Of the 11 National League teams to win 100 games in the wild-card era, not one took the World Series. But the Marlins, who have yet to finish first in their division, have done it twice.

And that, kids, is the gist of it.

Time to break out the SOM / APBA / DLB / whatever cards and dice (or DMB on the machine), and replay these seasons with two division per league setup. Let's see how many times the Marlins win then.

It’s fun, but what does it all mean?

It means we get to have some fun?

At a very quick count, the last six NFL teams to win 14 or more games didn't win the Super Bowl, which was collected by some distinct also-rans some of those years. It's not directly analogous, of course, but seems to show something inherent in playoffs, which has always been true of baseball postseasons. Over a shorter span, "luck" can prevail (and so can improvements a team makes late in a season). The old six-team NHL had the best idea: crown a champion, and then hold the Stanley Cup playoff. But nobody remembers who won the league championships (or do they?); the whole focus was always on the Cup anyway as I remember.

The Giants - NY, not SF - not only were a mere 9-7, they were outscored by their opponents in the regular season and won the Super Bowl anyway last year. They lost twice by double digits to a team that only won 5 games (Washington).

It is what it is.

It is what it is.

Sure. And it sucks.

The old six-team NHL had the best idea: crown a champion, and then hold the Stanley Cup playoff. But nobody remembers who won the league championships (or do they?); the whole focus was always on the Cup anyway as I remember.

Nobody remembers the regular season champ, unless they flame out in the first round of the playoffs (Canucks).

And considering the 13th best team in the NHL just won the last Stanley Cup...

The only saving grace for the NHL is that their playoffs is a real grind, and it's hard for a team to truly "luck" their way to the title. You can have a goalie on a hot streak that can carry you, but you need more.
(The Hasek-led Buffalo Sabres never did win anything...)

Sure. And it sucks.

Except, it sucks less than the alternatives. There are far too many team for single division leagues.

When I was into college basketball, the Big East Tournament was always a big f*cking deal. Even way back then I realized that March Madness was a crapshoot ... on acid.

Except, it sucks less than the alternatives. There are far too many team for single division leagues.

Still, we could give the higher seed an more pronounced home-field advantage, although obviously that would have mattered very little in the National League this year.

If you want to to attract people to the games late in the season, you want to have as many games as possible be meaningful as possible. That of course conflicts with the Platonic ideal of the single best team being declared champion. Every postseason/playoff format is an attempt to reconcile those two contrasting goals.

I am a game designer and encounter exactly the same thing. I want the most skillful player to win, but if the game is designed to separate players over the course of the game, players that fall behind with no real hope of catching up will complain and not want to play. One game company said of one of my current designs explicitly that they want more catch-up mechanisms in the late game. On the other hand, if the outcome seems too random and does not reward good long-range planning, players will complain also. It's not easy to balance it.

Except, it sucks less than the alternatives.

Only one wild card team is a much better alternative.

Except, it sucks less than the alternatives.

Neither conceding or arguing this point, "sucks less than the alternatives" is not a rebuttal of "it sucks."

I am a game designer

Video or board?

After his 94-68 Braves were eliminated by the 88-74 Cardinals in the play-in game, manager Fredi Gonzalez said: “You’ve got to judge a team over the 162-game season.” And you do, or at least you should. Trouble is, MLB doesn’t hand out a trophy after the 162nd game.

Maybe MLB needs to take a page from the NHL and hand out something like that.

Interesting, Slivers. I guess every sport makes more sense in this respect than Quidditch, but most face some element of the Quidditch problem: how to include some way for a mismatch to somehow produce an upset. Boxers behind on points can hope for a knockout. Horses that trail in the Derby and Preakness can find that the extra two furlongs in the Belmont turn them into late-running champions.

In recent years, college football with its two-team playoff has demonstrated the worst of things, all but eliminating teams that lose even a single game, and undercutting both regular seasons and bowl matchups. It's not that the four- or larger-draw playoffs will choose a better champion, perhaps, as that they will put more interest back into the contests on the field that lead up to and include those playoff games.

I am nostalgic for the single-division leagues of my youth, but when one asks the rhetorical question of how those leagues kept up fan interest in the Astros and Athletics and Indians (I'm thinking mid-1960s here), the answer is, of course, that they didn't. That's in part why those teams drew 8,000 fans per game to that huge park in Cleveland, for example.

Bob's got it right, as usual. While it obviously leads to a few bizarre "champions", unless baseball's willing to just write off the entire month of September for all but a tiny handful of teams, it's going to have to have some form of a wild card, and no type of wild card setup is going to please everyone.

