Baseball shouldn't expand playoffs

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig stated this week that it is likely that the playoffs will expand from 8 to 10 teams starting next season. The new format would add an additional Wild Card team to each league. The two Wild Cards in each league would then duke it out for the right to advance on to play one of the division winners in the Division Series. It is unknown how long these play-in series would be.

I am fully against any expansion of the baseball playoffs. I think that expanded playoffs tend to water down the regular season. Just look at the NBA where roughly half the teams qualify, many without any realistic chance of winning the title. Even so, a team should not be able to have mediocre regular season and still have a chance to win it all.

Now, detractors could point to the fact that the St. Louis Cardinals were 83-78 in 2006 and won the World Series. However, they still had to win their division to get in and only eight teams were allowed into the playoffs. The unbalanced schedule with roughly 18 games being played against each divisional opponent is one of the strengths of Major League Baseball. Winning a division title means something in baseball -- particularly as you have to play a great deal of games against teams in your division. It is also hard to accomplish as they are typically more than four good teams in both the AL and NL. Having it be hard to accomplish is also one of the strengths of baseball. I like that good teams are left out, it means that the regular season is relevant.

Last year when the Giants won the World Series, they didn't clinch their division or a playoff spot until the final day of the 162 game regular season. The San Diego Padres had a good season and were a good team, a real rivalry developed throughout the season. To me, that is part of what baseball is all about. You could tell it mattered when the Giants went nuts after the game and celebrated with champagne and loud music in the clubhouse. When is the last time you saw an NBA team do that after clinching a division? That's what I thought. If you're half-decent in the NBA, you're pretty much guaranteed to make the playoffs before the season starts.

Now, do I think this new 10 team proposed playoff format will completely compromise the regular season? Certainly not. But it will devalue it some. And a play-in round would force the division winners to sit it out for a few days before their series started, which I think would hurt the integrity of the game. Baseball is meant to be played every day. That's part of the beauty of it. Managers should have to adjust to pitchers and players fatiguing and getting banged up and then having to play the next day. Even if this change happens, baseball will still have the best regular season out there and qualifying for the playoffs will still be a big deal. It would just be better if it was a more exclusive club.