In defense of the MLB Playoff Format
May the best team qualify for the postseason
As the baseball season moves into the League Championship Series round, with three of the five teams that dominated the regular season already eliminated, and another one game away, there’s been some criticism of the new MLB baseball format. This includes three wild card playoff qualifiers from each league, with the division winner with the worst record and the wild cards engaging in 3 game series, and the top two division winners getting a first round bye.
To put my interests on the table, I grew up a Phillies fan, moved to St. Louis where I became a Cardinals fan, then moved to Seattle, where I enjoyed this year’s playoff run. The Phillies are the greatest beneficiaries of this new format as they were the last team to qualify for the playoffs, and are now in the NLCS. (The universal Designated Hitter also helped them, as Bryce Harper’s injury meant that he was relegated to DH for much of the season rather than being unable to play).
Major League Baseball is an entertainment product. It is not a court of justice charged with objectively determining the absolute best baseball team. Obviously, part of the entertainment is that there is some correlation between the quality of the teams and the one that is identified as champion. But MLB is under no obligation to deliver an objectively just result, and indeed has not in many instances even in with a smaller postseason field.
It is increasingly apparent that interest in baseball, to a much greater extent than football and basketball, is driven by local interest in a team with legitimate postseason aspirations. The Mariners and Astros played an 18 inning 1-0 game yesterday. I watched almost every pitch. But, if I didn’t have a rooting interest, I likely would have been more inclined to watch Tennessee beat Alabama 52-49 in a game I had no rooting interest in. For fans of the team, a game like yesterday’s is full of tension and drama. For others, it’s
an acquired taste that many are not terribly interested in acquiring.
There’s been talk about how baseball has failed to produce stars in recent years. Mariners rookie center fielder Julio Rodriguez appears to be everything one could ask for from a superstar. In yesterday’s game, he had a double, a walk, and a spectacular catch that likely saved runs. But in the 6+ hour telecast, he was probably on the screen less than 15 minutes. Compare this with how much you’ll see a star basketball player or QB in a typical telecast.
There was a raucous sell-out crowd for the first home playoff game in 21 years in Seattle, and much praise for the environment. But for most of the games during that 21 year drought, there were more empty seats in the stadium than full, and those who were there were as much into socializing as the game. I have been here for 10 years, and until this year, I rarely tuned in to the Mariners TV telecasts.
So, baseball’s business model is a baseline of die-hards and people who enjoy the atmosphere, bolstered by local excitement about the team’s postseason possibilities. It is in their interest to maximize the number of teams that have a chance of making the playoffs.
Without a salary cap, teams like the Dodgers and Yankees can put themselves out of reach of teams like the Padres and the Rays. Even under these rules, it was apparent at the trade deadline that the Dodgers, Yankees, and Astros were not going to be caught. In previous years, that would mean that teams like the Padres, Mariners, and Phillies would be “sellers” at the trade deadline, looking to trade their high-priced veterans to contending teams for prospects, and spend the rest of the year getting ready for the future (in front of sparse home crowds). Instead, these teams made deals to increase their chances of making the postseason.
The result is a better product and more interest in the game in key markets like Seattle and Philadelphia, and a greater incentive for teams in these cities to cultivate and keep stars. Would the Mariners lock up Julio Rodriguez and Luis Castillo if the only way they could make the postseason was to outwin the Astros over a 162 game season? Maybe not. From the MLB’s perspective, having full stadiums in Philadelphia and Seattle in August in September is an easy trade for an increased probability that the best team won’t win the World Series.
So, if we’ve established that having more teams in the playoffs is a good thing, what about how MLB has gone about it? Is the current format fair?
Constructing a fair post-season is a particular challenge for baseball due to the nature of the sport. No other sport has as great a divergence between how the game is played in the regular season and the postseason. Fifth starting pitchers and backup catchers are key contributors to regular season success, but are almost useless in the postseason. Dominant starting pitchers and relief pitchers can have an outsized impact. And it is more random. The Dodgers had a historic regular season, and finished with a .685 winning percentage. The Phoenix Suns last year, finished with a winning percentage of .780, which is fairly typical for the best record in the NBA. An undefeated season in the NFL would be unusual, but not inconceivable.
One criticism of the current format is that the first round bye is actually a disadvantage rather than an advantage, as evidenced that the teams receiving the bye have lost two of the four series, and are behind in another (and the team that won did so by winning won game they trailed throughout before getting a home run with two outs in the ninth inning and an 18 inning game).
I’m not sure the sample size is sufficient to make such a determination, so, unlike many baseball questions, we actually get to debate it.
The case for it is that a team playing a first round will maintain rhythms and momentum, whereas the team receiving the bye will lose it. This is particularly acute since the bye team likely locked up its postseason berth and seeding with a week or more left in the regular season, and the other team likely had to keep winning.
The case against is, first, that the bye team did not have to play in the first round, and thus has no chance of being eliminated in it. Second, the most precious commodity in postseason baseball is innings pitched by top pitchers. The bye teams are positioned to maximize this in the division series, while the teams playing the wild card round cannot. The advantages seem more tangible and salient to me than fuzzy concepts like “rhythm” and “momentum.”
If having a few days off was such a disadvantage, I think we would have seen:
Teams taking active steps to mitigate this loss during the All Star Break.
Teams that have clinched continuing to lean on the gas pedal rather than resting their regulars.
We have not seen that. It may turn out that the time off is a real disadvantage. But the team with the bye can use the time off as they see fit, and they can likely find ways to use that time to maintain whatever edge they risk losing.
A problem that remains is that a five game series brings in too much random variance to be a meaningful test. I do tend to agree with this, and would advocate lengthening the divisional round to seven games, and shortening the regular season to 154 games to make time.
Less plausibly, I would advocate a cultural shift toward celebrating regular success more, and not regarding teams that post impressive regular season records and fall short in the playoffs as “chokers.” Have more President’s Trophy / Supporters Shield type awards, and regard them as legitimate accomplishments. The 2007 Patriots and 2015 Kentucky basketball teams are among the best teams I’ve ever seen, even if they didn’t win their last game. So are this year’s Dodgers. Let’s celebrate that.