Oh, and Sam, sorry about the Braves. Maybe you can arrange for some sort of retroactive regular season trophies that would supplement the Braves' three actual championships. Too bad that the first two of those championships were in Boston and Milwaukee.

The first wild card usually makes it more likely that a top team will win. In a league of 14 to 16 teams, the wild card is often going to be better than one of the division winners. The second wild card, of course, ruined that. You introduce a team that's not likely to be better than a division winner AND putting a tremendous penalty on one of the likely top teams. All this because, ostensibly, they want to put more emphasis on winning the division (yeah right).

The bottom line is that MLB really doesn't care much if the best team wins. They just want more playoff baseball and more pennant races to sell.

Maybe MLB needs to take a page from the NHL and hand out something like that.

But nobody cares about the President's Trophy. Over the past decade or so the winners of it have done so poorly in the playoffs that fans sort of consider it a jinx.

Oh, and Sam, sorry about the Braves. Maybe you can arrange for some sort of retroactive regular season trophies that would supplement the Braves' three actual championships.

I'll get something made up and place it in a position of prominence when I eventually piss on your grave, old man.

The first wild card usually makes it more likely that a top team will win. In a league of 14 to 16 teams, the wild card is often going to be better than one of the division winners. The second wild card, of course, ruined that. You introduce a team that's not likely to be better than a division winner AND putting a tremendous penalty on one of the likely top teams. All this because, ostensibly, they want to put more emphasis on winning the division (yeah right).

Well, I think that it did add an incentive to winning the division. But yes, it greatly greatly rewards the 5th best team.

The bottom line is that MLB really doesn't care much if the best team wins. They just want more playoff baseball and more pennant races to sell.

I don't see the problem with that. The point of the second wild card team was to hand a noticeable advantage to the division winners, it doesn't mean that the division winners are automatically going to win of course, but it gives them an extra day or two of rest, it can force the wild card teams to arrange their rotation so that their best pitcher is used up going into the playoffs etc.

Giving a massive home field advantage to the division winners will then cause the other argument "Why should a team that won more game in a tougher division be at a serious disadvantage?" As mentioned it's a balancing act, that is never going to be perfect. You have to maintain fan interest in as many teams as possible in September, while also rewarding the teams that do well.

I'm not sure there is a better way to design it that would make every type of fan happy.

The point of the second wild card team was to hand a noticeable advantage to the division winners

No, it was to make money with the one game playoff.

If you want to to attract people to the games late in the season, you want to have as many games as possible be meaningful as possible. That of course conflicts with the Platonic ideal of the single best team being declared champion. Every postseason/playoff format is an attempt to reconcile those two contrasting goals.

Truer words....

There are ways to make to better optimize for both goals. It's a piss poor reward for a 162 game struggle to give the wildcards a one game "playoff". It's also terrible to give the winners of those games and the division winners only a 5 game series to eliminate half after such a long season.

I would cut the "standard" season back to 154 games. Then I'd make the 4 wildcard teams each play a 5 game series while the division winners get a week off as a reward, and an advantage, being able to set their rotations. Then the division series would go 7 games, as would the league championships, until the glory of the World Series would go over 9 full games in two weeks.

More games and rest benefits the best teams and makes it (slightly) more likely they'll take the championship they "deserve".

And during the wildcard series, I'd have the non-playoff teams keep playing to assauge the owners fear of loss of ticket revenues. But instead of regular season games, it would be a double elimination tournament for draft positioning, complete with a glorious golden trophy for the winning loser, all to give the fans of those teams a rooting interest in those games.

There in one fell swoop almost all meaningless late season games become meaningful, the playoffs get slightly more "just", and the fans get a bunch more of the best baseball games ever, playoff baseball.

I am a game designer and encounter exactly the same thing. I want the most skillful player to win, but if the game is designed to separate players over the course of the game, players that fall behind with no real hope of catching up will complain and not want to play. One game company said of one of my current designs explicitly that they want more catch-up mechanisms in the late game. On the other hand, if the outcome seems too random and does not reward good long-range planning, players will complain also. It's not easy to balance it.

The game of poker succeeds entirely because the worst, most terrible players can win for days and weeks and months on end. They can win small tournaments, they can win the biggest tournament of all against an enormous field spread out over weeks and weeks. But over years, only the skilled can win, and given the rake, that ends up being a small proportion of the players. But the variance is so huge, it deludes the fish into coming back again and again, which is what keeps the game alive.

I often hear mediocre type "good" players ##### wishing they could better enforce their "edges" short term, without any clue as to how empty their games would be if that were to happen, empty except for world class players preying on the "mediocre good players", that is.

