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intrastatelovesong: I saw an article done on the extra wild card teams, and they went back in the past decade and saw that most of the teams that would have won it were 88-90 wins with others on either side of that midpoint, so it wouldn't exactly be horrible. Usually, the wild card winner is better than the worst division winner. And with a 1 game playoff between you and the division series, there's now extra motivation to win your division. I don't see the outcry against this second WC spot, to be honest.

I believe this may be the article you’re referencing?

Mark Zuckerman writes:

“Here’s a little research for your scrutiny. I calculated which teams would have won each league’s second wild-card for each of the last 16 seasons. Here are the win totals for those 32 teams: 84, 85, 85, 85, 86, 86, 87, 87, 87, 88, 88, 88, 88, 88, 88, 89, 89, 89, 89, 89, 89, 90, 90, 90, 90, 91, 91, 92, 93, 93, 93, 96.”

While the added importance of winning the division is nice, the cost comes at having one more mediocre team possibly upset the entire playoff balance. Baseball’s greatest strength and most unique aspect is its regular season which punishes teams with glaring weakness. It’s why the Giants and their inability to score runs finally caught up with them last year.

But now we add in a one game wild card and all of a sudden an 85 win team knocks off a 94 win team and the lesser team is rewarded. The playoffs are already a crapshoot and this will only add another variable to the equation.

The TV ratings will be astounding for the play-in game, teams will bring in more revenue because of the extra game, and more people will keep their jobs because they “made the playoffs,” but it just comes at a cost of baseball’s regular season.

This isn’t going to kill the game and my tempers have certainly cooled since the idea was first announce, but I still have plenty in common with the crotchety old man who can’t stand the future.

  1. oldtimefamilybaseball posted this
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