued into the postseason.

Only the 2007 Boston Red Sox had a final month regular season winning percentage that was less than 63 percent. The Sox went 16-11 down the stretch, which translates to a 0.592 winning percent.

In the '07 World Series, Boston cooled off the then red-hot Colorado Rockies, who grabbed the Wild Card by winning three out every four games in September.

The Rockies were a perfect 7-0 in October and might have won the World Series if they didn't have to wait nine days between the NLCS and the start of the Fall Classic.

This year, St. Louis won nearly 70 percent of their games down the stretch, going 18-8 catching Atlanta for the NL Wild Card.

The Cards had to win to clinch a playoff spot, and did so on the final day of the regular season.  That's nearly identical to last year's World Champs.

Like the Cards, the San Francisco Giants barely made the postseason winning the division on the final day of the regular season. But playing desperate and winning in September, San Fran was 19-10, was key for the Giants ending a 56 year pennant drought.

It doesn't pay to be the best team in the regular season anymore. It only pays to win in September.

MLB Can't Toot Its Horn, But Don't Buy It

MLB playoffs are in full swing and Bud Selig and Co. want you to believe it's not the same old October story.

But it is.

Three of the eight playoff teams this year (Milwaukee, Arizona and Tampa Bay) are in the bottom half of team payrolls.

Arizona went from worst to first, while the Brewers won its division for the first time in 29 years, and those bottom dwellers are who the commissioner wants fans to focus on.

They want you to believe there's a weakening correlation between player payroll and postseason participation.

While the statistics show that narrative is true, it doesn't tell the whole story.

In the first five years of the wild-card (1995-1999), just one of the 40 playoff spots was earned by a team in the bottom half of player payroll.

However, in the past five years (2005-2010) things have opened up with 12 of the 40 playoff spots going to the bottom payroll teams.

Selig was recently quoted saying: "I used to say, my job is to try to make the dollar less important than good management. I think we have done that."

Actually, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane did that. Beane changed the way nearly every organization approaches the game.

Still, it takes money to win.

In fact 10 of the 13 MLB teams that had records above .500 in 2011, were in the top half of league payroll.

It's great that three of the four most recent World Series participants ranked among the bottom five in payroll -- the Texas Rangers last year, the Rays in 2008 and the Colorado Rockies in 2007.

But the glass ceiling remains, only the Florida Marlins in 2003 won a World Series with a low-budget team.

Despite what they may claim, baseball's still got an October problem. And money still buys championships.

A Not So Wild Idea

Even in Major League Baseball's long, arduous season every game matters.

In what will likely go down as one of the wildest endings to a regular season ever, two teams popped champagne, while two picked up the pieces from their epic September collapses.

It all transpired simultaneously, in minutes, and much like March Madness was spectacular nail biting drama.

And to think it could all be naught if MLB gets its way and adds another wild-card. Before we get there here's how it played out in real time:

9:56 p.m. (EDT): Atlanta Braves rookie sensation Craig Kimbrel wilts under the pressure. Three walks to Phillie batters results in a game-tying sac fly from Chase Utley. Free baseball in Hotlanta.

10:23: Evan Longoria caps a six run inning with one swing of the bat. His three-run homer cuts the New York Yankees seven-run lead to one.

10:26: The St. Louis Cardinals finish off a 8-0 thrashing of the Houston Astros and tune into to watch the Braves games.

10:47: Tampa's down to its last strike, when Dan Johnson (batting .108) smacks a pinch-hit game-tying home run. The Rays are heading to extra innings.

10:58: The Boston Red Sox resume their game against the Orioles after a popup Baltimore thunderstorm.

11:17: BoSox's Carl Crawford, who hasn't lived up to his mega contract, doubles, but Macro Scutaro hesitates as he runs to third and is gunned out at the plate. Red Sox still lead 3-2, but an insurance run is lost.

11:28: Philly's Hunter Pence squibs a broken-bat single in the unlucky 13th inning in Atlanta. Phillies lead 4-3.

11:40: At the start of September, Atlanta led the NL wild-card by 8 1/2 games. Braves Freddie Freeman grounds into a double play. Game over, season over -- St. Louis is October bound.

11:59: Orioles Nolan Reimold is down to his last strike, but ties the game with the second of back-to-back doubles off Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon.

12:02: The wheels fall off in Baltimore. O's Robert Andino smacks a single to left field. Crawford can't make the sliding grab and his throw to the plate is off the mark. Red Sox await their fate that hinges in St. Petersburg.

12:05: Tampa's Evan Longoria hits another home run just feet from the foul pole that just clears the fence. Tampa Bay completes two improbable comebacks -- winning 8-7 after trailing 7-0 and catching Boston in the standings who once held a 9 game wild-card lead on Sept. 3.

The Red Sox collapse was the biggest blown lead in the final month ever, and the Braves weren't too far behind.

But all of Wednesday's drama wouldn't have mattered if Bud Selig's proposed plan to add a fifth wild-card team was in effect.

