Bob Costas should have the last laugh – years ago he proposed the double wild card in his book Fair Ball: A Fan’s Case for Baseball
You make the two wild cards play a one game do or die. The winner advances to play the #1 seed on the road.
You say that’s unfair? You had 162 games to win the division.
You make the Wild Cards play on Monday, both have to “waste” their ace, and then travel to play the very next night using their #2 against a #1.
If you’re on the west coast and have to come east, too bad, you had 162 games to win your division. If you have to travel on Sunday night and again on Monday – too bad, you had 162 games to win your division.
The do or die is dramatic. The extra Wild Card lets more teams (cough cough) get to pretend they are in it until the end.
There’s actually a premium on winning your division.
I reject the idea of a three game wild card round. It will cause the division winners to sit around for a week – and we’ve seen in the past what happens when teams sit around for too long.
No brainer.
Oh, and move Houston to the AL West and have one interleague series every day.
Although baseball has had a World Series for a long time, and people love it, in my own mind, it and the Playoffs in general are beginning to take on less significance.
I can understand the public’s fascination w a high profile, condensed mini season, but the real trial of baseball is the 162 game litmus test. Putting undue weight on two weeks of play is misrepresentative.
That said, I agree w your plan (and Costas’). Furthermore the wild card should play all games on the road throughout the post season.
I don’t think on board. I won’t hate it, but one, or even three, games don’t mean much about who’s better. So all you’re really doing is giving the “fifth best” team a chance to take the “fourth best” teams place in the playoffs with a chance to win it all.
“fifth best” in quotes because the 5th best AL team, and the 9th overall, won it all in 2000.
What might be entertaining though, is the day after the season ends, on Thursday, have the two WC teams play a doubleheader. then the finale if needed the next day, LDS on Saturday. Division winners would only sit for two days.
I’ve never been a fan of the wild card, but adding a second wild card team & making them play a one-game, do-or-die playoff would solve most of my problems with it.
If you’re going to let teams into the playoffs that couldn’t win their division, they should have a harder road to the World Series trophy.
I have been saying for years that they should have 5 teams in every division, and play one interleague game a day. Glad to see I am not alone in this.
Shannon, I agree completely with this, both on the double wildcard and on Houston needing to move. It’s ridiculous that the NL Central has 6 teams while the AL West only has 4.
I disagree that Houston should move, though. Send Milwaukee back to the American League if you want to even out the divisions.
Well, one league has to have 2 more teams, so they each have an even number, or else one team from each league would be off each night. And the team that would make the most sense to move, anyway, would be Milwaukee, since they were in the AL until ’98.
Oops, sorry, totally botched reading the post–I see the odd-number interleague-series point now. Ehh. Interesting idea, but I’m not on-board with that.
I actually wish they’d do away with both interleague play AND the unbalanced schedule. I’d much rather have another series at home each year against the NL central and west than the Marlins/National/Phillies/Braves over and over and over and over, as is the case now.
I’ve been on board with that playoff scheme since I first heard it proposed some time ago. A wild card should be as its name states, not essentially even on footing as the division winners.
Bob Costas proposed ZERO Wild Cards, not four. League’s best record goes straight to the LCS and the remaining division champs play in an LDS. I still wish this was attempted.
The only reason–ONLY REASON–Selig is trying to go ahead with this is greed. 4 Wild Cards would have meant Boston dollars in 2010 and New York dollars from both leagues in 2008.
Count me out.
Kevin its interesting..I always remember the 1 game scenario as being from Bob. I see in some interviews he calls for the scenario you mentioned. I have the book upstairs and will look at it when I get a shot.