W/o the threat of the one game wild card "series", there's a high chance of teams having an incentive to lose this game. Sure, you lose home field advantage in the first round, but you might match up better against the opponent that has the better record. Neither team will want to burn through their ace either.

The biggest fan of this decision is the second wild card.

So, if I understand this correctly....
1) The Rangers and Angels tie for the AL West title, thus forcing a one-game playoff to determine the AL West Champion.
2) Assuming that the loser of this game had one of the two best records of any non-division winner, that losing team would then have to turn around and play a one-game playoff to determine the winner of the Wild Card berth.
3) If this same team wins the Wild Card playoff game, they then get on a plane to play either the AL East or AL Central champion, whoever had the better record.

That's a hell of four day stretch, yes? At what point would you use your ace pitcher? I'd probably use him in the Wild Card playoff game, because it is the only true "elimination" game.

Well, I suppose you'd want to avoid having the 1-game playoff, so winning the "division" play-off would seem like a good idea, but there's no way in hell I'd use my presumptive "ace" in that game--I think #3 has it right.

I don't think there's be an incentive to lose the game to possibly get a better divisional playoff round opponent (because who would want to risk a "lose-and-go-home" game--regardless of the SP?).

But, yeah, this seems kind of pointless and needless. The division teams do settle it on the field, Bud... They settle it over 18 games on the field. Now if the teams are tied at 9-9 for the season series... then sure, have a playoff if you want. But if the Yankees (for example) spank the Rays 16-2 in their head-to-head, I'd be pissed as hell if I then lost a 1-game playoff to them to decide the "division winner."

I think Bud's gotten a bit ONE GAME PLAYOFF!!! crazed.

Personally I like it. It only comes into play if they go to the two Wild Card format and I'm fine with that. I understand TE's point about the head to head but there is something fundamentally wrong in my mind with a true tiebreaker. Give me a one game playoff anytime. It's meaningful baseball and it creates some intriguing strategic issues (as noted in #3) that are fun to talk about.

But if the Yankees (for example) spank the Rays 16-2 in their head-to-head, I'd be pissed as hell if I then lost a 1-game playoff to them to decide the "division winner."

But, if they tied overall, that means the Rays won 14 more games against common opponents. Who's to say which is the better team? Maybe the Yankees have some special advantage against the Rays, but are worse overall, and thus not necessarily the "better" team.

But, if they tied overall, that means the Rays won 14 more games against common opponents. Who's to say which is the better team? Maybe the Yankees have some special advantage against the Rays, but are worse overall, and thus not necessarily the "better" team.

Agreed. I've never been a big fan of head-to-head as some ironclad rule. If two teams tied, they tied, and that head-to-head result had to be offset by a better record in the other games. If you must pick between two tied teams, strength of schedule seems like the best method.

3) If this same team wins the Wild Card playoff game, they then get on a plane to play either the AL East or AL Central champion, whoever had the better record.

I don't think this will necessarily be the case. In the two wild card system, the team that emerges from the wildcard game will have to play the team with the best record, regardless whether they were in the same division. I really doubt MLB wants to have a situation where a team is waiting at the airport to find out which city they're going to be playing in tomorrow.

That's a hell of four day stretch, yes? At what point would you use your ace pitcher?

I don't think you'd really get a choice. If the race was close enough that you ended up tied, you wouldn't have the luxury of planning your ace for a specific game, he'd just go whenever his turn came up. If you're tied, then game 162 (and probably 161, 160) was already a must-win, you couldn't have saved your ace for any of the tiebreaker or playoff games.

If you must pick between two tied teams, strength of schedule seems like the best method.

I think strength of victory is preferable. Strength of schedule is arbitrarily set by the calendar, and gives you "credit" even for horrible losses to say the Yankees. Strength of victory counts the total win% of the teams that you beat, awarding more credit for beating the Phillies than the Pirates, which does seem intuitively reasonable.

In the NFL draft scenario, if two teams both are 4-12 and one team beat the other, it doesn't matter.
They go strictly by "strength of schedule" - whichever team managed to go 4-12 vs the weaker opponent's total record is considered the crappier team and therefore wins the tiebreak.