All four teams vying for the final playoff spots would have mirrored the Yankees pre-playoff mode, playing the next best guy on their 40-man roster.

The idea of a second runner-up making the baseball's postseason is ludicrous. The Red Sox don't deserve another chance after a 7-20 September. Neither does a team that finishes 6 games behind the first wild-card participant (like the same Red Sox did last year in missing the playoffs).

Baseball should not be trying to emulate the NBA. The Association plays a way too long season, followed by even longer playoffs which half the teams make. What's the point?

A 162-game season is designed to reward the winners and punish the teams that don't deserve to play in October. Wednesday night proved just that.

Fixing MLB: The Season Structure

One of the issues plaguing Major League Baseball is happening right now.

American Leagues pitchers are venturing into uncharted territory having to bat, while most National League teams are adding a mediocre bat to its lineup in the form of a designated hitter. It's the joys of interleague baseball.

Aside from ruining the fun and specialness of the World Series, interleague play creates a lot of matchups that nobody cares about. For every great series like Yankees-Cubs and Angels-Dodgers, there are just as many Rays-Brewers and Rockies-Indians.

MLB should do us all a favor and end this. There's no reason to get excited about playing a team you won't see for another three years.

All-Star Game

Bud Selig has a number of black marks on his tenure as commissioner. One of the bigger ones, calling the 2002 All-Star game in his hometown of Milwaukee an unsatisfactory tie game.

But Selig out-did himself the next year, by "fixing" the Midsummer Classic and making it determine who had home field advantage for the World Series.

It's absurd to have a glorified exhibition actually count.

MLB should abolish the rule today.

Let's actually validate the 162 game regular season and when two teams meet in the World Series, award the one with the best regular season record with home field.

It works for the NHL and NBA. It would be perfect for baseball too.

Shorten the Season

In an effort to make sure baseball stops before Thanksgiving, Selig put a blemish on Opening Day. Rather than starting on the first Monday in April, baseball started on March 31 a Thursday.

That hardly solves the issue that baseball, a summer sport, typically slogs through the unpredictable autumn weather. It's a bad mix.

It would be great to just ax eight games and go back to 154, but that won't every happen. So MLB needs to shorten the postseason. It's very doable, just cut down on travel and off days just plough through the postseason.

There's something wrong that teams can essentially have a two man starting rotation and win a pennant (aka 2001 Diamondbacks).

Teams should have to go four or five deep and mirror the regular season. Just tighten up the postseason would help capitalize on lost potential, since football (both pro and college) doesn't really get good until October.

But these aren't the only tweaks needed to make the game better, and I'll be writing more in the coming weeks.

The call for MLB replay intensifies

Maybe you missed it, but Tim Lincecum pitched a 14 strikeout, two-hit gem for the San Francisco last night. It started the Giants off on the right track for what they hope will be a meaningful October run.

Using Bill James' Game Score formula, Sports Illustrated's Joe Posnanski says Lincecum's performance was better than Philadelphia pitcher Roy Halladay's no-hitter, just the second postseason no-hitter ever.

But maybe you did miss it, because most of what people have been talking and writing about today are the blown calls by umpires. It's becoming an October sport in its own right.

In the Giants game, catcher Buster Posey was clearly out on replay trying to steal second base in the fourth inning. He ended up scoring the game's only run for San Fran.

In Tampa, first base umpire Jerry Meals missed a check-swing call which gave Texas Ranger Michael Young a chance to keep hitting, which he did. Instead of a strike out, Young smashed a three-run homer to give Texas a commanding five run lead. Rays fans started chanting "replay".

Maybe it would have had an impact, maybe not. We'll never know, since Tampa Bay seems to have forgotten how to hit with just eight in two games in postseason.

And in Minnesota, the Twins had misgivings about balls and strikes too. Same song different verse as New York's Lance Berkman should've been called out on a third strike, and instead struck on the scoreboard with a go-ahead double. Yahoo Sports Jeff Passan wrote home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt's strike zone would've been bad for a Little League game.

Calls this year for more instant replay in baseball have been loud ever since June, when Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga got robbed of a perfect game. In the postseason, so far people seem more focused on bad calls then the great performances.

Call me old school, but I still haven't warmed to the idea of more instant replay.

Back in August, ESPN's Outside the Lines reviewed every call, with the exception of balls and strikes, for two weeks. Of the plays they deemed "close" 20.4 percent were found to be incorrect, 65.7 percent were confirmed as correct and 13.9 percent were too close to call.

That shows even with replay umpires are still needed.

If Major League Baseball decides to expand replay, and unfortunately I think they will, they need to go all in. A lot of the critics calling for more replay argue the objective is to get the call right. The technology exists for electronic balls and strike calls and they should do it, along with fair or foul calls and close plays on the bases.

I think any additions to replay will take the humanity out of the game. Maybe the humanity is already gone, if all people are interested in is their favorite pastime, complaining about the umps.