Baseball's Divisional Playoffs: A Better Format

Introduction

Major League Baseball's divisional playoff format has a major flaw. Sometimes the "reward" for achieving the number one seed is having to play the best of the three other teams in the divisional playoffs. Of course, this outcome is not intentional but rather the result of the rigid criteria by which the divisional matchups are selected. The number one seed must play the number four seed—that is, the wild card team—unless these two teams are in the same division; in that case the number one seed plays the division winner with the worst record—that is, the number three seed. Many examples can be cited where this unfair outcome resulted or almost resulted. In 2005 the St. Louis Cardinals were presumably anxious to play the San Diego Padres—a team that barely finished above .500. But had a team from the NL East won the wild card instead of the Houston Astros, St. Louis would have been forced to play that wild card team. Clearly, this would have been a much more difficult opponent for St. Louis, and instead the Atlanta Braves would have had an easy road to the National League Championship Series. In 2004 the New York Yankees were presumably anxious to play the Minnesota Twins, a team that they had done very well against during the prior two seasons. But had the Oakland Athletics won the wild card instead of the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees would have been forced to play a team whose starting pitching would have made a formidable opponent in a short, five-game series. In 2002 the New York Yankees were forced to play the wild card team, the Anaheim Angels, in the division series. The Angels were hot and did not miss a beat on the way to their first world championship, while the Yankees were left to wonder why they couldn't have played against the Minnesota Twins in the division series.

We propose here an alternate method to selecting the divisional series matchups, one which is both simple and fair. Further, this method would, as a byproduct, generate a tremendous amount of fan interest before the divisional playoffs even begin. Our proposal is borrowed from the realm of the duplicate-bridge world championships, where it is routinely used. The number one seed should simply be allowed to select its opponent from among the other three teams. We will justify this proposal and explain precisely how it could be implemented below.

Fundamental Premise

The number one seed has earned this rank as a result of compiling the best win/loss record in a 162-game season, easily the most demanding in professional sports. It seems self-evident that the team should be rewarded rather than punished for this achievement. The current reward has a twofold advantage. One is the home-field advantage, which is lower at 54 percent in baseball than it is in other professional sports. This was originally implemented by having the first two games away, followed by each of the next three potential games at home. But in practice this could end up with only one home game for the higher seed; so the format was modified to the current system with two home games followed by two away games and the possible fifth game at home. But the second reward is the critical one. Clearly, the goal should be to give the number one seed the easiest divisional series opponent. If they lose to this opponent, fine; but they should be matched against a team that, at least on paper, is distinctly inferior.

The current format is based on three fallacious assumptions. The first is that the wild card team is the weakest of the playoff teams and should therefore be matched against the number one seed if possible. However, this was not the case in the National League in 2005, for example. The NL West–champion San Diego Padres had the poorest record of the NL playoff teams, and the two NL Central teams had the best. There are a number of reasons...