Your’ team makes the playoffs, hooray! The MLB playoffs begin after a 162 game regular season. “So let’s go to the game! When is the game? I need tickets!” Well they have to win the wild card game (on the road) or the season is over.
Since 2012 when the wild card game was first implemented in Major League Baseball, road/#5 seed teams are (a rather impressive) 8-6 in the “win or go home” single game. Reminding, the “go home” part of that means that the players go to their’ respective homes until spring training (or so). No home playoff games for the respective team’s markets to enjoy unless they win the wild card game on the road. Not to mention the missed revenue and wage opportunities for stadium employees.
So why not making the wild card round a “best of three” series? It could happen, it should happen. It could be done in various ways. But the series itself should start by having game one of the best of three be held in the home park of the team with the lesser record (the #5 seed). This would then guarantee both teams (if you’re following along) a coveted home playoff game. With that being said, games two and a potential game three of this series would then be held at the park of the higher (#4) seeded team. All three games could be scheduled on successive days or maybe include a day off after game one.
So, when after the last day of the regular season should this expanded series start? Currently, the last day of the regular season is on a Sunday. With no games being scheduled for the next day (Monday), a day that’s traditionally been reserved for tiebreaking or essential make-up games. I guess they CAN get rid of the tiebreaking games, but that could diminish the exciting races in the waning days as well as dealing with prior broadcasting rights. It’s conceivable these series’ could start on that Tuesday provided a team slated for the wild card doesn’t get there by playing in multiple tiebreaking games.
So what about the #1 seed team waiting in the wings to play whoever comes out of the “wild card round”? How about giving them a week off? Before you start to think about how that would be a big layoff that could rust all players of that team, then look at this. Below are the six teams that got 4 whole days off while waiting to play the winner of the wild card game and how they fared in the “best of 5” division series against the wild card winner:
- ’12 No “4 day layoff”
- ’13 Boston – WWLW (Won World Series)
- ’14 Washington LLWL
- ’15 St. Louis WLLL
- ’16 Chicago Cu. WWLW (Won World Series)
- ’17 Los Angeles Do. WWW (Lost World Series)
- ’18 Boston WLWW (Won World Series)
Both leagues “generally” rotate (just not “every other year” as shown above) between which wild card game gets played first & second resulting with the second wild card game (usually played on Wednesday) meaning that that particular league’s “A” division series would start on Friday resulting in the team with the best record in that league hosting game one of that series (the other league’s wild card game is held on Tuesday with that game’s winner starting it’s division series on Thursday). Overall, the winner of the wild card game has won 6 of 14 of their next series’. You can see up above, when there is a four day layoff, wild card winning teams went on to win 2 of 6 division series’. Teams with a three day layoff have won 4 out of 8 division series’.
So having the “A” division series begin the Sunday after the final regular season Sunday resulting in six days off for the #1 seed team would not seem to rust the team nor create a competitive disadvantage. With that extra time, maybe a day off could be inserted before the “best of three” wild card round in the event of tiebreaking games to avoid a team having to seemingly travel to a new city immediately after playing a critical game for several days in a row. The players were even mentioned in an article last year as being in favor of it, but management was against it which was surprising [1]. But even most importantly, it guarantees a home playoff game for every team’s market that makes the playoff$.
Also, if pushing the start of the division series back a couple more days for an actual “wild card series” makes you wonder about when the start of the world series will be? It could start on a Friday instead of the current Tuesday start. For one, those games would avoid Thursday & Sunday pro-football, and with it being pushed back just three days, it SHOULD be done right before the freezing weather comes, depending on where you live.
[1] https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/players-open-to-expanded-dh-wild-card-but-mlb-not-keen-071718