MLB’s Expanded Playoffs Have Ruined the NL Wild Card Race
The most embarrassing playoff race in Major League Baseball history (Homer Simpson voice: “The most embarrassing playoff race in Major League Baseball history SO FAR”) is taking place in the American League, where half the field will be lucky to get to the postseason with a winning record.
But the greatest testament to MLB’s hubris is in the National League, where the expansion of the postseason has ensured there’s no wild card race at all.
Not only are the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres all tied for the three NL wild card berths at 85-69 entering play today, they are five games clear of the free-falling Arizona Diamondbacks, who have lost six of eight.
Barring a historical collapse by one of the three tri-leaders, the only suspense over the final eight days of the season will be about seeding and three-way tiebreaker scenarios, the latter of which I’m not going to worry about until at least next Thursday.
And while there’s certainly value in earning the fourth seed and home field in the wild card round as well as avoiding falling to the six seed and facing the Atlanta Braves in a best-of-three series, it’s not nearly as compelling as the Phillies, Cubs and Padres battling for one or two berths.
Imagine the theatre and the scoreboard-watching around the country if at least one of the three NL wild card teams was going to have to head home for the potentially endless winter next Sunday.
The most memorable final day of a season in recent memory — Sept. 28, 2011 — was born out of the knowledge that either the Boston Red Sox or Tampa Bay Rays were not going to make the playoffs as the AL wild card team. The Red Sox were left out when they were walked off by the last-place Baltimore Orioles shortly before Dan Johnson hit the most memorable homer of his life to give the Rays a walk-off 11-inning win over the New York Yankees.
There will be none of that a week from Sunday, which will be another reminder one wild card per league was the perfect arrangement. But of course the playoffs had to be expanded because there was more money to be made, more devaluing of what was once the greatest regular season in sports and more randomness to infuse into the postseason.
Don’t worry, though. At some point following the impending never-ending lockout, Major League Baseball will expand to 32 teams, because what a sport with not enough pitching and too many billionaires crying poverty needs is MORE teams.
And when Major League Baseball goes to 32 teams, the playoffs will expand to 16 teams and there’ll be eight playoff teams in each league. And that will solve the lack of suspense in the NL wild card race!
If there was a 16-team format right now, the Diamondbacks and Pittsburgh Pirates (77-77) would be “leading” the race for the final two NL wild card spots, with the Miami Marlins (76-78) and St. Louis Cardinals (75-79) in something resembling hot pursuit. And thus some year soon, we’ll be pining for the good ol’ days of 2026, when only one league had playoff teams threatening to squeak in at .500 or worse.
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