Okay, I applaud his decision in not expanding the playoff format to add another wild-card team to each league, but I'm concerned about his tinkering with future playoff games. See article below.


Say what you want about commissioner Bud Selig, but he knows a good thing when he sees it. Rather than expand the postseason by adding one wild card to each league, Selig prefers to keep the postseason format the way it is, thank you very much. "That's been put on the backshelf," Selig says of a proposal that would increase the number of postseason teams from eight to 10, forcing the wild-card qualifiers to use their best available pitchers against each other in a one-game playoff.

"I'm a traditionalist at heart. I'm not anxious to move forward," Selig adds. "That doesn't mean I won't keep looking at it. But the races are so good this way, I'm not sure I want to change anything."

Selig is right — increasing the postseason field would lessen the urgency for contenders and reduce pennant-race excitement. That's the last thing Major League Baseball wants to do as it completes the final, frantic month of an unpredictable regular season.

Selig, however, says MLB will explore ways this off-season to make it more difficult for wild-card teams to advance. One idea would be to give the wild-card team only one home game in a best-of-five series.

IMO, there is no real difference in baseball whether a team finishes as a wild-card or a division winner, so why even screw with this? As long as the Yankees make the playoffs, does it really matter if they finish as the wild-card? NO! They are still a threat to win it all, so I don't understand Bud's reasoning on making it more difficult for wild-cards to advance? :confused:

What he should be focusing on is how to make the system more fair to teams with winning records who are left out of the pl'off picture just because they happen to be playing in the wrong division.

Nothing against the Padres, but please...they are not a playoff team. The Padres could be in the postseason with a sub .500 record while deserving teams with Dontrelle and the Rocket will be left watching from home. This system is so unfair and Bud is an idiot for not realizing this.

The only 'tinker' I think they should look at would be to seed the 4 playoff teams in each league based on record, and have 1 play 4, and 2 play 3 in the division series, even if they're in the same division. This prevents the weak division champ (like SD this year) from getting a bump up. And they ought to consider making the division series best-of-7. That helps weed out pretenders and rewards better, deeper teams. They definitely do not need to add more teams...there's hardly enough pitching in the league to justify anymore playoff teams. Just my $.02. And for the record, if it comes from Bud Selig, most likely it's a mistake. He stumbled into the Wild Card teams almost in spite of himself.

[ September 20, 2005, 09:58 PM: Message edited by: so fla ref ]

Wasn't the three division set up the players union plan when this was all brought about??? I thought the owners(Buds) plan was to keep the same two division setup with the top two clubs in each division advancing to the playoffs.

Count me as one of the few but brave who is against the wild card period. You want 4 teams in the playoffs? OK, then create another division in each league. This results in 4 divisional winners, a little more of a pennant race per se, and still two rounds of playoffs before the World Series.

With the 4 division winners, MLB can easily devise an exciting playoff series. Why not have the #1 divisional winner face the #4, and the #2 face the #3, or something like that? Then the two winners go at it in the LCS.

There, problem solved. Man! If only I was in charge of the world, things would be so much better!

Being that this isn't the P/R board, I cannot give an honest response to that statement.

One problem with four divisions in each league is that there's not enough teams. You'd have to add two additional teams, and I don't think that's such a good idea. Pitching is pretty thin already. I like the current division setup with the wild card. It keeps the teams in a runaway division playing for the playoffs...ala Houston, and had the White Sox not collapsed, the Indians still would have had something to play for. And I don't think there's been any unworthy teams, so to speak, make the wild card. I'd have to check, but I think most of the wild card teams have won over 90 games, so it's not like they all suck. It is one of the few things that Selig has actually done right. But you know what they say, even a blind squirrel is going to find a nut every now and then. And come to think of it, I'm not exactly sure whether it was Bud or the Players' Union who pushed for it. But since Selig gets so little credit, I'm willing to let him take credit for this.

[ September 26, 2005, 02:50 AM: Message edited by: so fla ref ]

Good points. I never understood why you couldn't play a team in your own division in the 1st round? That didn't make any sense to me.

Yes, I def favor a best of 7 in the Divisional series.

Selig does have one thing right, and that's his stance on the steroid policy. It appears that the players union wants fewer game suspensions for 1st offenders, from the proposed 50 to just 20. :confused: Congress may soon have to intervene again. And if they do, I hope they adopt the tougher Olympic standards. That's one way to get the cheats out of the game.