Last day, MLB 2021

How did this come to be? We somehow have reached the final day of the Major League Baseball regular season. Unless, that is, there are overhang games tomorrow! Any tiebreakers to determine remaining postseason slots count as regular season games. And as we prepare for the start of play on this last scheduled day, there remain realistic scenarios in which we could get as many as three such games!

The AL Wild Card has turned into a mash-up, with four teams–all but one from the AL East (the Mariners, really?)–still having the potential to end in a tie for the two slots. Failing that, two or three could tie for the second WC. I am tempted to call this a crush of four mediocre teams, but that really would not be fair. All enter today with either 91 or 90 wins. If all four are tied at the end of the day, there will be two games in the AL on Monday to determine which two reach the first AL postseason game. If three tie for the second WC, there will be two games to break that tie, spread across two days, under the tiebreaker rules.

In the NL West, we could still see the Giants and Dodgers tie for the division; these two are absolutely not mediocre teams! The Giants enter the final day with 106 wins, the Dodgers 105. If you want to see mediocrity, see the NL East winning Braves, with only 87 wins but a guaranteed berth in the Division Series. While both West teams clinched a postseason berth a while ago, if they finish with identical records, they need a tiebreaker on Monday (in San Francisco, based on head-to-head records) to determine which one is the division winner and which is the first Wild Card. The latter then gets one shot at knocking off a hot Cardinals team that will have finished 14 or 15 games behind the first Wild Card. As I have said before (just click and see the series going back several years), this is a dumb format.

If the second place team in the NL West beats the Cards in the Wild Card Game, the Dodgers and Giants will play each other in the Division Series. I am tempted to say we’ve probably had enough Dodgers-Giants for the year, but I can’t deny that the old rivalry would be fun. However, it would be better if their next potential match-up (after the potential division tiebreaker) would be for the pennant itself, and not a qualifier to face the vastly inferior Braves or Brewers for the honor. That bad format again.

It will be a fun day, and with none of “my” teams in it, I am just rooting for maximum overhang!

The MLB playoff system, first (?) rant of 2021

I’ve complained many times about the MLB playoff system. In fact, when I was looking back on September, 2005 (while drafting the entry on this month’s elections) I happened upon my plea for MLB to develop an anti-mediocrity provision, on account of the Padres leading their division in late August, and thus looking assured of a postseason berth, despite being under .500. The Padres did end that season over .500, barely, at 82-80. This was the seventh best record in the National League that year, yet they ended up coasting in to the playoff with a five game lead in their division, while the Phillies (88-74), and Marlins and Mets (both 83-79) sat out. (The Astros were the single Wild Card included in the postseason at the time, at 89-73, being in the same division with the Cards who went 100-62). Every team in the NL East was at .500 or better.

Here we are in 2021, with another absurdity of the playoff format on display as we enter the final weeks of the season. There is no sub-.500 team threatening to make the playoff, fortunately. However, there is a problem potentially even worse: The team with the second best record in the NL could end up playing only one playoff game despite a THIRTEEN AND A HALF GAME lead over the team it would face in the single Wild Card Game. Meanwhile, a team with the fifth best record (currently the Braves, leading the NL East) goes straight to a Division Series.

As I write this, an important regular-season showdown series is about to begin, between the old rivals, the Dodgers and Giants. This will be exciting! The two are currently tied for best record, at 85-49. If there is one good thing we can say about the current playoff format, it is that it certainly matters which of these teams wins the division, and hence goes straight to a Division Series, while the other faces a single-elimination game against the second Wild Card.

Therein lies precisely the problem. It would be a travesty if the team with the second best record happened to lose that one game and be out. You just should not set up a baseball postseason so that one game, rather than a series, can end the post-season of one of your top two teams. Yet at the moment, the second Wild Card slot is held by a team (the Reds) that is 13.5 games behind the Dodgers/Giants. The Padres, who not too many weeks ago seemed a shoo-in for this slot, are another half game back, in a fight not only with the Reds but also with the Phillies (2.5 out in the WC as well as just 2 out in the NL East) and Cards.

