A radical baseball idea

[jkrdevil]

Baseball needs the wild card. One of the worst things that happened to the league was the lockout in 1994. Baseball lost so many fans, it took a while before the numbers started coming back.

One method was the wild card. Before the WC, if the 4 division leaders had substantial leads, interest fell off. Unless your favorite team was one of those 4 teams. Now, with the addition of 2 extra teams, the percentages figure that at least 2 of those playoff positions will be undecided down to the final week or two of the season. With more teams now potentially in playoff position, interest rises. People want to see if their team is going to the playoffs. Nothing is set in stone by mid August/early September like it had been in the past.

Look at the AMerican League, for example. Between 1990-1994, only one division winner won by less than 4 games...the Red Sox won the A.L. East by 2 games over Toronto. Detroit was 9 back. For those 5 seasons, the average final lead was 7 games. That's not very close. Not very interesting if you're team is 15 or so back.

Now brings 1995, and the Wild Card. One game between Seattle and California in the West. 1996, the smallest separation was 4 games. In 1997, it was 2. In 1998, it was 3, and the wild card was 5 games. In 1999, 4 games. In 2000, 1/2 games in the West, 2 1/2 in the East, 1 game for Wild Card.

More potential playoff teams equals more interest in the game. Leave it the way it is. Don't add more playoff teams, because the season will go to almost mid-November.

That may be true, but the wild-card didn't come in play because of the strike. The first year of the wild card 3 division format was the 94 strike year. Had their not been a strike then that would have been the first year of the current playoff format.

[Roger Clemente]

The other thing, is that having the Wild Card just further makes the playoffs a crapshoot. Any team can win a series in any given 7 game span. This is the reason I disagree with you Chris when you say everyone is happy with top 6 or top 8. No...talk about making the regular season worth nothing and kicking the dominant team to the curb...

Making the playoffs a crapshoot is what makes the playoffs exciting. If it was the #1 team vs. #1 team every year, you could predict the World Series champion by mid-September and no one would watch and (aside of that team's fans) no one would care.

The dominant team(s) should be able to dominate the other teams. Their dominance in the regular season has shown that they should be able to win any game in any situation. If they are unable to do that when it really matters, then they deserve to lose.

Sour grapes last longer than regular grapes, primarily because nobody likes to eat them so they just there.

--Roger "Time?" Clemente.

[mjrbaseball]

Making the playoffs a crapshoot is what makes the playoffs exciting. If it was the #1 team vs. #1 team every year, you could predict the World Series champion by mid-September and no one would watch and (aside of that team's fans) no one would care.

Then how come for most of baseball's history it was this way, and it still attracted attention? (In fact, when this was baseball's system, it was by far the most popular sport, and at that time no one cared about football.)

[Roger Clemente]

Making the playoffs a crapshoot is what makes the playoffs exciting.  If it was the #1 team vs. #1 team every year, you could predict the World Series champion by mid-September and no one would watch and (aside of that team's fans) no one would care.

Then how come for most of baseball's history it was this way, and it still attracted attention? (In fact, when this was baseball's system, it was by far the most popular sport, and at that time no one cared about football.)

Those people were idiots.

--Roger "Time?" Clemente.