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WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. September 27, 2010. UPDATED September 29, 2010:
And now for something that really matters.
In a little itsy bitsy smidge of a squib column last week, Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig said he was interested in expanding the baseball playoffs by adding more teams. Selig uses the analysis that only 8 of 30 Major League Baseball Teams now qualify for the Champion Series which begin next week, while far more teams make the playoffs in the other professional sports.
Yankee Stadium 1956
Now what are we seeing happening year after year?
We see false pennant races being created with a real question mark created around the motivation of teams going down the stretch.
This year it is more obvious than ever the Yankees are doing all they can to avoid Cliff Lee and the Texas Rangers in the first round of the AL playoffs.
Tampa Bay is a half game ahead of Bronx Bucks going into tonight’s action, if Tampa wins the rest of their games against Baltimore and Kansas City would face the redoubtable Mr. Lee. The Yankees went into a strange slump the last two weeks when it became obvious the Texas Rangers would be the Yanks’ opponent if the Yankees finished off the Rays.
The Yankees would prefer the banged up Minnesota Twins, winners of the Central Division. Now this jockeying to pick your opponent is quite possible in baseball because its playoff format is smaller. In the NFL, the wild cards play each other in the first round. Byes are given to first place clubs.
As I have written in the past, you get nothing for finishing first except an extra home game.
Meanwhile the team that is chasing has the conflict of interest such as exists in the American League this year. Should I try to finish first when I am going to get a Texas team playing great ball with the American League’s best pitcher (Cliff Lee, who by the way mows down the Yankees), or should I pull back on the reins and take on the nicked up Twins?
Ideally had the Red Sox beaten New York last night they would have been 4-1/2 games behind the Bombers…with a chance of beating New York out for the Wild Card.
No one in sports was even talking about that “race” over the weekend whether the Saux could overtake New York.
Now the Scarlet Hose are 6-1/2 games behind NY with 7 to play.
If the Wild Card is that important, why weren’t the sports “reporters” in the Yankee Stadium press box and in the sports departments of the sports sections and the babbleheads of sportstalk radio talking that up?
Now if the Toronto Blue Jays really want to make things interesting they sweep the Yankees the next three, play them as if it was the World Series, and give Boston the opportunity to sweep the Yankees out of the Wild Card next weekend in Fenway? Interesting thought isn’t it? Boston has to win out the rest of the way and the Torontos have to play over their heads. Well, as we know, this morning on Wednesday, the Torontos did not play tough Tuesday night and the Yanks have clinched the wild card.
Honestly, the reason the Yankees slipped out of First is because that “gamer” Alex Rodriguez had a tweak in his thigh for a month and was on the disabled list? How could this guy have hurt himself anyway? He never dives for a ball. Never reaches anything in the shortstop hole, and likes to keep himself pretty for whatever celebrity he is dating. Rodriguez never gets his uniform dirty. I remember when Mickey Mantle played with shinsplints because the team needed him.
Without A-Rod the Yankees fell into a little hitting slump. It would be a collapse of Metsian proportions if the Yankees lost their last six games, and Boston won their last 7 to get the Beaneaters into the wild card slot.
But the Philadelphia Phillies of 1964 lost 10 straight losing a 6-1/2 game with 2 weeks to go. (We remember you Johnny Callison, Tony Gonzalez, Dick Allen, Bobby Wine and Tony Taylor, Chris Short, Art Mahaffey, Jim Bunning, and Manager Gene Mauch. And we are to this day, sorry.)
Meanwhile over in the National League you have the San Diegos and the Friscos and the Colorados battling for 1st, and the Bravos (Atlanta) trying to win enough to nose out the Diegos and the Friscos and Colorados whoever finishes second in the Wild NL West for the Wild Card and give the best manager in baseball for the last 20 years, Bobby Cox, one more great achievement. But Atlanta has been hurt seriously by losing the great Chipper Jones, the best third baseman in baseball for the last 15 years or so. This is the first time Chipper has ever been hurt. (And Chipper gets dirty.) I hope Chipper comes back. I want to see him play one more time.
Expansion of Wild Card Key to Integrity?
However, given the new mood of the Commissioner to expand the playoffs — this could lift the cloud of suspicion around Wild Card jockeying.
Since the hawks of the sports press row did not ask how many teams Commissioner of Baseball Selig wants to add to the playoffs or how many games he wants to add to the series…let’s see what would happen.
Say he adds the three second place teams:
This year you would have the Chicago White Sox, and the Oakland A’s joining the mix. Oakland is one game under .500. The Rangers have left them in the dust. The Pale Hose have had a miserable September allowing the Minnesotas to run away from them with a strong Twins stretch drive despite injuries.