It seems that even with two wild cards, there is still a need for an anti-mediocrity provision. I’d say the fundamental problem–now as it was in 2005–is with the privilege in the postseason seeding given to division winners. I understand the value MLB places on having regional representation (kind of like I understand that in electoral systems!), but there needs to be more privilege to the overall national result (again, as in my electoral-system preferences!). I have had a proposal over the years, although it was for four teams per league advancing, not the current five. Surely institutional designers could come up with a better system than one that pits a team that might be just behind–or even tied for–the best record against a mediocre team in a single-game playoff, while still giving an appropriate benefit for being the best regular-season team.

Playoff thoughts, 2020

Fortunately, the Rays recovered just in time to save MLB from an embarrassment that was a risk of the overly expanded playoffs this year–a sub-.500 team making the World Series. The Astros had only the 8th best record in the league, and after losing the first three nearly came back to beat the team with the best record. This should serve as a warning against lowering the bar to entry into the postseason too much!

For the first time since 2004, both League Championship Series are seven games. If the Dodgers win today, the World Series will showcase each league’s top regular-season winner. 

The only other time both league series went seven was 2003 (the best-of-7 format was introduced in 1985). So, in a strange year for baseball (and pretty much everything), we baseball fans get a real treat. Given that the Braves had the third best record in the NL, their winning would not be the travesty that almost played out in the AL. But it is still surprising how the Dodgers have failed to take charge of the series after their dominance in the (short) regular season. If they win today, it will be a comeback from a 3-1 games deficit. While far more common than extending a series to 6 or 7 games after losing the first three, such a comeback is also fairly uncommon.

The Rays got off to a good start in the ALCS by winning the first three. They then became the first team since 2004 to lose at least the next two games after starting off 3-0. And so they are, of course, the first ever to win 3, lose 3, then win Game 7.

The previous times a baseball postseason series went at least six games after a team took a 3-0 lead it either ended in six (Padres over Braves in 1998 and Braves over Mets in 1999) or the team that came back and tied the series went on to complete the “delayed sweep” (Red Sox over Yankees in the very memorable 2004 ALCS).

The in-series progression of team wins in post-season series always has fascinated me, and the rare series where a team wins the first three but then has difficulty completing the sweep are especially fascinating.

In both 2004 and 2020, the team needing the 4-game winning streak was rather “lucky” in the sense of winning a close game after having lost those first three. In 2020, the Rays had outscored the Astros 11-5 over the first three games, and then the Astros 3-game mid-series winning streak was made up of close wins (4-3 twice, then 7-4). Game 7 was also close (4-2 Rays). In 2004, the in-series turnaround through the first six was even more remarkable: The Yankees had outscored the Red Sox 32-16 (!) and then the Red Sox mid-series comeback consisted of two extra-inning wins (6-4 in 12 and 5-4 in 14) and another close one (4-2) before a blowout (10-3) in Game 7. That really was a series for the ages.

The 1999 NCLS was a good one, too, in that it was close all the way through at game level, despite how one team nearly swept. After the first three games the Braves had outscored the Mets only 9-5. Given that to win three games you need to outscore your opponents by at least three runs, this was about as close as it could be. Thus the initial three games were not at all dominated by a single team, despite the 3-game lead. Then all the remaining games were decided by just one run; the concluding Game 6 took 11 innings.

The 1998 series was the first time a series needed six or more games after a 3-0 lead. It had, like 2020, a moderate run differential in the first three, with the Padres outscoring the Braves 10-3. The remaining scores were then Braves 8-3 and 7-6, before the Padres won 5-0 in Game 6. Rather remarkably, given the many years of best-of-7 series in baseball, what did not happen till 1998 then happened again the very next year. And again five years after that, and then not again till this year. Baseball needed a good postseason after the delayed start of its regular season. And it got it.

Would it be too much to ask that the 2020 World Series follow the lead of the two LCS and also go seven games? That has never happened, but in a year of unprecedented things, why not?

