Expansion Provides An Opportunity To Deploy The Latest MLB Playoff Format Correctly

Major League Baseball needs to close up a tunnel to their Postseason — the very one I hope my Cleveland Guardians utilize this October.

Over the past few years, the American League Central might as well be known as the "Loophole Division." Play your home games in this particular region of the country and you could conceivably be the AL’s tenth-best club (based on win percentage) and get included in the top six. Worse, the potential exists for a bottom-half team to masquerade as worthy of the playoff bracket's 3 seed — recognized with hosting a Wild Card Series. Undeserving Postseason insertion is bad enough; up to three home games (and a favorable match-up) are a bridge too far. 

Remember, this is a diehard Cleveland baseball fan telling you this. One that witnessed his team regain the AL Central's top spot this week, for the first time since April 6. The Guardians were 5-2 way back then. Today, they only have 34 more wins that that. And yet, the playoffs will be a very real possibility at the All-Star Break. On an annual basis, not many teams ranked 21st in MLB's Power Rankings on the Fourth of July feel that optimistic. That's the tell-tale sign something with the system is fractured. Sure, I'll do as I did last year: Drive up to Cleveland for the Wild Card and any subsequent ALDS home games. But it's on pace to be very different. Even when it benefits my happiness, I won't admit that it's right. October baseball is a collision course for being unwarranted in Cleveland. You know it's a big problem when.

Everything surrounding current Postseason access is the crux of my Guardians frustration du jour. If Tito & Co. can’t take full advantage of the modern rules this year — with a current division leader sitting at 41-42 — then he's not the proper caretaker of the youth movement in Cleveland. It’s the lowest barrier to entry on the game board at present. 87 wins might just hang a banner with the year 2023 on it, done up in Division Winner navy and not Wild Card white. Seems very doable for a club coming off 92 wins and still "ahead of schedule" developmentally; owners of a 2-1 ALDS lead last year with the youngest roster in Major League Baseball.

Okay, enough about my personal reasons for therapy and more about Major League Baseball's issues. Each member of the AL Central, including those Twins, would currently fall below the Red Sox for fifth place in the American League East. Framed using this context: The Central's automatic qualifier, comparable to another division's SIXTH PLACE team, would punch a ticket to compete for a World Championship. This is a gift from baseball heaven. 

But... it's also one I believe should not last. We're not dealing with March Madness, where the story of a .500 team getting hot in its conference tournament makes for a fun First Four anecdote. This is Major League Baseball and the 119th playing of the Fall Classic. The stakes are a little bit higher here. 

For proof the format is creating unfit Postseason candidates, look no further than the National League Central to find [checks notes] the EXACT SAME scenario. One pilgrim alone is a zealot. But two pilgrims together; that's a pilgrimage. Baseball Reference's Detailed Standings of all 30 teams is the perfect visual for these wild times. Names in bold denote division leaders. Look at just how many better records are above those Brewers and Twins:

If the unspoken rationale for a Major League Baseball season being this long is to provide ample runway for the best teams to identify themselves, then the system has routinely failed. And the current playoff format, in just its second year of existence, is on an all-too-familiar path toward snubbery. Someone deserving is going to be left out in the cold; perhaps multiple someones.

Stealing their seat at the table will be at least one "unqualified" franchise, afforded house money to shock the world. After all, a mediocre 13-9 Postseason record (.590 winning percentage) is enough to raise the Commissioner's Trophy — provided the losses do not come in bunches. Tampa Bay almost navigated this minefield to perfection in 2020, the Covid-necessitated precursor to the modern format. The Rays were a pedestrian 11-9 overall that Postseason, but that it was good enough for an AL Pennant and forcing a Game 6 in the World Series. 

Point being: Get in and all bets are off; the hot streak necessary isn't as scorching as one might expect. By not being among the 18 clubs eliminated on the final day of the regular season, the harder work has arguably been done. House money kicks in. 

And that's the issue. If geographical alignment protects a club that should be watching the playoffs at home, seeing it through to a fluky Championship is no worse than +3000 odds. They've fallen up this far, what's another four weeks?

I have a big problem wrong with this. Because of how short the playoffs really are, I want only the best teams vying for the title.

Let's say a "good but not great" NFL team hits the 10-win plateau in the new 17-game schedule. Undoubtedly not earning a bye, they would need to produce 40% of their regular-season win total — without a single loss mixed in — to lift the Lombardi Trophy. An NBA team of comparable middle-of-the-standings resume amasses ~45 wins on an annual basis. The 2022-23 Miami Heat team, which appeared in the Finals as an 8 seed, only got to 44. With four rounds of four wins, their playoff run required a 36.3% reprise of what was accomplished from October-April. 

