Why Playoff Expansion is Good!

The 111-win Los Angeles Dodgers are out. The 101-win New York Mets and Atlanta Braves are out. The 87-win Phillies and 89-win Padres are in the NLCS. Complaints have been ringing around the internet, that undeserving teams are making the cut, moving on, and god-forbid, winning the whole thing!

History though, has something else to say…. Since 1969, only 12 teams have claimed baseball’s best record and gone on to win the World Series. The New York Yankees have accomplished the feat three times, while the Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds have done so twice. The 12 teams include:

• 1970 Orioles(108-54)
• 1975 Reds (108-54)
• 1976 Reds (102-60)
• 1978 Yankees (100-63)
• 1984 Tigers (104-58)
• 1986 Mets (108-54)
• 1989 Athletics (99-63)
• 1998 Yankees (114-48)
• 2007 Red Sox (96-66)
• 2009 Yankees (103-59)
• 2013 Red Sox (97-65)
• 2016 Cubs (103-58)
  

On the opposite side of the spectrum, there have been many teams with unimpressive regular season records that have gone all the way. No one has taken away the trophy from the 2006 champion St. Louis Cardinals, who went 83-78 in the regular season — and won anyway. The 1987 Minnesota Twins went 85-77 over the summer, then blitzed the favored Detroit Tigers in the American League Championship Series before taking the title. The 2000 New York Yankees went 87-74; the 2014 San Francisco Giants went 88-74; last years 2021 Atlanta Braves were 88-73; and all won the World Series.

So why did MLB continue to push playoff expansion? This writer believes they’ve been inspired by the growth of the NFL with its wild playoff uncertainty, and the hope that one you get into the playoffs, anything can happen. Before looking at the NFL and its growth, it helps to look at other leagues, and MLB’s own history.

As J.J. Cooper of Baseball America so succinctly explained, the highest level international soccer leagues, utilize a system similar to what MLB employed before it itself expanded the playoffs:

We see how it works in other sports that don’t spend a month on playoffs. The top soccer leagues choose their champion based purely on who wins the most in the regular season. The best (which usually means biggest spending) teams win time after time with mind-numbing regularity. In the English Premier League, 17 of the last 18 titles have been won by three teams (Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea). In the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich has won the last 10 titles and 16 of the last 20. Real Madrid and Barcelona have won 16 of the last 18 La Liga titles. For fans of many teams in those leagues, the hope is you may witness the unexpected title once in a lifetime.

This was essentially the same type of system relied on by baseball. Before the League Championship Series were added in 1961, the Yankees were the AL’s representative in the World Series 25 times over the previous 40 years. A little history:

• From 1901 to 1968, the American and National League teams with the best win–loss records in their respective leagues would win their league’s championship. The American League champion would play the National League champion in the best-of-seven the World Series.
• In 1969, both leagues expanded to twelve teams, and MLB split each league into East and West divisions, creating four divisions overall. Then, a new postseason round, the League Championship Series (LCS), was added in which the East and West division champions of each league would play a best-of-five series to determine the league champion. In 1985 the LCS was expanded to a best-of-seven series.
• When realignment occurred in 1994, the American and National Leagues expanded to three divisions: East, Central, and West. To avoid a playoff with an odd number of divisional winners, the league added a wild card playoff spot to each league, imitating the original post-merger NFL system. The additional teams meant another elimination round was necessary, and this new round would become the new first round of the postseason, the best-of-five Division Series.
• In 2012, With the adoption of the new collective bargaining agreement in November 2011, a new playoff system would begin, the one-game wild-card playoff. Notable here, the Orioles themselves faced the Texas Rangers in this series, making the playoffs for the first time in 14 years, and beginning their run in the mid-2010’s.
• The COVID 2020 season brought with it a one-time chaos induced 16-team playoff field.
• In the 2022 collective bargaining negotiations, owners and players agreed to a 12-team postseason. The top two division winners in each league receive byes to the division series. The lowest-seeded division winner and three wild card teams, each seeded according to regular season record, play a best-of-three Wild Card round, with the higher seed hosting all three games. The tie-breaker game (a.k.a. “Game 163”) was also eliminated with playoff spots now determined through tie-breaker formulas, similar to the NFL.
  

From 1933 to 1966, the NFL postseason generally only consisted of the NFL Championship Game, which pitted the league’s two division winners against each other. In 1967, the playoffs were expanded to four teams (division winners). When the league completed its merger with the American Football League in 1970, the playoffs were expanded to eight teams, which increased to ten in 1978, twelve in 1990, and fourteen in 2020.

What is the point of all this? Ratings and growth.

The NFL has long surpassed the MLB as the nation’s favorite professional sports league. For several reasons, including first and foremost its better suitability for television, football flew by baseball as Americans’ favorite sport to watch in the 1960s and hasn’t looked back since. In recent years, baseball has even been surpassed by basketball, as younger audiences prefer the action-packed, star-studded NBA over what many young viewers consider the dragging affair of a three-hour baseball game.

The NFL consistently has had ratings that trounce baseball. With exciting play, more playoff teams, and a real opportunity that any team that makes the playoffs can get hot and win the Superbowl. Baseball is working on pace of play with next year’s 2023 rule changes, and with this year’s new playoff expansion, is working on making ratings grow. Would the same growth of ratings and fandom the NFL has seen with expansion occur for baseball? There is no reason why not. While the Dodgers, Yankees, and Red Sox of the league bring in the “high” ratings, having your team make or compete for the playoffs can provide a much larger viewing base. And once in, the hope that anything can happen once the games are actually played, will provide more excitement than the same, expected outcomes year in and year out.