Playoff Restructuring in Major League Baseball: Changing the Course of History?

MLB fans may be robbed of thrilling moments in the future

Some people consider Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 as the most thrilling day in MLB regular season history. In a matter of minutes, the Atlanta Braves missed the playoffs by completing a 10.5 game collapse that persisted throughout September; the Boston Red Sox followed suit by blowing a ninth inning lead in a loss to the Baltimore Orioles; and Evan Longoria propelled the Tampa Bay Rays into the playoffs as the Wild Card winner with a dramatic extra inning walk-off homer against the Yankees. Under the new MLB CBA agreement, the games that Atlanta, Boston, and Tampa Bay played that night would have been meaningless.

Major League Baseball agreed to expand its playoffs to a ten team format, increasing from the three division winners and a wild card spot in each league to one extra wild card team in both the American and National League. The two Wild Card teams, which will be the two teams with the best records who did not win their division, will face off in a one game playoff after the regular season concludes to determine which team will advance to the next round.

Those who condemn the new system point to the fact that this change would have prevented MLB’s most historic regular season moments from occurring. If the new agreement had been in place last year, the Red Sox would have played the Rays in a one game playoff and Evan Longoria’s late-game heroics would have been for naught. The Braves would have played the Cardinals in the one game playoff and, if they had beaten St. Louis, the Cinderella story of playoff hero David Freese and the 2011 Cardinals would never have existed. Likewise, the 163rd game of the 2009 season that pitted the Tigers against the Twins in a battle for the AL Central crown would never have taken place. Not to mention the fact that this classic game which sent Minnesota to the division series was deemed by Sports Illustrated as MLB’s Best Regular-Season Game of the 2000s.

So with all of the history that could potentially be erased under the new CBA agreement, why has MLB ultimately decided to revamp its playoff system?

The most significant business incentive for Bud Selig to modify MLB’s playoff alignment is to bring the thrill of October baseball to two extra markets every year, whether it’s to a large market such as Philadelphia or to an organization that has never experienced playoff baseball, such as the Washington Nationals.

Of course, critics will point to the unfairness of the new format, as a 95 win team that doesn’t win its division can work all season long to ultimately be knocked off by an 85 win team in the always unpredictable one-game playoff.

Another valid argument is that the infrequency of a one game playoff to determine who plays in October is what makes that final game so exciting and draws larger television audiences. After all, the final games of the 2011 season increased MLB’s ratings across the board and the Detroit-Minnesota matchup in 2009 was the most watched game of that season, drawing 6.543 million viewers.

At the end of the day, baseball fans will always wait with anticipation for the one play that will end a team’s season or lift a player to immortality. Under the new CBA agreement, millions of fans can mark this sure-to-be thrilling one game playoff down in their calendars every single year and witness the next Evan Longoria or David Freese carry his team to the promised land.