Last day, 2019

Funny how baseball works out sometimes. The two wild cards format was supposed to make the final days of the regular season more exciting. But this year it did not quite work out that way.

In the NL, the Cards and Brewers had something on the line right until today, given that one would be Central winner while the other would get sent to the one-game playoff as the second Wild Card. (Today they could have tied for a one-game tiebreaker to determine which was which.) However, if there had been only one Wild Card, it would have been an actual do-or-die to close out the 162-game schedule, as both teams would have been out of the running for the single Wild Card.

In the AL, the A’s and Rays also would have had a nice all-or-nothing for a single Wild Card, but not much was at stake with both of them qualifying. On the positive side, the Indians kept it interesting till the past week. (Sympathies to any Indians fans reading; the team led the Wild Card race much of the year and for a while looked likely to surpass the Twins for the AL Central.)

I’ve said before that this current format is not a good one. (Click the link for “playoffs and world series” for past discussions.) There is no perfect system, of course. And the current format did give us one of the greatest games played in recent decades. Maybe we will have something special in the game on Tuesday or Wednesday.

And it is also the last day of 5779. May we have a good and fruitful 5780!

Playoff-qualification formats, 2018 complaint

I’ve had some version of this complaint since at least 2005 (click the category links at the bottom to see past posts). Even though the playoff format has changed in a big way in the interim, I still don’t like it, and 2018 American League again shows why.

First, however, the National League of 2018 shows some clear advantages of the current format. The Cubs and Brewers have a weekend showdown (albeit not playing each other) over which one will win the Central. Whichever one does will also have the league’s best record. The other will be the first wild card. The stakes are high! The Dodgers and Rockies also have a showdown (again, not playing each other directly) over which one will win the West. The loser of that contest might be the second wild card, but the Cardinals are still alive, and so the loser of the West race could get left out entirely while the Cards get the (second wild) card. And to add spice to it, the Cards and Cubs (long time rivals!) play each other over the final weekend with both teams having playoff berths (or at least seeding) on the line.

Meanwhile, in the American League, we see the fundamental problem with the current format on full display. The Indians clinched their division a full week ago. At the time, their record was 86-68. The Tampa Bay Rays had the exact same record on that date, yet were on the brink of elimination. The Seattle Mariners were, on the same date, 85-69. Three teams within a game of one another in the standings. Yet one of them got a week to get rested and set up its rotation, while the other two will sit out the postseason.

The AL situation this season reminds us of the arbitrariness of the divisional alignments. While they are geographically accurate (unlike the NL before 1998), they can reward a mediocre “division winner” while shutting out teams with approximately identical records who just happen to be in tougher divisions. A related effect is that the AL Wild Card one-game playoff is going to pit the third and fourth (possibly second and fourth) best teams in the league (by W-L) against each other, while the fifth (or possibly sixth) best team gets to go straight to a Division Series as the League’s No. 3 seed.

While I was praising the NL situation earlier, I would be remiss if I did not note that, despite the good races to the finish in that league, there actually will be a similar unfairness in the outcome. The NL West winner is likely to finish with a worse record than the first wild card, and possibly in a tie with the second wild card. It just won’t be as stark a difference as the one in the AL.

Could this be remedied with better institutional design? Of course! I still prefer my Two Divisions, Two Wild Cards idea, first proposed in 2010, years before the current format (which is three divisors and two wild cards) was adopted. Of course, it is very unlikely that MLB will reduce the postseason back to four teams from the current five. As much as I do not like the one-game postseason “series” of the current wild card playoff, I could live with it–in modified form.

How about Two Divisions, Three Wild Cards? Bear with me a moment. I want a system that maximizes the chances that the best teams face off in the LCS and one of the very best makes it to the World Series. I don’t want to spot a mediocre team a top playoff seed just because it happened to win a weak division (i.e., this year’s Indians, but also several recent division winners). And I don’t want a first wild card that is well ahead of the second to have just one chance to get beat by an inferior opponent. The basic problem is small divisions magnify the odds that a weak team gets a division title. So two divisions are better than three!

