Expanded Playoffs? Thanks, but no Thanks

Last week, MLB Commissioner Bug Selig discussed the (very likely) prospects of adding two playoff teams–an additional wild card team for each league, starting next season. The likely set up would involve a three or five game first round between wild card teams, who would then advance to the traditional four team per league bracket.

And to that, I ask one simple question:

Why ruin best playoff system in major American sports?(Because more scenes like this are a bad thing?)



Now I have a number of reasons why I think that this idea is ridiculous, but to prevent the next few paragraphs from turning into a jumbled rant, I will present you with a few key points:

-This isn’t football, where there are only 16 games to prove yourself. There are 162 games to earn a ticket into the playoffs. If you can’t do it by then, you don’t deserve to be in.

-Since the original wild card began in 1995, four wild card teams have won the World Series (’97 Marlins, ’02 Angels, ’03 Marlins and most famously, the ’04 Red Sox) and nine total Wild Card teams made it there. That means that over once every two years, a wild card team makes it to the World Series. Now imagine how many more wild card champions there would be if two more teams were added into the mix. (Who could forget the '97 Marlins...outside of the people of Miami)

Winning your division in a 162 game season has to count for something! There is already so little emphasis placed on winning the division, since the wild card gets teams to the same point.

-An argument could be made that having the two wild card teams play an additional round is an advantage to the division winners, but I think otherwise. The teams that tend to win the wild card are the ones who went on great winning streaks just to make the playoffs. Now they play three more games before facing a division-winning team that hasn’t played in a week?

They’ll have all the momentum. Essentially, the team that played well enough to earn the best record in their league will have to play the hottest team in the league every year. It just doesn’t seem fair.

It’s a shame that America’s pastime will lose a little of its luster just because Bud Selig wants to do his best Gordon Gekko impression and pocket a few more millions a year. But alas, it will survive.

The sport made it through the initial wild card, interleague play, and the designated hitter, so what’s one more change?

Just please, let this be the last one. With every passing year, I fear that we get closer to the South Park guys’ prediction of the impending sporting apocalypse.