Different Is Not Bad: CBA Includes Second Wild Card
In a year that has seen extreme labor disagreements within the NFL and the NBA, it’s extremely comforting to know that the owners and the players have reached an agreement on a new five-year Collective Bargaining Agreement — assuring that baseball will have at least 21 consecutive years of labor peace.
One of the stipulations of the agreement is that a second Wild Card spot will be added to both leagues. Five teams will make the postseason, featuring a play-in game between the two Wild Card winners, and — if Bud Selig gets his way — this change could be implemented as soon as the 2012 season.
Adding a fifth playoff team to both leagues is not universally popular amongst fans. After all, making the postseason in baseball is a badge of honor. Only 26.7% of the teams can boast a playoff appearance at the end of the season. It’s not like football or basketball, in which sub-.500 teams can slide into the postseason. Only the elite squads make the postseason in baseball, and that has a sort of innate purity to it.
Does a fifth team in the playoffs really dilute the elite status of a postseason appearance, though?
Perhaps we define a postseason-caliber team as a 90-win team. Since the 2000 season, twelve teams that won 90-games did not make the postseason. With the second Wild Card, eleven of those twelve teams would have been playing baseball in October. The exception was the 2002 season, in which the Red Sox and Mariners both won 93 games, but neither made the postseason.
While certainly not true every season, it does seem that adding a second Wild Card to both league could add overall quality — not just quantity — to the postseason.
It is also important to recognize that the drama of the postseason race would not be dampened by adding a second Wild Card team in both leagues. Sure, the best day in recent baseball history (September 28, 2011) would not have happened because the Wild Card races between the Cardinals and Braves in the NL and between the Rays and Red Sox in the AL would have already been decided. The Dan Johnson pinch-hit home run would not have shaken the rafters in Tampa. Robert Andino would not be cult hero in Baltimore (and secretly Tampa). Chris Carpenter’s complete-game shutout with eleven strikeouts wouldn’t have been so memorable.
But had the second Wild Card spot been added previously, we could have had something special in 2007.
In the American League, the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners ended the season tied at 88-wins for what would now be the last Wild Card spot. The Mariners closed the year with five-consecutive wins. Instead of watching a postseason race separated by six games — as was the case in 2007 with the Yankees earning the Wild Card over Detroit and Seattle — the baseball world could have had a potential heated race in the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest for the chance to play October baseball.
In fact, if the season results would have been the exact same under the new CBA rules, — unlikely, but possible — the Tigers and Mariners would have faced off in a play-in game to get into the other play-in game. Talk about pressure.
Furthermore, in 2003, the season ended with six teams within four games of the second National League Wild Card berth. The Houston Astros finished fifth in the NL with 87 wins, but the Phillies, Dodgers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, and Expos all were within shouting distance in the final week of the regular season. Who knows what that final week would have brought if those six teams had something significant for which to play.
That could have been some serious drama unfolding in late September.
The second Wild Card also further incentivizes winning the division. To avoid a one-game elimination series between the two Wild Card teams — in which, frankly, anything can happen and does not measure which team is truly more talented — organizations will make in-season acquisitions to win the division, not just to squeak into the playoffs. After all, a five-game series to prove superiority is much more comfortable than a one-game free-for-all.
So, in some ways, if you don’t like the new play-in game for the Wild Card, just buck up and win the division. Plain and simple.
Ultimately, adding a second Wild Card to both leagues does not absolutely diminish the quality of teams in the postseason, nor does it lessen the potential drama surrounding the last week of the season. It’s completely contextual. In 2001, for example, the spread between the first and second Wild Card team in the AL would have been 17 games. In 2007, the spread between the first and second Wild Card team in the NL would have been zero games.
It’s not better. It’s not worse. It’s just different. And in just a couple years, the change will be seen as commonplace, and it will be accepted as a part of the game. Just as it was with the original Wild Card, when it was added in 1995.
J.P. Breen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. For analysis on the Brewers and fantasy baseball, you can follow him on Twitter (@JP_Breen).
But instead of pennant races between 90-win teams, we get pennant races between 85-win teams … or worse.
Which is really good for attendance in those towns, no? Rebuilding teams like the Nationals, Royals, and Indians can literally bank a legit playoff run based on having one more slot. That kind of momentum can lead to signing more free agents, signing up more season ticket holders, etc. I think it’s a master stroke financially, and it’s just a single play-in game, so it doesn’t upset the playoff schedule, and really you’re just trading one wild-card team for another.
A few minutes of research says that this constantly thrown about theory holds no water.
Taking an arbitrary sample size of six years back, let’s look year to year on who would’ve made it into the playoffs and how badly they missed:
2011, Red Sox and Braves. Both were one back of the WC in their league.
2010, Red Sox and Padres. The former was one back of the AL West division leader, the latter one less than the NL WC.
2009, Rangers and Giants. The Rangers had an identical record to the AL Central winner and the Giants finished three back of the WC.
2008, Yankees and Mets. The Yankees and Mets both finished the season with better records than a playoff team, the Yankees topped the White Sox (Pre-one game playoff record) by a game and the Mets beat the Dodgers by a whopping five games.
2007, Tigers and Mariners tie, Padres in the NL. Neither of the former were close, both six back of the WC, but the Padres topped the NL Central winning Cubs by four games.
2006, Angels and Phillies. The Angels missed by a full four games, but the Phillies were two games up on the NL and eventual WS champion Cardinals.
So, going back six seasons, the only team that would make it under the new rule that only won 85 games was the 2006 Phillies and they finished the regular season with a better record than one of that season’s division winners anyway. It doesn’t get much play because it hasn’t come up in a couple of years, but look at 2006-2009, that’s four years where at least one team missed the playoffs with a same or better record than another playoff team because of divisional alignment. 2008 is particularly egregious as there was a team in both leagues that sat home in October while an inferior team went on by virtue of playing in a garbage division.
In short, there is no way that adding a second Wild Card can do more to water down the competition in the playoffs than Divisional Alignment already has.