It is not ideal to have divisions of different size in a league. With 15 teams per league, this proposal would require it (unless some more cross-league shifts were made, making the leagues different sizes instead of the divisions within each league).

With three wild cards, the first of them could get an automatic advance to the Division Series, while the second and third play a one-game playoff. (I’d prefer a best-of-3, but there really is no time for that.)

If this were in place now (and we’ll assume the records would be the same as they actually are), the AL teams would be: Red Sox (AL East, as actually), Houston (AL West, as actually), Yankees and A’s (first two Wild Cards, as actually), and a still live race between the Indians and Rays and, more marginally, the Mariners for the third Wild Card.

The proposal would work better still if the Division Series themselves were asymmetric, an idea I included in my earlier Two Divisions, Two Wild Cards proposal. I quote myself (because I can):

One could still introduce a first-round playoff structure that rewards division winners over wild card winners, if one wanted to do so. For instance, the first round could be a best of seven with the division winner having the first three games at home, instead of only the first two–while still having the last two if it went that far. Or under a best of five, one could similarly ensure the division winner four home games if the series went the distance. Another thought is an asymmetric series: the division winner advances after winning two games, but the wild card has to win three. I will not consider any of these integral to 2D2W [or the new proposal]; they are additional considerations.

Every institutional structure one can devise has problems as well as advantages. That is true of baseball championships as much as of electoral systems. And it is certainly true of this one. But I believe it would be an improvement on the current format.

In any case, enjoy the last weekend of the regular season, and the playoffs that follow!

Baseball’s wild cards strike again

The 2017 Major League Baseball season offers a strong indictment of the current format of two wild card teams. I rarely see or hear criticism of the new format; the consensus of the writers and talking heads seems to be that adding the second wild card has been a masterstroke, simultaneously making division races more meaningful and creating exciting races for each league’s last slot.

This year’s final standings come up short on those aspects, and more importantly, on another that has concerned me ever since the format was adopted.

This season, we do have some very deserving division winners. Two AL teams (Astros and Indians) have over 100 wins, as does one NL team (Dodgers). Another NL team has 97. However, if the selling point of the format is that it makes races exciting, this season did not deliver so much. Most of the second half of the season, it was fairly clear who was going to get nine of the ten postseason slots. In the AL, the second wild card was more up for grabs, as a bunch of mediocre teams (including my favorite team) vied for the slot. In the NL, most of the season, the two eventual wild card winners were close to one another, but far ahead of the pack. Only a late winning streak by the Diamondbacks and a slide by the Rockies let the Brewers back in and made the race for the second wild card somewhat interesting at the end.

Now look at the wild cards. The gap between the two winners in the AL (Yankees over Twins) is six games. In the NL it is also six (Diamondbacks ahead of Rockies). In both leagues, then, we will have single-elimination games pitting teams whose regular-season finishes were not even close.

It is fundamentally unfair in baseball to give a team so decisively surpassed during the regular season one shot at dethroning the team that bested it during the 162-game schedule. If it happens in a best-of-5, or preferably a best-of-7, well, that’s the way it goes sometimes; a series is a fundamentally fairer way of giving a lesser team a shot and is what has made the postseason compelling ever since divisional play was introduced in 1969.

The wild card is also a splendid idea. It prevents one of the league’s top teams from missing the postseason entirely despite having a better record than one or more division winners. But as soon as that postseason starts, one unlucky game can end the superior team’s season at the hands of the inferior team. This year, one of the wild card teams has the same record as one of the division winners. Yet the Cubs would not be eliminated until they lose three games (and it would be to a team with a better regular season record), while the Diamondbacks would be eliminated if they lose only one (to an inferior team). This is fundamentally bad institutional design.