As the Rams imploded in the second half of the season, for instance, they probably weren't thrilled by the 49ers still winning and the Seahawks and Cardinals both rising from the grave and chasing mediocrity. Double points re each of those opponents, too.....

would the one game playoff be a regular season game or postseason game?

But, yeah, this seems kind of pointless and needless. The division teams do settle it on the field, Bud... They settle it over 18 games on the field. Now if the teams are tied at 9-9 for the season series... then sure, have a playoff if you want. But if the Yankees (for example) spank the Rays 16-2 in their head-to-head, I'd be pissed as hell if I then lost a 1-game playoff to them to decide the "division winner."

I think Bud's gotten a bit ONE GAME PLAYOFF!!! crazed

I think that's nuts. If you end the season tied, you have a playoff. Period.

This is the only way to do it. Leave head-to-head to the inferior sports.

That's a hell of four day stretch, yes?

It's not just a hell of a stretch, it's a system that potentially puts a team that finished tied for the best record in baseball at a disadvantage in a play-in game against a team that finished fifth in the league. That's freakin' nuts.

You want teams to go balls-to-the-wall to win divisions? Then only let division winners into the playoffs.

It's not just a hell of a stretch, it's a system that potentially puts a team that finished tied for the best record in baseball at a disadvantage in a play-in game against a team that finished fifth in the league. That's freakin' nuts.

You want teams to go balls-to-the-wall to win divisions? Then only let division winners into the playoffs.

I don't understand the objection.

In a hypothetical division winner only set-up, say the old 2-division format, you could still have two-teams tied at 100 wins, and the other division winner sitting at 90. One of them went home after the play-off.

Why is it worse for one of the two best teams to be disadvantaged in the playoffs than for them to be out completely?

At least in this system, the hypothetical "top-2 team" has a second chance.

And we haven't even discussed the potential playoff nightmare scenario that would occur if things got crazy like they almost did in 2007.

Going into the final weekend series, Philadelphia, NY, Arizona, Colorado, and San Diego were all within 1 game of each other.
Chicago had locked up the Central title (with a worse record than the other 5 teams).

It was possible for the end of season (after the final three games) to have all 5 teams tied with 90 wins.

What if this happens in 2012/13?

According to this new format:

Wednesday night/Thursday morning: coin-toss to determine NL West division playoff format: two teams play, winner hosts third team, winner of that gets division title, two losers go to playoff hell

Thursday:
NY at Philly - winner gets NLE division spot (Philly), loser goes to playoff hell (NY)
Arizona at Colorado - loser goes to playoff hell (Colorado), winner (Arizona) hosts SD

Friday:
SD at Arizona - winner gets NLW division spot (Arizona), loser goes to playoff hell (SD)
After this game, they do another coin-toss to handle the 3-team playoff

Saturday:
NY at SD - winner gets first wild card spot (SD), loser (NY) must host third team (Colorado)

Sunday:
Colorado at NY - winner gets second wild card spot (Colorado), loser is out entirely (NY)

Monday:
SD at Colorado - wild card #1 vs wild card #2, winner moves on to the regular playoffs (Colorado)

Tuesday:
NL regular playoffs begin: Chicago at Arizona, Colorado at Philly

The only way to avoid this extra long delay would be to have team play games in the morning, travel in the afternoon, and play again at night.

Even then, I'm not sure about that 3-team playoff system.

This is the only way to do it. Leave head-to-head to the inferior sports.

Yeah, but this is the one sport where head-to-head record would actually be an OK sample size, and also this is the one sport where the one-game playoff would NOT be representative of the teams' true overall strength because of the starting-pitcher phenomenon.

In a hypothetical division winner only set-up, say the old 2-division format, you could still have two-teams tied at 100 wins, and the other division winner sitting at 90. One of them went home after the play-off.

Two differences:

A) In the old set-up, the other division winner actually won something. And the 90-win team may, in fact, have had a better division to navigate (though, obviously, in the old AL, the 100-team would undoubtedly be the superior club).

and

B) In the old set-up, the inferior team didn't get a significant advantage in the next round. One problem with the two WC set-up is that if the two division winners play all-out
'til the end, including a season-ending one-game playoff, that team may be seriously disadvantaged pitching-wise in a one-game playoff the following day against a significantly inferior team.

