The Chris Moeller Archives

What the wild card hath wrought

It's mid-September and that means it's time for the annual blog feature titled above.

Major League Baseball has employed its farcical wild card playoff system now for 16 long years, each season allowing two second-place teams-- one from each league-- to back themselves into the playoffs. The most positive results of the new system came about that very first year, 1994, when the final 2 1/2 months of the season where cancelled on account of strike by the Players Association. It's been downhill ever since.

On the heels of last year's debacle, this year's pennant race has been almost equally-damaged by the wild card, yet proponents continue to employ their faulty math in support of the system. The addition of two extra playoff slots, they argue, provides longer-lasting hope into autumn for the league's second-tier clubs. But again, what is being subtracted? This is never factored into the equation.

Like last year, the wild card damage of 2008 is most pronounced in the American League. None of the circuit's 14 teams have had their championship chances extended later into the regular season by the open slot. The wild card leading Boston Red Sox, at the time of this writing, have a 7 game lead in those standings. Two races are still alive in the AL with a week and a half left in the regular season-- the Central and the East. Regardless of the wild card, the White Sox and Twins have a close race for the reserved playoff slot as Central Division champion, but in the East, it's already over. Boston, with its $133 million payroll, and the Tampa Bay Rays, with their $43 million payroll, should be locked into an epic battle and a great narrative, separated by only two games. The two clubs have gone head-to-head six times during the last week and a half, with the Rays winning 4 of 6, accounting, in effect, for the difference in the standings, but oops... who cares? Both clubs are safely enrolled in the league's post-season lineup. Remember Boston's 7 game lead in the wild card?

In the National League, this year's wild card has succeeded in extending the post-season chances of two teams, the Brewers and the Astros, who would otherwise be also-rans against the Central Division-leading Cubs. But is that the competitive situation Major League Baseball desires? The Brewers and Astros have no business getting a second life against the Cubs. The Brewers trail Chicago by 9 games. The Astros trail them by 12. The Cubs have been consistently excellent all season. They've won 92 games with 11 still to play. Meanwhile, the Brewers have won only 4 of 17 games during the month of September, fired their manager on Monday, and lost 8 of 13 games head-to-head against the Cubs this year, including 6 of the last 7 after today. The Astros were 46-55 on July 23rd, and despite a remarkable spurt over about six weeks, have now trailed off to lose 5 in a row. Is the jury still out on selecting the best team of this bunch?

Night after night, baseball commentators ask us to bask in the excitement of the pennant race, as if nothing has ever changed over time, but what is actually being decided during September is materially-less than it's ever been. For almost 70 years, a regular season title in baseball immediately translated into a World Series ticket for that club. Then for 25 years, it meant you needed to tally just four more wins to reach the Series. Now you need seven more wins before entering the Fall Classic, passing muster in two short series.

Each and every year, eight of 30 MLB teams pop champagne corks at some point during the month of September. They cover their lockers with plastic sheeting and douse themselves with the bubbly. Now I'll repeat that extraordinary number-- eight. That's more than 25 percent of the total number of clubs that make it out of spring training, and equal to the original number of teams in the American League. Out of what can only be habit, teams still celebrate pennant race clinchers as if they mean something extraordinary. In the modern era, an AL West division title means that the champs have battled for six exhausting months and for 162 games to eliminate from contention all of three teams, and that's barring a wild card berth by one of those three. Who came up with this monstrosity of a playoff system? My theory-- Korbel.

posted by CM @ 8:33 PM