The design of institutions is something we care a lot about here. There must be a solution to the problems I have identified in the current MLB playoff structure. I still prefer my previous proposal of “two divisions, two wild cards” (2D2W) wth or without the “asymmetric series” that I also proposed. However, when I made the 2D2W proposal, I was arguing for keeping the number of teams advancing to the postseason at four rather than the new format’s five. Even if MLB recognized the improvement my plan offers over the status quo, it is highly unlikely the number of teams making the postseason would ever be decreased.

So, we need to work with five teams advancing, while satisfying my criteria of not having a single-elimination game that might pit teams with substantially different records against one another, and also preserving the current principle of some reward for winning a division rather than a wild card. (Ideally, also enhancing the odds of the team with the best record getting to at least the LCS, or at least not reducing those odds.) I have tried to game out (so to speak) postseason formats that would balance these goals. I have failed. Maybe someone can come up with a plan.

As I said in my 2015 version of this complaint, whatever the outcome, October ball is almost here, and even dumb institutional design can’t ruin that!

Last day

It is the last day of baseball season, and also the last day of the Jewish year, 5776.

Actually, it might not be the last day of baseball season–depending on what happens today. I am writing this just before all the “final” day’s games are about to begin. We could still have a tiebreaker game tomorrow in either league, and those count as regular season games. We could even have a game from the original 162-game regular season tomorrow–the Indians and Tigers will make up a rainout if either the Tigers remain in contention for a Wild Card slot or the Indians need the game to decide seeding in the Division Series. And, while the Mariners’ loss yesterday ended the dream of a four-way tie for the AL’s two Wild Card berths, a three-way tie is still possible. That scenario would mean the regular season make-up game tomorrow, followed by tiebreaker games Tuesday and Wednesday to eliminate one of the three. We’ve never had a three-way tie for a postseason berth. The Tigers (and their rivals) have to cooperate both today and tomorrow to get us there. Why not cling to the 2016 regular season just a little longer?

As for 5776, there is no question it is the last day, ready or not. We will get to mark the new year, Rosh HaShannah 5777, with first fruits from our land. The bowl shown here contains the first two pomegranates and jujubes of the season, picked today. The ‘Bartlett’ pear is also the first, though these need to ripen of the tree; I picked it several days ago, and it is just now about ready to enjoy.

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The bowl also contains small bunches of each of the red grapes of our property. I believe they are, from left to right, Syrah, Barbera, and Zinfandel. They were planted by the previous owner, so I am going by the map of the vineyard, which is not the easiest to read. The grapes are not “first” fruits, as we have been harvesting them for several weeks and are near the end now.

The pomegranates are, at top, an Ambrosia. It has split, as pomegranates often do, and may not actually be ripe yet. The other is an unknown variety–we have three, planted by the previous owner, and for only Ambrosia did a tag survive–and should be ripe. Here are some more Ambrosia on the tree, which set heavily this year, while the second photo below shows the other one, with a few of its lighter set.

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The jujubes (‘Jew Jew Be’) are the first ever to ripen here, on a tree planted two years ago. They are of the ‘GA866’ variety. Not the snappiest name, but a great-tasting variety that I also grew when we lived in the San Diego area. The tree has grown well; look closely at this photo and you might see the one remaining fruit. Yes, its first crop was just three fruits. One must start somewhere.

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Shanah Tovah. May we have a sweet and fruitful 5777! And an exciting end of the (extended) regular season and postseason!

The three divisions, two wild cards, format (2015 edition of a recurring rant)

Regular readers will know how much I dislike the current major-league baseball format of three divisions (which we have had for a while now) and (more recently) two wild card teams who face each other in a single game to decide which one goes on to the Division Series. Just last night I again heard an announcer praise how wonderful this format is; I think they must be under some sort of directive from on high to repeat that mantra.

I am still not sold, despite the fact that my team’s* only shot at the playoffs this year will be if it can win the second wild card. For supporters of the format, the AL is turning out this year the way they like it: three mediocre teams (Angels, Twins, and the team they currently are chasing, the Astros) are all in contention here in the last week. Also good for their cause, the Astros were only recently supplanted for the AL West division lead by the Rangers; a similar reversal took place just a while ago in the AL East (Blue Jays overtaking Yankees). That there is one race in the final week–really the only one still realistically alive in either league–and that teams recently dumped to second place in their divisions can look forward to, at best, winning a single game to advance, are points in favor of the current format. That is, if you do not object to mediocre teams fighting it out to potentially win just one game against a team that was their better by potentially 4+ games during the regular season. (As of today, the Yankees hold the first wild card, and thus the home field, by a 4.5 game lead over the second wild-card Astros.)