The World Champion Denver Nuggets posted a formidable 53 victories in the regular season and got their 16 (30.2%) in the playoffs. Similarly great baseball teams have to do a third of that work. It's really the only way to explain the success of teams like the 2000 Yankees, 2006 & 2011 Cardinals, 2014 Giants, and 2021 Braves. Each won it all despite having 90 or fewer regular-season wins. Arguably, the entire 21st century has been more flukes than #1 overall seeds. 

It's due to the fact that the sport is overly front-loaded: Six months to thin the herd and only play one more.     

87 regular season wins in any other sport is literally impossible. It's more than the 2023 Eastern Conference Champions (Miami Heat and Florida Panthers) combined. But such a season falls into the "good but not great" category for Major League Baseball. In a vacuum, the quantity and frequency of winning that much/often is commendable. In this year's loaded American League East, it might not be good enough for third place.   

Should a playoff team sneak in with 87 wins, they only need to come up with 14.9% of their regular-season win total during the playoffs. Win 105 ballgames and bypass the Wild Card round? You only have to "prove it" by recreating 10.4% of the completed work featured in the portfolio. 

This could all change in an instant, however. The year that MLB ultimately expands to 32 clubs is the year that this mess of a bracket could start to make sense; start to require a larger percentage of the regular season's elite play be matched. 

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Options For When Baseball Grows to 32 Clubs

The days of three divisions in both the American and National League are clearly numbered. Major League Baseball expansion is coming during Rob Manfred's time as commissioner. And, in that, everyone with a basic understanding of arithmetic knows clubs will be grouped into either twos, fours, or eights. Three and six ain't going into 32 evenly. 

The solution is sitting on the table, but it isn't a guarantee that league executives don't muck it up by tweaking too many variables in the equation. Should "the smartest guys in the room" decide to abandon all AL/NL ways of life — now that the designated hitter and persistent Interleague Play are universal — they will lose this fan for good. I'm clearly receptive to a little change, but not prepared to get the bends. 

I don't truly remember the Brewers ever being in the American League, but I definitely recall the Astros playing in the NL. A one-off League swap like that was unsettling enough for my OCD desires of stability/continuity. Transitioning the affiliation of a dozen is an inflection point in baseball's timeline that would literally kill me. With a rare exception (perhaps a Colorado to the AL), the sanctity of the American League and National League must survive this next wave of expansion. 

I've already had to [begrudgingly] give up what I call my favorite team since 1993. 12 year-old me: The Indians play at Jacobs Field. 36 year-old me: The Guardians play at Progressive Field. Somehow, I'm supposed to pretend both of those statements have always said the same thing. Reconditioning my brain to embrace this was plenty; "up" is already "down" in enough ways. For several close friends, these semantic adjustments were enough to make them divest all MLB passion.

Launching a model where a Cleveland, Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, and both New York teams are now one geographically-linked hodgepodge bastardizes the very framework of this game's great past. It might make logistical sense, but that will be the day I'm officially comfortable no longer following along. That's much more than a name change; it's Etch-A-Sketch-ing everything drawn heretofore and starting over. I don't feel I'd be alone in using that as the moment for a clean break. 

Adopting an (8) four-team division format, like the National Football League, hits a few roadblocks for me. Namely, run the simulation of a regular-season breakdown in opponents. We're either going to get 14(!) games against our team's three division rivals each season or everyone in this industry is going to have to get used to the five-game series being the norm. 

Showing my math on this: (14 x 3) Division + (6 x 12) Remainder of the League + (3 x 16) Interleague = 162. I hate that. It's one more intradivisional match-up than we currently have, but worse, because there would now be two new franchises in the ecosystem that we all would want to see. The quantity should be going down not up. 

As a Cleveland diehard, I don't want to see the Chicago White Sox 14 times a year and the new Portland franchise thrice. This also makes me begin to question the quality of any division winner that feasts at the endless buffet of empty calories. Have the worst team in baseball in your "pod" and theoretically a 10-4 record is laying at your feet; 10% of the way to a 100-win season off one opponent.

Dropping the in-division meetings to 10 occurrences per year (7 vs. Rest of the League, 3 vs. Interleague Opponents) means you're likely staring down the barrel of (2) five-game series vs. your geographical partners. I cringe a little at this. And the cause can be found with the frequency. Disregard the overall quantity for a second, teams jockeying for position in the AL East standings need to see the name of the others — equally vying for the divisional top spot — show up on the calendar more than twice a season. Period.   