Baseball itself would not die if we went back to a single AL and NL division and the best teams facing off for the world series. But it would be a truly awful experience most seasons with Pennants decided weeks and months before seasons end, and accruing heavily to the wealthiest teams in the league. And it would clearly be damaging to the game and to small market fan interest, and probably directly lead to significant contraction because of it.

There are too many teams for no-division leagues. I'm sure almost all of us agree on that. Divide it into two divisions per league and, well, that ain't always fair either (hello 1993 San Francisco Giants, hello 1973 NL West, hello 1987 AL East). It hasn't been "fair" since 1968.

The current set-up is preferable to the "Hey, who really cares if we win the division cuz the Wild Card works just fine" set-up that we had. People will always complain no matter what they do. The current model makes perfect sense economically and from a fan-interest standpoint.

The supposedly lucky-to-be-here Cardinals won as many games this year as the division-winning Tigers and had a better Pythagorean record (different leagues, I know, but you get my point). The Cards actually had the 4th-best Pythagorean record in baseball. They are no slouches, just ask Mike "Safety First" Rizzo.

No, it was to make money with the one game playoff.

Put on your tinfoil hat. Yes it makes a little bit of money, but the real purpose was that people were complaining about there not being enough of an advantage to winning the division, that teams who knew they clinched a playoff spot would coast into the post season not really caring if they had the division or not. It was designed to prevent that attitude.

I would cut the "standard" season back to 154 games. Then I'd make the 4 wildcard teams each play a 5 game series while the division winners get a week off as a reward, and an advantage, being able to set their rotations. Then the division series would go 7 games, as would the league championships, until the glory of the World Series would go over 9 full games in two weeks.

Teams don't want that week off, for the pitchers it might be fine, but for the hitters, people will be complaining about it messing up the hitters timing. A day or two off is one thing.

The addition of the 2nd WC was to keep more teams in the playoffs for longer, and in turn increase attendance in September (the extra playoff game revenue is a nice little cherry on top). Selig may pay lip service to 'making the playoffs fairer,' but he's more interested in the bottom line.

Bradley, again, writes a solid article. Remember his audience is not your typical informed BTF reader, but rather the multitude of Atlanta fans who consider this season a failure (and the Braves chokers) based on a silly one-game playoff. Hopefully more fans will start to understand the randomness of the baseball playoffs.

I do wish people would stop saying the playoffs are random. They are not. Real people playing real games with real knowledge of what's at stake. Small sample size, yes. Great deal for the underdog compared to the regular season, yes. Random, no.

re: 27. I've never quite understood that....

You can say it's not the same thing, but how is playing simulated games to keep your hitters sharp different then a real game? (####, import fans if you have too..play the Netherlands national team...) Or is the REAL issue getting your players to the ballpark on these days off to put in the work?

The addition of the 2nd WC was to keep more teams in the playoffs for longer, and in turn increase attendance in September (the extra playoff game revenue is a nice little cherry on top). Selig may pay lip service to 'making the playoffs fairer,' but he's more interested in the bottom line.

Seriously, get a tin foil hat. Everything ultimately is about money, but saying lip service is ########. They added the 5th wild card team because it was the best solution they could come up with to prevent teams from coasting into the playoffs. A one game playoff could see a wildly successful season(like the Braves had) come crashing down in one game. Hopefully motivating them to improve the team to win the division next yer, or motivate teams to play hard in September(like most of the AL seemed to do this year) That is the purpose of the play in game.

You can say it's not the same thing, but how is playing simulated games to keep your hitters sharp different then a real game? (####, import fans if you have too..play the Netherlands national team...) Or is the REAL issue getting your players to the ballpark on these days off to put in the work?

Ask the players. They don't think that Spring training is the same thing either.

'Randomness' is different than 'random,' but point taken. I should have said 'silliness' instead.

And I'll proudly wear a tin foil hat when it comes to all things Selig. I don't believe he had fairness in mind for one second when he came up with the two team WC idea.

That is the purpose of the play in game.

I'm shocked that a Cards fan is adamantly defending the play-in game. Just *shocked.*

I don't believe he had fairness in mind for one second when he came up with the two team WC idea.

everything is ultimately about money, but it's the arguments that the person makes for the changes that matters(I mean outside of football fans...you know inbred, hillbillies, no one thinks that a salary cap is about parity, it's about money, but the reason given for a salary cap is parity and when you argue against it, you have to argue against the reason given for it, not some simplistic nonsense that it's all about money, therefore making it wrong.)