The NL is, however, a very different story. And not for the first time. The two wild card teams (Pirates, then Cubs) are currently separated by 5.5 games. Mets fans have to really love the current alignment of the divisions. Their team gets to be the first to clinch a division title… despite having the FIFTH best record in their league. (When the Dodgers lost a little later on Saturday, the Mets backed into fourth place by half a game.) It makes no sense that a team that–barring a significant closing of the gap in the final week–has finished so far behind the other wild card gets a single shot to knock out a superior team.

On the plus side, however, the second wild card may prevent the “injustice” of the league’s third place team (Cubs) having no playoff games while the fourth and fifth likely get crowned as division titlists. Even so, the way it is set up, one of the (current) top three teams would be eliminated in a single game, and either the fourth or fifth best (Dodgers, Mets) is guaranteed to be in the NLCS. I call this an institutional design fail!!

Although I still prefer my old two-divisions, two wild cards proposed format, with (or without) asymmetric series to privilege the division winners, I recognize that two wild cards are here to stay.** One small tweak I would like to see, however, is having the team with best record play in the first round the team among those still standing that had the worst record. Instead, it automatically plays the wild card, regardless of regular-season record. The principle ought to be to maximize the chance that the LCS pits the league’s two best, and in this year’s NL that is evidently going to be two teams from the Central, while one of the inferior teams is guaranteed to advance to the Division Series simply because it beat out weaker competition in its own division.

Whatever the outcome, October ball is almost here, and even dumb institutional design can’t ruin that!

_____

*The Angels, for those who are not regular readers. Regulars, of course, know this well.

** Besides, I have to admit that this format gave us last year one of the best games in years. The two-divisions, two wild-cards, also is not very workable with the realignment to 15 teams in each league, which took place at the same time as the second wild card was implemented. Given that this is a blog that is largely about institutional design, I invite readers to come up with a format that involves 15 total teams per league, five of which advance, but without a single-game playoff or the other anomalies I have identified. (An obvious solution of a wild-card playoff that goes longer gets little traction because giving the division winners a few days off is not generally considered to their advantage.)

The KC sweep and run differentials

The Kansas City Royals have completed a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series. This follows the sweep of the Los Angeles Angels in the Division Series and the sensational one-game Wild Card playoff against the Oakland Athletics. Both the Angels and the Orioles had far superior regular-season records and significantly better run differentials during the season. The A’s had the league’s best run differential, despite their late collapse from a runaway division title to a ten-game deficit at the hands of division winner LAA. It really is hard to fathom how they are doing it. Royal blue smoke and mirrors? Best explanation I can offer.

In the just-concluded ALCS, the Royals continue to maximize wins out of few runs. In fact, their run differential is the smallest ever in a LCS sweep, by a good margin. In the series, they scored 18 runs, and the Orioles scored 12. They +6 differential beats the previous LCS record by three runs (1988 A’s over Red Sox, +9).

The +6 differential is reminiscent of the White Sox sweep of the 2005 World Series; as I noted at the time, only one prior World Series sweep had ever featured such a low differential (1950, Yankees over Phillies, also +6). Since 2005, there have been two more sweeps, but with typically large differentials (+19 in 2007 and +10 in 2012).

Obviously, the minimum possible differential in a four-game sweep is +4. So if you win with a +6, like the Royals just did, you are being exceptionally efficient in your run distribution.

