Forget the hot takes: MLB's new playoff system is working out just fine
If Major League Baseball’s made-for-TV postseason is the ultimate in reality programming, then the first two rounds of this tournament should come with an important assurance for viewers:
No top seeds were harmed in the production of this film.
The best-of-three wild-card series and best-of-five Division Series have been completed, and for all the angst-ridden fan bloviating and endless takes from the take factories, you’d think any team winning more than 90 games was suddenly an endangered species.
Yet here we are, through three years of this expanded format, and everything’s working out pretty OK.
The 94-win New York Yankees, 98-win Los Angeles Dodgers and 92-win Cleveland Guardians are onward to their respective League Championship Series, and after the Guards’ scintillating Game 5 victory over Detroit in the ALDS, we’re assured that the World Series won’t feature anyone with fewer than 89 wins to their name.
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That’s a departure from last year, when the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks caught a gust at their back and made it to an all wild-card World Series against the eventual champion Texas Rangers. Paired with the 87-win Philadelphia Phillies getting all the way to Game 6 of the ’22 World Series against the Houston Astros, there was fodder for the school of thought suggesting the new, 12-team format was inherently unfair for a sport that measures its greatness largely over 162 games.
That perspective was tainted by the notion that somehow, a bye through the wild card series was damaging, that teams would rather have to win five games instead of three to advance to the LCS, so long as they avoid the crippling “rust” that apparently settles in with five days off.
It was an illogical and mathematically dubious stance, and this postseason proved as much.
Rest is good
Beyond avoiding a dangerous best-of-three shootout, let’s not forget that ducking the wild card gives a significant chance to lick wounds and plot strategy. Just look at the Dodgers.
If they don’t ensure a first-round bye, there would have been no Freddie Freeman in the wild-card series. Instead, their All-Star underwent aggressive treatment all week and, with the help of the training room, slapped four hits in 14 at-bats. More important, he lengthened a Dodgers lineup whose decisive Game 5 blows against San Diego were struck by the Nos. 4 and 7 hitters, Teoscar and Kiké Hernández (no relation).
Meanwhile, a bullpen that hit a mid-year wall was gassed up and nearly perfect, as the Dodgers erased a 2-1 series deficit by tossing 24 consecutive shutout innings, 19 by their relievers, to flip the result. All those zeroes probably aren’t hung if they had to survive a wild-card round as well, given how bullpen returns can diminish with each subsequent round.
All this can’t fully explain how the 95-win Philadelphia Phillies flopped so badly against the Mets. Nor is it scientifically possible to explain what’s “rust” and what’s simply folding under playoff pressure.
We’re pretty sure most of Philly would agree it was the latter, as the Phillies were dogged by terrible plate approaches, bad swing decisions, and a questionable handling of the bullpen by manager Rob Thomson that pretty much doomed them after they wasted a sparkling Game 1 start from ace Zack Wheeler.
And you could also see this coming. The Phillies were 33-33 in the second half, prone to extended offensive slumps. All-Star reliever Jeff Hoffman’s ERA more than tripled (1.12 to 3.81) in the second half, a 4.87 mark in August and September.
Heck, the break did the Phillies good, too, as lefty Ranger Suarez was able to iron out issues that produced a 6.54 ERA in his last 11 starts; he managed 4 ⅓ innings of shutout ball before the Phillies were eliminated in Game 4.
The Phillies were the most conventionally pleasing squad entering the playoffs: Four really good to great starters, a bullpen with plenty of live arms and a near billion-dollar lineup known for its quick October strikes. But in this modern playoff structure, concocting the winning recipe is tougher than asking a 5-year-old to whip you up a nice risotto.
Wanna find the ‘hot hand?’ Good luck!
Oddly enough, the team most “built” for success this October did everything wrong in the run-up.
They traded their No. 2 starter and two useful bats at the trade deadline. Called up a bevy of rookies in August and September, including their starting shortstop and some high-leverage relievers.
Yet even though the Detroit Tigers are finally out, rest assured the surviving teams are breathing a sigh of relief.
One ace and “chaos” the rest of the week, supported by a contact-hitting lineup with come-and-go power, does not seem the playoff ideal. But the Tigers were the game’s best team in the last two months and behind lefty Tarik Skubal, flicked aside the Astros in the wild-card round, breaking Houston’s seven-year streak of ALCS appearances.
Yeah, they couldn’t finish the Guardians after grabbing a 2-1 ALDS lead. But the Tigers’ mantra – “Don’t let us get hot” – perfectly distills how fluky this October thing is getting.
Always has been, really.
The best team never won all the time, anyway
Hey, this whole “100-win team goes down in flames” thing (not that there’s one of those this year) has been going on for decades. In the final 32 years (1946-68) when the league winner advanced to the World Series, the team with the best record still won just 52% of the time.
And when the League Championship Format was adopted in 1969, that was lopped nearly in half, to 28% through 1993. The wild card era only blunted that further; there was really no turning back since 1997, when a 92-win, Florida Marlins wild card team upended the 101-win, division-winning Atlanta Braves dynasty in the NLCS and went on to capture the World Series.
So perceived injustices are nothing new; they’re just a little more exacerbated now.
Hey, we don’t think this format is perfect, by any means. There was both a little more juice and a little less sitting around in the 10-year wild-card game format, which provided the adrenaline of a one-game knockout while idling the division winners for just three or four days before the Division Series began.
Yet every player I’ve talked to prefers the best-of-three, that any season shouldn’t come down to one game. A fair point, but after three years, the Game 1 winner is also 12-0 in winning the series; just two series have gone the full three games.
But we’ve learned nothing’s ever permanent with the postseason format. And with TV rightsholders always holding many of the cards, and ESPN, the godfather of the wild card round, set to opt out of its deal after 2025, the game and its championship tournament may look much different in two, five, 10 years.
And when that time arrives, perhaps we’ll look back on this format and worry they might mess up a good thing.
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