The 2015 NL Wild Card Game: A Singular Baseball Event

The introduction of the second wild-card playoff team in each league in 2012 ignited the latest in a never-ending round of debates between baseball purists and modernists. Purists argued that the expansion of the playoff field cheapened the regular season, bringing it closer in line with the other major sports in terms of percentage of teams qualifying for the postseason. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, argued that it would keep a larger number of clubs in the pennant race, hopefully jacking up attendance and TV ratings in the process. From a competitive standpoint, the change really didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. It basically pitted teams ranked somewhere between fifth and 12th in MLB’s overall pecking order in a one-game showdown, with the side benefit of no longer subjecting a division winner to a “one game and out” end after a successful regular season.

It’s a little bit different scenario this time around in the National League. If today’s standings hold up over the next three weeks, we will be treated to a baseball rarity, as the clubs with the second- and fifth-best records in all of baseball, the Pirates and Cubs, divisional rivals, face a one-game showdown for their postseason lives. For my money, this ranks right up there with any non Super Bowl one-off sporting event on the calendar; it’s a Game 7, Djokovic-Federer, and Spieth-McElroy all rolled into one. When you get down to it, it’s a matchup that would be historically rare even if the two-wild-card system had been in place since the dawn of the divisional era.

Going into Monday evening’s games, Fangraphs projected the Cards, Pirates and Cubs to finish with 99, 97 and 93 wins, the first-, second- and fifth-highest projected win totals in baseball, respectively. We only have three years of two-wild-card era history behind us, so it isn’t saying much that the 2015 NL wild cards are the best set of league wild cards since 2012. Between 2012 and -14, the 2012 Braves and 2013 Pirates had the best records, at 94-68, while the 2012 Cards and 2014 A’s, Giants and Pirates had the worst marks at 88-74. If form holds down the stretch, the 2015 Pirates will be the best wild-card team of the two-wild-card era, and the 2015 Cubs will fall just a game short of the previous high water mark.

In 2014, the teams with the seventh- through 10th-best records faced off in the two wild-card games. In 2013, it was teams #5, 8, 9 and 11 facing off, while in 2012, it was teams #6, 7, 8 and 12. Only once, in 2013, did divisional rivals match up, when #5 Pittsburgh took on #11 Cincinnati. This time around, we have divisional rivals matching up, with the second and fifth-best records in baseball. It’s clearly the premier matchup of the very young two-wild-card era.

Let’s back up one step historically, and look at the one-wild-card era, which extended from 1995 to 2011. Purists certainly decried the introduction of the very concept of the wild card, but it can’t be argued that some of the best clubs in baseball over that time frame would have been denied playoff berths if not for its implementation. The 103-59 1993 Giants only wish it had been introduced just a bit sooner. Even so, there were only three wild cards in this era who exceeded the 2015 Pirates’ projected win total. They would be the 2001 A’s (102), 2002 Angels (99) and 2004 Red Sox (98); lo and behold, two of these three teams eventually hoisted the championship hardware. Including the 2001 A’s, 10 wild cards during this era had at least the second-best record in their league; one, the 2001 Cards, actually tied for the best record in the NL that year.

In that entire 17-year span, there was exactly one division that compared to the 2015 NL Central in terms of talent at the top: the 2002 AL West. The A’s won the division with 103 wins, followed by the aforementioned 99-win Angels and the 93-69 Mariners. This marked the one and only time that three teams in a four-team division finished with 90 or more wins. Though that clearly qualifies as a strong divisional group, the Mariners’ record was only the eighth-best in the majors that season; seven clubs clocked in with 95 or more wins in 2002.

So, going back to 1995, when divisions were shrunk to four to six teams, the 2015 NL Central really has only one divisional peer in terms of quality three-team depth at the top. Let’s take it all the way back to the beginning of the divisional era, in 1969. National League divisions were six deep from 1969 to -93, as were American League divisions until 1977, when the addition of the Mariners and Blue Jays swelled them to seven. How many three 90-plus win divisions were there in that era?

YR	LG/DIV	TM 1	TM 2	TM 3	TM 4
1989	AL W	OAK 99	KC 92	CAL 91
1987	AL E	DET 98	TOR 96	MIL 91
1987	NL E	STL 95	NYM 92	MON 91
1983	AL E	BAL 98	DET 92	NYY 91
1979	AL E	BAL 102	MIL 95	BOS 91
1978	AL E	NYY 100	BOS 99	MIL 93	BAL 90
1977	AL E	NYY 100	BAL 97	BOS 97
1977	AL W	KC 102	TEX 94	CWS 90

The number of teams in a division is a key driver when you’re counting number of 90-win clubs. There was only one three 90-win club division in the NL between 1977 and -89, compared to seven in the AL, which had one additional team per division.

A couple of those AL divisions deserve special notice. The 1978 AL East — yup, the one that featured the Yankees overcoming a 15-game August deficit — featured four 90-win clubs. A two-wild-card system that season would have pitted the 99-win Red Sox, with the second-best record in either league, against the Brewers, with the fourth-best overall record. That would certainly have rivaled a 2015 Bucs-Cubs one-game showdown. The year before, in 1977, three AL clubs notched 97 or more wins. A two-wild-card system that year would have matched the Orioles and Red Sox, two 97-win clubs, in the wild-card game. Despite such gaudy records, they only tied for the fifth-best record in all of baseball that season.

Based on the above, one can make the argument that this year’s Pirates-Cubs wild-card game would be one of the two best such matchups since 1969, if the same postseason system had been in place throughout that period. And that’s before you even get into the particulars of the matchup.

In one corner, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who have:

– One of the game’s inner-circle greats, Andrew McCutchen, at the absolute apex of his powers.
– Been the first to materially tap into the game’s next source of impact talent, the Korean Baseball Organization, via their acquisition of Jung-ho Kang.
– One of the most analytically inclined and creative front offices around, as evidenced by their emphasis on such varied topics such as pitch-framing (see Russell Martin, Francisco Cervelli), inducing of ground balls (major league best 50.9% rate), etc..
– Exciting, young, impact talent (Starling Marte, Gregory Polanco, Gerrit Cole).

In the other, the Chicago Cubs, who have:

– The best nucleus of 25-and-under talent in recent memory, featuring Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Jorge Soler, and sure, why not, even Starlin Castro, who is still only 25.
– A Cy Young Award candidate in Jake Arrieta who could well have the greatest individual impact of any of the aforementioned young stars on this wild-card game.
– The most creative manager in the game today in Joe Maddon, and a front office that successfully kiboshed the Curse of the Bambino before taking their show to the North Side.

These two clubs clearly have what it takes to win the big trophy in, sigh, November, but for one of them, it’s all going to be over barely after it starts. Two creative, cutting-edge organizations, who won’t take a cookie-cutter approach to anything, be it 25-man roster construction for their one-game showdown, to bullpen usage, to infield overshifting, you name it… this is the one game that you absolutely cannot miss this season.

Sure, one of these two clubs, more likely the Pirates, could catch the Cardinals, in which case it only gets more interesting, given the Cards’ status as the reigning kings of the division, and the even riper fanbase rivalries that engenders. Any way you slice it, one of the best teams in baseball is going down on Day One, and I’m guessing that neither will go down easily.