Win the division and you don't have to worry about it. This doesn't add an extra playoff team; all it does is create a play-in game and slow down the WC winner a bit.

This actually makes those 162 games more important. If you're a WC team, you now have to burn your ace starting pitcher in a play-in game. Now those teams with the depth and overall quality to win their division over 162 games have a far greater advantage than merely having home field in a 2-2-1 series.

This is a good thing for the value of the regular season. This makes winning your division more critical than it has been during the advent of the WC era. It also helps level the playing field for division winners that locked their division up weeks before the playoffs began and need an extra day or two to knock the rust off. Now they don't have to go up against the #1 of the WC squad that was busting its ass just to get in.

The Cardinals run was unprecedented, but we did it via Carpenter and a bunch of scrubs. If we had to burn Carp in a play-in game, it would've been a hell of a lot harder for us to pull that championship off.

And rightfully so, IMO.

Good move, Bud.

So if understand it.

3 division winners.
Wc has to play another team in a 1game playoff, winner gets to advance?
What if the wc has 10+ more wins? That is dumb.

Fine before.

Its been discussed a bit in the Royals thread, but hasn't had its own post, so... technically not a re-post.

Dumb.

No, it wasn't fine before. The Wild Card was pretty much on equal footing with the division winners. One extra home game doesn't make much of a difference.

A couple years ago, the Yankees actually admitted that during their race with the Rays, near the end of the season they decided to rest some players and basically concede the AL East to the Rays. As the GM said, winning the division would have been just another hat and a T-shirt. That is damning more than anything else.

The wild card with more wins gets to host the knockout game, and the 3 division winners now get a real, huge reward over the Wild Cards. (The Wild Cards will likely have to use their best pitcher, and by doing so they probably wont be able to set things up to pitch him twice in the divisional round. So, a Wild Card team will be less able to ride on the back of one elite pitcher to glory)

Don't like it? Win your damned division.

Exactly.

The division championship matters again.

There's absolutely nothing dumb about that. And no, this doesn't help the large market squads. Now the Red Sox, Yankees, Angels or Rangers may end up having to go up against the D-Backs and Price/Moore/Shields in a 1-game playoff to decide if they make the dance. And even if they manage to win, they've now burned Lester, CC, Haren or Darvish just to make it in.

I'd eliminate the WC altogether, but this is a great approach to helping level the playing field and reward teams for winning their division.

Well, I saw where somebody said that a team has all season to win the division instead of getting put in a do, or die. They should be grateful to be in. Makes sense to me, they get a shot.

Didn't read page two before quoting....haha

LMAO

I wouldn't, 2 or 3 out of 15 is way, way too few, fans of 20-25 teams would tune out every August. However, I wouldn't expand it any more. 5 is perfect, we're done on playoff expansion.

I had thought they were discussing doing away with the divisions totally by having the Astros switch leagues. This is simply a move by MLB to bring in more money and giving more of an advantage to the big market teams. Its simply too much of a disadvantage to a WC team to have them burn their ace before they really even get into the playoffs.

That trial balloon was popped almost immediately, though the Astros are moving next season (player's union demanded it, if the division is going to be important, then they need to become equal).

There was a huge fan backlash against doing away with divisions, and the owners weren't thrilled with the idea either. Plenty of people still think we ought to have less-unbalanced schedules, but no one really wants to go away from divisions.

To say that the 2nd WC benefits large-market teams is just flat-out silly.

Ok Alnorth. U have me convinced for now. I'll give it a fair shot. I do miss the old division pennant races pre 1995 though.

Heh remember when the playoffs used to be best 3 out of 5 just to get to the World Series? Times have Changed...
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I don't know what's silly about it. Baseball sees their large market teams getting beat in the playoffs by wild cards who are in smaller markets. They're also seeing the wild card team win a fair share of the time. Since 2000 there has only been three seasons where a wild card didn't make the World Series. 2002 had both teams come from the wild card. If you have teams like the Phillies and the Yankees who can outspend their competition each year to get a divsional crown, anything baseball can do to make sure those teams beat the smaller market WC helps out the networks.

Yeah, I don't get this at all. It's a remarkably stupid idea. Imagine a team like the Royals or the Pirates that is just playoff-starved actually works their asses off and makes it into a one-game playoff, only to lose. So much hard work disappears in one night? Lame.