I am always amused by these threads, because there is no ideal method. There are always scenarios which break things or make them sub-optimal. I suppose you could look at the last X years and decide which scenario was "better" over that stretch of years, but even then it doesn't completely work because the teams for those years were operating under the rules of their time and making their decisions based on that (see AL East many years). And all of that assumes folks can even agree on what they want, what the rules they are trying to optimize for.

None of that is meant to discourage folks, because trying to come up with the best possible (if not ideal) if very much worthwhile.

Everyone complaining about this and the hypotheticals make me wonder if my viewpoint is messed up. The hypothetical in post 14 is an AWESOME situation, it's a feature, not a bug. How can more elimination games be a bad thing?

The hypothetical in post 14 is an AWESOME situation, it's a feature, not a bug. How can more elimination games be a bad thing?

Well, it's not the existence of the extra games that's a bad thing. I agree that a massive pileup at the end of the season that would require multiple playoff games to sort out would be delightful for any baseball fan.*

When we talk about "problems" with any extra wild card scenarios, it's that the proposed solution only solves one problem (in this case, that division titles aren't meaningful enough) while simultaneously creating entirely new problems/potential problems (adding worse teams to the mix/giving them situations where they're in a better position to advance once they get there).

And it's simply true - the more teams you invite into a postseason the less relevance the regular season has. And some of us find any castration of the sport's regular season to be, without question, a bug.

* Then again, the 2011 regular season gave us two mesmerizing end-of-season races that would not have existed in the impending two WC scenario.

And it's simply true - the more teams you invite into a postseason the less relevance the regular season has. And some of us find any castration of the sport's regular season to be, without question, a bug.

I'm fine with that viewpoint, of course I don't agree with it, but I'm fine with that. What I don't get is people worrying about the fairness of the post season. It doesn't matter if you have the better record or not, you knew the rules going in to take advantage of the post season(having the best record in the league now gives you the best advantages in the post season. Everything else wouldn't matter if you just posted the best record---only team I think that has any right to complain about the post season is the team with the best record, the rest of it is just luck of the draw)

I don't care if the 95 win rays have to play on the road against the 81 win Angels in the playoffs. Don't care if one division is weaker, stronger or any of that crap, the fact is to have the advantages in the post season is to have the best record in the league everything else is a product of the system that generates the revenue for the players and owners, and keeps the fans watching into September.

What I don't get is people worrying about the fairness of the post season.

Because it's fairness that's often cited as the reason for stupidly expanding these postseasons in the first place. "It's not fair that a second-place team is left out while the league's fourth-place team is in the playoffs." "It's not fair that the wild card is almost on equal footing with the division winners, so we've got to make it tougher for them."

If MLB wants to come out and say, "We're expanding the playoffs because it means more money and there are a lot of short-attention span nitwits out there who think an all-inclusive, small-sample-size funfest over the course of one month is a better method for determining a champion than a six-month grind."

But that't not the case that MLB makes. Hell, that's not the case a lot of people here make. So as long as people are claming the two wildcard system solves some great injustice, then we might as well make the point that, in doing so, it creates entirely new injustices (that surely only a further expanded playoffs can fix).

It's fairness to include them, there is no reason that the actual playoffs should be fair. Everyone knows what it takes to have the best advantage for the playoffs, if you don't have the best overall record in your league, then suck it up.

I like that they have changed the rule that you are now allowed to play the wildcard even if it's it from your own division. (although to be perfectly fair to the team with the best record, they should have home field advantage against the team with the worse record regardless of standings, but it's just a minor nitpick, and that option would then diminish winning the division for the other teams)

I don't think anyone really is arguing for fairness when they argue for more post season teams. The argument is for more teams, meaning more fans stay interested in the season longer. (which of course means more money etc) At the same time arguing for a balancing act that the season has some value. I only like this additional team concept because of the volatile nature of the wildcard round being one game and go home and that it gives more value to winning a division.

It's fairness to include them, there is no reason that the actual playoffs should be fair.

But that's precisely the stated reason for the extra wild card. That the existing one wild card system was not rewarding enough for the division champ/punitive enough for the wild card. The existing playoffs themselves were unfair, and that's what needed fixin. No one pushed for the extra wildcard because it wasn't fair that the 2011 Red Sox and Braves (or their previous seasons' counterparts) were left out of the postseason dance.