Across all sweeps of best-of-seven World Series (19 of them), the average differential is +12.5. In the two leagues’ Championship Series, which have had this format since 1985 (when, incidentally, the Royals overcame a 3-1 deficit to win in seven), there have been six sweeps before this one. The average differential in those six was also +12.5. The Royals sweep was thus historic, setting a record for LCS and tying a record for all best-of-seven series. Too bad they scored that superfluous run in the top of the ninth in Game 2. They could have beaten the all-time best-of-seven sweep “efficiency” record.

(All data calculations by me, from Baseball Reference)

Light up the halo!

And crank up the Fight Song!!!

From my seat at Game 1 of the 2002 World Series. Let’s get back there.

World Series 2013

Because, well, why not? Discuss at will.

The double wild card era, year 2

As I type this, the Reds vs. Pirates wild card playoff is underway.

I lost count of the number of times over the past week that I heard some dutiful announcer say how the excitement of the final stretch is exactly what MLB intended in its brilliant decision to add a second wild card. Count me unimpressed.

The final weekend of the regular season featured, in the National League, a series between the Reds and Pirates. Yes, the same two teams that are playing in today’s first postseason game. The Pirates dominated, winning all three. As a result, they finished the season four games ahead of the Reds. For that, they earn… a chance to lose, in just one game, their spot in the Division Series to the Reds. That is what MLB has created: a second chance for the just-defeated.

By finishing even one game ahead of the Reds, the Pirates earned home-field for the single game. But that is not enough. Single-elimination is just not fair in baseball, and it is especially not fair when it is a game between two teams that finished games apart during the regular season. We saw this happen last year, too: the Cardinals were six games worse than the Braves during the regular season, but the Cardinals advanced by beating the Braves in the single wild-card game.

As for the excitement of that final weekend, it seems to me that a do-or-die series between the contenders for one wild card would have been pretty exciting! Maybe at least as exciting as a battle for home-field in their next match-up!

The AL, for the second year in a row, has a better experience with the two wild cards. The final weekend was indeed exciting, with three teams competing for the two spots, and two of them tying for the second one. (I have no problem with single-elimination when two teams tied through the regular season schedule.) The two teams now set for the AL wild card playoff were just a game apart in the standings. I’d still prefer that the Indians go right to the Division Series and not have a second chance for a team that finished behind them, but at least there was not a four or six game gap. Still, a final weekend involving three teams competing for one slot would have been pretty exciting, too! And the three-way tie that came very close to happening might have resulted in a more compelling tiebreaker had only one of them been able to emerge as a playoff team, rather than two of them playing each other again.

Now that one league has had two cases of multi-game gaps between its two wild card teams in two tries, it should be seen as a major indictment of the new system. But instead, it seems that MLB and the media are patting themselves on the collective back about what a great new system they have given us.

And, yes, I still prefer the various formatting ideas I proposed over three years ago.

WBC ’13

Thanks to Chris in a WBC ’09 thread for reminding me that we need a place to talk about this year’s World Baseball Classic!

The Taiwan-Korea game on 6 March featured the most boring 8th inning comeback you could ever see.

It seems the WBC could use some good institutional engineers to correct such situations.

The 2012 postseason

This isn’t a baseball blog. Except when it is.

Nothing profound to say here, but so far this has been one thrilling postseason!

Readers who are following may have some more profound things to say…

The folly of the new MLB format

We are now less than a week away from the end of the regular season of Major League Baseball. ((How can that be?)) Unless something dramatic happens in the final week ((And sometimes something does!)) the standings will showcase the folly of the new format that was introduced for this season.

This year marks the debut of the second wild-card team, promoted by Commissioner Bud Selig and others. Instead of four playoff teams, there are now five. However, two of them–the wild cards–square off in a single game to determine which one goes on to play one of the division winners. The ostensible purpose is to be to make winning the division a greater imperative in cases where two teams are neck-and-neck down the wire, but both would advance anyway.

The basic goal is laudable, but stands on a flimsy premise: that division winners are necessarily more deserving than wild card winners. A secondary premise, though one I have not seen stated, is also flimsy: that both of the now two wild cards are about equally (un)deserving. So let’s throw as many teams as we can into “exciting” end-of-season races, and then have an “exciting” one-game playoff to eliminate one of them and then get on with games involving the more “deserving” teams.