If you threw in the second place teams you’d have Chicago at 11 over .500 and Oakland 1 game under .500 with a shot to win the whole thing. Is that good? We’re talking NBA playoff quality here. In baseball you need one stud pitcher to get hot, and one or two unlikely heroes to pull off a series win.
If you make the opening rounds best 2 of 3 the 2nd place teams have a great shot at disposing of the better club. Would Mr. Selig have each second place team play each other with the second place team with the best record meeting the winner of the match between the other two second place teams.
If you took the present AL standings, the Yankees would get a bye, and Oakland and Chicago would play each other with the winner of that playing the Yankees. But what about length of this semi-final round—would the Commissioner like a best 2 of 3 (no team wants a 2 of 3), or a 3 of 5, (the present number of games in the divisional series),
That means you add a week and a half onto the playoff season, with the first place teams getting a week off. That to me would make sense because the wild card teams would have to emerge it out before getting a crack at knocking off a team that finished ahead of them in the season.
First Place teams would get a week off to rest pitching staffs and making the wild card teams go through a grueling week. Adding the extra week with two more teams in in each league would give Major League Baseball another series of 20 more games to sell to the networks.
I’d have the wild card team which emerges from disposing of the winner of the series between the two worst record second place teams, play the first place team with the best regular season record. In the AL for example that would be either the Tampa Bay Rays or the Twins. That’s the rational way of doing it.
If the Bud (Selig) man and his competition committee just put the wildcards in a mix with the first place teams, you get no reward for finishing first, Say AL East first plays AL West Second, AL Central First Plays AL EAST Second, and AL West First Plays AL CENTRAL Second in best 3 of 5 series. Then you’d have 3 winners with 2 winners playing each other for a right to meet the team with the best record for the League Championship….again making the record count for something.
Adding that extra round would extend the baseball season to November 15.
Let’s take it the other way: Say we take the teams with the 8 best records in each of the leagues into the playoffs, throwing out the second place teams and just basing it on record.
That would INCLUDE this year in the AL the Yankees, the Rays, the Twins, the Red Sox, the White Sox, the Tigers,The Blue Jays, and the Oakland A’s—they get matched up 1 (team with best record) plays 8, 2 (team with second best record) plays 7, 3 plays 6, and 4 plays 5.
Over in the NL that would INCLUDE – The Phils, the Braves, the Cincinnatis, the Florida Marlins(currently 1 under .500), San Diego, San Francisco, Colorado and St. Louis.
NBA, HOCKEY SYSTEMS?
With best record playing worst record, using the NBA (National Basketball Association) and NHL (National Hockey League) systems, you’d have 4 Divisional Series,(2 of 3 games), 2 Semi Finals of 5 games (3 of 5) and 1 League Championship (7 games), followed by the World Series. A team would have to win 11 games to win the World Series.
Frankly, though I hate to say it that is the fairest way of preserving integrity. It is not to any team advantage to tank games to jockey to play somebody. But of course the first year the first place team loses to the 8th place team in the first round, you will change that, because let’s face it you need the Yankees in the World Series or else the television ratings tank.
Those are the possibilities as I see it, at first glance.
Since Selig was quoted last week in Chicago saying everyone likes the wild card. You know this is going to happen.
Expanding the playoffs and adding a seeding system by record will restore integrity to the season and make September baseball even more interesting.
Now — here’s a thought — do away with league playoffs. Have INTERLEAGUE PLAYOFF MIXES…man that would be great…16 teams matched up by record in a win or go home, with tiebreakers decided by interleague records.
The Last Hurrah.
By the way, just as an afterthought:Yankee fans should enjoy these playoffs while they can because the Yankees need a new catcher, Petitte is through, Jeter had his worst year and A-Rod is too fragile. They are not making the playoffs next year as presently constituted. They are getting old.
Brian Cashman, the Yank GM was helped out considerably by the rest of the league trading key role players to NY, and pickups no one else wanted. (How could Detroit trade Granderson to the Yankees? How could they?Trading Granderson cost the Taggahs the Central Division.)
It has always amazed me how faltering Yankee teams have traditionally been helped out by other teams relinquishing good players to them down the “stretch.” This season reminds me a lot of the 1964 season of the Yankees, when an aging team pulled out a pennant with late season acquisitions, then finished last the next year.
On second thought, the Red Sox are in the same position as the Yankees: aging out, as evidenced by all their injuries this year.
But,never fear Yankee fans, if Selig expands the playoffs, that assures New York teams of getting in next year.