The argument for the extra wild card game is that it creates more of an incentive for teams to win the division. In theory that produces two advantages for the fans. 1. teams try in September longer 2. teams who are already good, wont rest on their success. (either at the trade deadline or in the off season)

It creates some issues of course, teams that weren't in the playoffs before are now in it, devaluing the wild card as a whole(where in the past the wild card was usually going to be a team that had a better record than at least one division winner, now it's likely that the second wild card doesn't have that feather in the cap)

The advantages I think outweigh the disadvantages. When you set up the following requirements, 1. 162 game season 2. multiple divisions 3. At least two rounds of playoffs before the world series. The option they chose is so far the best with those requirements.

I'm shocked that a Cards fan is adamantly defending the play-in game. Just *shocked.*

You mean the play in game, that I have been defending since it was proposed? What a shocker that I kept my opinion the same regardless of the outcome. I had a time machine and saw that the Cardinals were going to beat the Braves so I formed my opinion based upon my fandom.

You really are an idiot.

Seriously, get a tin foil hat.

You keep saying this, but Selig is on the record as saying that it is designed to expand the universe of potential teams in the mix late in the season.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/10277506-574/commissioner-bud-selig-says-that-wild-card-expansion-is-coming.html

“I’m optimistic. I think we’ll have it in 2012,” he said. “The clubs really want it. It looks like we’ll have it.’’ Selig said the wild card was needed as the game expanded. “The objective in sports is to provide hope and faith in as many places as possible, and that’s what the wild card does,’’ he said.

You keep saying this, but Selig is on the record as saying that it is designed to expand the universe of potential teams in the mix late in the season.

Yes, which isn't the same as saying "No, it was to make money with the one game playoff."

You really are an idiot.

And you're a front running fan of a second rate team. We all have our foibles.

I was hesitant at first, but I've come around to the setup we've got this year -- not in small measure, I suppose, due to the fact that the playoffs have been really, really good so far. I'm okay with the champion not being the "best team". And I think 10 teams is an okay number (I certainly don't want any more). If I could change anything, I would eliminate divisions entirely, play a balanced schedule without interleague and have the 5 top teams from each league make the playoffs.

Yes, which isn't the same as saying "No, it was to make money with the one game playoff."

But it's a far cry from "not enough advantage given to division winners". The point was to drive late season revenue from more clubs than under the previous system. Everything else was merely a corollary, and the central fact is it was a revenue driven decision, not a fairness one.

But it's a far cry from "not enough advantage given to division winners". The point was to drive late season revenue from more clubs than under the previous system. Everything else was merely a corollary, and the central fact is it was a revenue driven decision, not a fairness one.

And again opposing something because it creates revenue isn't a legitimate argument.

when they finally expand by two teams and go to four divisions, then I can see the argument against the wild cards, but as it stands now, with the current design and requirements, this is the best system out there(although a 7 game series for the playoffs would be better, and arguably a 3 game play in series, where the first game is on the road and last two at home of the team with the best record)

why couldn't the added wild card have been added to keep more teams in it longer AND to maximize the incentive to win your division?

Speaking as a Nats fan who just got spanked by the Zombie Cardinal magic, I still love the play-in game. It added huge stakes to the season.

There are three big constraints in designing a playoff system

1) Americans demand a head to head champion
2) The champion should have a legitimate claim to being the "best"
3) Regular season games should be important

Given that those three constraints aren't always satisfiable, the current system doesn't do a bad job. Bad teams seldom reach the playoffs, the champion always has to beat good teams, and the regular season usually comes down to the last week. A one game playoff is more random than you might prefer, but another way of looking at that is that it gives you an incentive to win the division.

Neither conceding or arguing this point, "sucks less than the alternatives" is not a rebuttal of "it sucks."

Take it to the politics thread.

Given that those three constraints aren't always satisfiable, the current system doesn't do a bad job. Bad teams seldom reach the playoffs, the champion always has to beat good teams, and the regular season usually comes down to the last week. A one game playoff is more random than you might prefer, but another way of looking at that is that it gives you an incentive to win the division.

Absolutely agree. Nothing is ever going to be perfect for everyone, and when you are dealing with a compromised system, you hope for the best possible. Can this system be tweaked a little more? Probably, but it's pretty good now with the constraints placed on it.

Video or board?

Board.

When I was into college basketball, the Big East Tournament was always a big f*cking deal. Even way back then I realized that March Madness was a crapshoot ... on acid.

Yeah ... as a Pitt fan I'm kind of ashamed that Jamie Dixon has pioneered the "Lose in the first round of the Big East tournament, so you have more time to prepare for your March Madness game against Central Connecticut State" strategy.

And you're a front running fan of a second rate team. We all have our foibles.

It's great being the fan of a second-rate team that keeps benefiting from weird post-season structure. Absolutely ####### fantastic, actually.