The new playoff regimen is a travesty, of course, built on the quicksand NBA model that cheapens the regular season beyond relevance. Baseball isn't yet at that point, but the vector points south.
For one thing, MLB sachems are now officially attempting to shoehorn seven months of baseball into six months, only five of which promise decent weather above the Mason-Dixon line. More importantly, it opens the lottery that is the post-season to more contestants.
I'm looking forward to the following scenario:
Team A, let's call them the Rays as an homage to my dad, rides a rotation stuffed with arms to the second-best record in baseball, just behind their division rivals, let's call them the Rose Hose. The Rays match their 96 wins against a vagabond outfit from a threadbare division, let's call them the Native Americans, whose 87 wins is simply the best of the rest.
The Native Americans cash in one good pitching performance and a wind-aided big fly to end the Rays' season. Three of five fluke victories over the 102-win Rose Hose later, they're in the league championship series having won just four times.
If MLB doesn't think that's an abomination, then it has the right formula. Unlike football and basketball, the better team doesn't win a whole lot more often than the lesser team in baseball. Adding two more -- weaker -- Wild Card teams intensifies the regrettable trend of creating two baseball seasons, the regular season and the playoffs. The regular season is no longer about winning anything, it's about accumulating the minimum number of wins to make the next round.
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1 comment:
Yes, the whole thing is almost as bad as heading towards an inter league game EVERYDAY!
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