Each league shows the flaws in one these premises. The AL shows the worst case. If the season ended today, a team with the seventh best record in the entire league (Detroit Tigers, leading the Central by two games) would enter the postseason with the advantages of a division winner, while the teams with the fifth and sixth best records (Los Angels Angles and Tampa Bay Rays, currently tied at two games out of the wild card) would miss the playoffs entirely. The two most surprising teams of the season–the Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics, with the third and fourth best records, would play a single elimination game. This season’s AL is not a rare case. Many past wild cards over the previous sixteen years had their league’s fourth or better–sometimes second–best record. And several division winners have been fifth or worse. The new format makes this worse, by vastly increasing the penalty against a superior team for being a superior division, while rewarding the winner of a mediocre division.

It actually gets worse still, because this season the Division Series will deviate from its usual 2-2-1 format, whereby the higher-seeded team–never the wild card, even when its record is better–gets to open at home and also gets the decisive fifth game at home if the series goes the distance. Instead, this year, it is 2-3, with the higher-seeded team getting (up to) three home games, but only after the lower-seeded team has had two guaranteed home games. In other words, the Tigers, with the seventh best record, open at home, after an extra off day, on which the A’s and O’s have decided which of two better teams will travel to Detroit to play the relatively more rested Tigers.

In the NL, we see how flawed is the second (implicit) premise: that both wild card teams are equally (un)deserving. At the moment, there is a seven-game gap between the first wild card team, the Atlanta Braves, and the second wild card, the St. Louis Cardinals. A seven-game gap is currently larger than the gap between any two teams that will play each other in a Division Series. ((The gap between Detroit and the team it would play based on today’s standings (the Yankees) is six games.)) And, in fact, the top wild card team now is tied with the West-winning San Francisco Giants for the league’s third best record. Yet all this earns them is one home game in which a team with the fifth best record gets a shot at knocking them off. Of all sports, baseball is the one that least should use a single elimination game instead of a series of 3-to-7 games. ((I think a single game is fine for breaking a season-long tie to enter the postseason, although even here I much prefer the old NL pre-division-era format of a best-of-3.))

It does not seem that this new format is well thought-out. Moreover, introducing the format this year too late to adjust the dates of the various series, which is the ostensible reason for a one-year use of the 2-3 Division Series format, really was inexcusable.

I would still prefer my alternative proposal of Two Divisions, Two Wild Cards (2D2W). The AL would be featuring a good wild card race for two slots between the A’s, Orioles, Angels, and Rays. The Tigers and White Sox would only recently have faded from the race (rather than one of them being ensured a Division Series slot). The Rangers and Yankees would be leading their respective divisions, just as they are under the actual format. The NL would actually not have races involving in vs. out of the postseason, because the top four are so well separated from the rest of the pack. However, in the actual format we have hardly had any division races for at least the last two months. ((This is especially true of the Central and East; the West saw the Dodgers get briefly close in August.)) Under 2D2W we would have a good contest in the East division between Washington and Cincinnati, with Atlanta now four games out. ((San Francisco would lead the West easily, as in the actual format.)) We would not have a race like the one we have had, at least until about a week ago, among the Dodgers and the surging Brewers ((and, on the fringes, the late-coming Phillies and floundering Pirates)) for a wild card slot. But really, why is a race for fifth place among teams barely above .500 something to cheer? ((For those in the affected cities, and for marketing, I get it. But those are not my important criteria.)) In articulating my proposal for the 2D2W alternative in September, 2010, I suggested some ways in which winning the division could be made more valuable than a wild card than was the case in the rules in place through 2011. These mechanisms could still yield significant battles to secure a division rather than wild card slot in the final week.

Bud’s format is a dud. It should be revisited, to maximize the chances that the four best teams advance to the Division Series, under whatever seeding mechanism, and that races do not involve fringe teams, or set up single elimination games between teams that were widely separated in the regular-season standings.