Now, I'm fully aware Minor League Baseball has transitioned into the land of the six-game series. People that work at these ballparks love it. Players enjoy the consistent Monday off. Executives sure love the "week here, week there" rhythm to it. Owners can't be upset with how much it is helping with travel expenses. However, this is Major League Baseball. I'm not saying we frivolously light piles of money on fire; there is undeniably money to be saved in logistics, scheduling, flights, accommodations, etc. But, again, this is also Major League Baseball, valued at a record-high $11.9 billion. We shouldn't turn it into EconoMode overnight at the detriment of the variety a typical schedule can provide. There's beauty in the randomness. Becoming overly formulaic/monotonous might be too much medicine for the few minor symptoms that ail.  

It's not like the six-game series is devoid of drawbacks. Animosity and tensions can run extra high (player vs. player, player vs. umpire, manager vs. umpire, manager vs. manager) when you're spending a full week with the same cantankerous people. Furthermore, the business of sport, particularly at the gate, relies on a freshness/uniqueness of visiting superstars, and a sense of "one night only." Baseball already struggles with the "If I miss it tonight, there's always tomorrow" mentality — in a way that its North American pro sports peers do not. Why should MLB add fuel to this fire of apathy? 

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Addressing 162 (And The Best-Of-Five Division Series) While We're At It

My proposal starts with a slightly shorter regular season than our customary 162. Statheads will bemoan the three chances (10+ at-bats) for hitters to go after holy single-season milestones and contract-incentive-laced achievements. My trade-off is one fewer weekend of mostly meaningless September action and a lengthened playoff format. The Division Series would finally (FINALLY!) become a best-of-seven like the CS and WS. 

Applying the NHL's "Second Season" ratio, a 162-game regular season should be met with a 55-game playoff. I'm not suggesting we go that far, but maxing out to 22 games feels like a better balance. Shrinking the regular season a touch in order to accomplish this inside the same calendar seems like a justifiable reallocation of games. Three fewer games that "don't matter" for two or three that really do. I'm for anything that grows the length of Major League Baseball's Postseason* 

*As long as a summertime sport doesn't get into the habit of crowning its champion in mid-November frost

There is a sweet spot to the construction of a master schedule in a 32-team MLB. Playoff inclusion, to the size of a bracket we saw in the Covid year, would push the entirety of the season too far. 159 + Max. 22 is the answer. And the biggest reason for its perfection is in its breakdown of competitively-balanced opponents. Emphasis is placed on the division without that "Oh great, the Royals are back in town this weekend... again" staleness. All 31 possible opponents will make a trip to your local ballpark once every two years (eight Interleague visitors and eight hosts; toggling back and forth in even and odd years). 

Divisional tilts would be arranged into three match-ups annually — a two-, a three-, and a four-game series. The latter would be in the opposite stadium as the two former. During the course of a season, you'd three different cracks at your rival, instead of it being exclusively backloaded or all over by the All-Star Break. Due to the relative proximity of divisional opponents, the prevalence of that in-and-out, quick-hit, two-game series is conceivably a godsend to clubs on multi-city road trips. There's not a third or fourth game in that pivotal series, meaning no one's burning through their entire bullpen (fewer position players pitching) and a majority of the rotation isn't used up on one opponent. It gives the road team a fighting shot in the next town on the schedule; one where they ordinarily limp into. Not bad for the scale of the beast any commissioner would be charged in wrangling.  

After 162 games, the potential for a moderately-to-very successful season to abruptly flame out with one bad road trip has always felt a tad unfair. The NBA seemed to agree; switching the first round of their playoffs from best-of-five (1961-1967 and 1984-2002) to best-of-seven. Thus, the number of MLB Postseason victories would increase by one for everyone — 14 for Wild Cards and 12 for those with a bye. Requiring more of our Champions, I promise the best team in baseball wins the World Series more often. And isn't that the goal?

That was certainly the intention of the bye. The star actor was to show up for a brief portion of the audition and land the part with ease; the resume was supposed to take care of the rest. The psychology of sports fans is at constant odds with its desires: We love/hate dynastic franchises, but the ratings prove we need them. Cinderella is both fun, but then undercuts the value of everything that occurred during the marathon that precedes the sprint.

There's also the issue of rest/rust in which the five-game Division Series turns a bye into an unwanted reward. The risk is high of running into a buzzsaw with the margin for error limited to two slip-ups. A third clunker can end an incredible season before it ever really begins. I certainly had my speculations going into the 2022 Postseason. And the predictions turned out to be spot on, as the National League's #1 (Los Angeles) and #2 (Atlanta) both lost their first match-ups. 

This round has to morph into a best-of-seven, to let the cream rise to the top. If nothing else, the bye should earn these teams an extra loss to play around with. With eight days between games (final regular-season game on October 2, ALDS/NLDS Game 1 on October 11) they deserve a chance to get their feet back underneath them.  

