Five Ways to Fix the MLB Postseason

The first year of the Colorado Rockies’ existence, 1993, was the last year of Major League Baseball’s presence without the Wild Card. In a Western Division that was won by the Atlanta Braves — Atlanta is further west than the Atlantic Ocean, I suppose — the Rockies posted an expansion-year record of 67-95, while the Braves secured 104 victories.

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Giants, who were in the same division as Atlanta and Colorado back when Dr. Seuss drew all the maps, won 103 games and missed the postseason entirely despite the fact their record would comfortably have won in every other division in baseball. The Chicago White Sox got to the ALCS after winning 94 regular season games. The Philadelphia Phillies were the next closest team to San Francisco with 97 wins. The Phillies played in the World Series that year, while a team with six more wins over a 162-game season was sitting at home watching on TV having never gotten the chance.

Something had to be done. And it was.

But then came more problems. In the time since the implementation of the Wild Card, it has become common for regular-season powerhouses to be toppled by teams who didn’t perform as well over the long haul but came in hot. This happened for the Florida Marlins in 1997 and 2003 and for the Rockies in 2007.

With these new issues arising, the old one appeared unsolved. It was still possible to have the third-best record in either the AL or NL and completely miss the postseason.

This year’s race between Colorado Rockies and the Arizona Diamondbacks is both proof that the second Wild Card was a necessary addition, but also that the system still isn’t even close to being perfect.

If the goal is to maximize competitiveness and drive, the best possible version of the product you are selling — baseball — MLB could and should make the following five changes to their postseason format as soon as possible.

5. Add the DH to the National League

This originally read “eliminate the DH” y’know… completely.

The purist in me hates to say it and would rather see us abolish the position but that will never happen. Too many people have too much invested in the Designated Hitter to ever get rid of it. In light of that, the next best thing we can do from a competitiveness standpoint is to make sure both leagues are on an even playing field. The National League is at a disadvantage during interleague play. Whoever has home field advantage in the World Series also has an advantage because the other team is forced to play a style that their squad was not built to play for the seven months prior.

As long as the two leagues play under a different set of rules, the postseason will always lack a degree of fairness.

4. Fewer postseason off days

Playing baseball in the postseason should not be fundamentally different from playing baseball in the regular season. Yes, we want the players to be at their most well rested and healthy, but there are plenty of ways to address those concerns without taking one of the key elements of the game — the ability to grind through every single day and make it a nonfactor when the games matter the most.

Famously, the Rockies experienced a nine-game layoff before the 2007 World Series. Part of that was how quickly they wrapped up the NLCS but another part was waiting for the Boston Red Sox to play their own series, but get a few days off themselves.

After playing 162 games and getting through the Division and Championship series, no team should ever be in a position where they would need to sit down for nine days before playing more baseball. This is arguably the most rhythm-based game (certainly in terms of day-to-day action) in the world and nothing takes an athlete out of rhythm like sitting still.

If you need to balance out the calendar earlier on, there should be plenty of opportunities to do so, which brings us to…

3. Find clever ways to shorten the regular-season calendar

More doubleheaders? Start just a little sooner and/or shorten spring training? Consider shortening the regular season to 156 games? That will never happen for reasons concerning money, but there are compromises to be found here. Nobody wants the most important games of the season played in November, but that doesn’t mean the postseason should be neutered. Find ways to make time during the summer so that the baseball we get in the fall is the absolute best that it can be.

This is most important because…

2. No more designated one-game play-ins

A one-game, play-in after 162 games is patently absurd. The Wild Card series should be a three-game set. It doesn’t even need to be five games, but this current system is a killer for both drama and quality of play. How is the game made better by having potentially one of the three best teams in one league eliminated after one game?

Throughout most of the season, the Rockies and Diamondbacks have not only been trading places in the WC race but have also, at times, been the second- and third-best teams in the NL. Suppose the Diamondbacks end with that second-best record? All they will be rewarded with is a guarantee of one game at home; if they lose their season is over. Meanwhile, whoever wins the NL Central will get a five-game series to prove themselves, despite playing far fewer regular season games against the practically unbeatable Los Angeles Dodgers and possible third-place Colorado Rockies.

Nothing about that rings fair.

This isn’t to deny that there can be great drama in a one-game, winner-take-all situation. But the point of baseball is that those moments are only created after two teams have proven they are near equals, not because both teams were stuck with a limited opportunity to show their best selves. It would be like having a one-round boxing match. Five minutes deciding everything would be undoubtedly exciting but you’re nowhere near certain to end with the best competitor as the victor.

1. Re-seed

You could balk at everything else on this list and still make the system immeasurably better. You don’t have to mess with the number of games or change any long-standing, on-the-field rules. If MLB simply went to a system of creating the end-of-season tournament with seeds based on regular season record without regard to geography, almost all of the problems would disappear in an instant. Only one issue is created. It’s the potentially tougher travel. But that should be lower on the priority list that potentially much worse baseball.

The Rockies and Diamondbacks have been battling each other all season and it is impossible that they face each other in an actual series. Such a set, be it five games or seven, would almost certainly create a new rivalry and bring countless more baseball fans into the fold in those markets. And ultimately, in one of America’s few remaining meritocracies, they will have earned it. But despite the fact that they have earned it, they will be punished under the current system meant to solve this very problem.

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Forcing the two Wild Card teams to play each other in one game regardless of record fails to address the problem that implementing the Wild Card in the first place was meant to solve.

While steps have been taken to alleviate the original problem, the 2017 season proves there is much more work to be done to give baseball fans the best and purest form of the game that adequately rewards winning. The point of professional sports has always been simple at the core. We want to see the best players and the best teams face off under the fairest possible circumstances in order to see who comes out on top. The MLB Postseason format does not provide the best opportunity to achieve that goal. The last thing you want is to punish a team, like the Giants in 1993, for their circumstances regardless of their level of play.

The end result of re-seeding or eliminating the one-game play-in would be a guarantee that should you be trapped in a division with an historically dominant team (this year’s Dodgers) you still get a fair shot to prove yourself in the postseason. More games for better teams and better players. It’s isn’t rocket science.