Some leagues view playoff duration as a point of pride. It is a grind that always crowns the most-deserving champion. The NHL not only embraces its "Second Season" nickname, but markets it as such. While the playoff quantity never truly comes close to a second full helping of 82 games, teams could end up playing a schedule that is 34.2% the length of the regular season. With a new play-in game for the NBA, an 8 seed could end up playing 30 games after their traditional 82. That is an insane 36.6%. Baseball is a relative sprint by comparison; a maximum of 13.6% for those that require the Wild Card Series. Is the answer more playoff baseball games? The fan appetite and weather don't seem to suggest "yes." 

This isn't to say that the general public finds Postseason baseball games less exciting than playoff NHL match-ups. More of the former is definitely welcomed by all; October baseball is high drama and fun to be a part of. The key difference between sports is in total quantity of games from Opening Day to trophy presentation. Even with four full rounds — and a maximum of 28 additional games — the NHL's potential total can only ever get to 110. Baseball's 162 plus 21-23 (depending on bye status) teeters on excessive. No one is here for watching/playing 185 games a year. Perhaps it is the regular-season quantity that needs the change.

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Next Comes The Question: How Many Teams Get Into That Playoff?

Four division winners and two Wild Cards? Same critique I had of that exact setup in the NFL from 1990 to 2020: If the ideology is 1) Byes are a good/valuable commodity (debatable, but most sport executives seem to think they are), and 2) Winning a division is a reward that creates a protective class, then how come two of your teams that satisfy the assignment don't get the same prize? It's a circular reasoning fallacy where these clubs cannot drop to the five or six seed, but also don't reap the same benefits of a one or two. What in the world are they, then?

And you might come back with "Well, [Insert Team Name] didn't have as good of a record as the top two division winners." To me, that's too subjective. Were the schedules equivalent enough — in terms of who, when, and where common opponents were played — to unequivocally determine superiority? The lesser-quality team checked the same box as the others. The preseason goals were met just the same. 

I say that if you want to provide two byes per league, that's fine. Not my thing, but it's your prerogative. My simple follow-up is always going to be a staunch belief that the ratio of division winners and those receiving a bypass to the second round must be 1:1. The answer is right there in the question: "How many byes on this half of the bracket?" Two. "Okay, so how many are division winners?" Two. 

Like many of the best football (soccer) tactics over the years, you sometimes have to go backwards to go forward. In this context, it means a pre-1994 look to the MLB standings, but with the same playoff entry mechanisms of today. My proposed realignment looks like this: 

Playoff expansion should not come with any league expansion. I'll scream it until the day I die: An eight-team bracket in both the American and National Leagues would take too long, negate the need for any regular-season game quantity beyond 150, and also water down the exclusivity of Postseason qualification. Keep it simple, stupid. Six participants per league, two byes, and two best-of-three "play-in" series need to be locked in as the constants. 

The craziness surrounding 2020's Covid year gave us a glimpse at what a 16-team MLB bracket could look like full-time. And, while I understood the competitive balance need for it — in an abbreviated 60-game regular season — I never want to see the likes of it again. This wasn't professional baseball: 

The whole ordeal ran from September 29 to October 27, and that was with a best-of-three, best-of-five first two rounds. Expand that, slap it on the heels of a 162-game schedule, and even a Big League junkie like me would be saying "No Más!"

I'm here for Cinderella showing up in certain sports, but baseball has a unique limit on parity, in terms of fan appetite. The explanation is quite simple: What's the point of playing 27 days a month from April-September if an 8 seed can knock you out in two days? There's no tolerance for a mini losing skid. 

Worse, the 2020 Brewers were 29-31 and made it in, suggesting sub-.500 clubs would show up for Postseason play on an annual basis. Leave that nonsense for the small sample size of the NFL.

Allowing half the field to make The Dance isn't baseball's M.O., either. That's the NBA and NHL's schtick. Both leagues opened the floodgates to 16 participants in the '80s. Slowly but surely, expansion has brought down the percentage of those that do make it versus those that don't, but not to a point where any casual fan overly cares about the regular season. "Wake me up when we're in."

Now, with completed expansion, hockey is finally back down to 50% inclusion (16 out of 32). Much better than the 76.2% (16 of 21) first introduced in 1980, but still not my ideal. Fundamentally, a regular season doesn't accomplish anything if a majority advance.

In recent years, basketball has gone the opposite direction. With a new play-in tournament, 20 out of 30 NBA teams qualify for some form of the postseason bracket. Giving two-thirds of the league a chance at a title is a monstrosity.

Remember, we're talking about baseball. The 1968 pennant winners — Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals — didn't receive a hat and t-shirt for winning a Wild Card Series; didn't strap on the ski goggles and soak the clubhouse in champagne and beer. They just went directly to the World Series. Ho hum. That was only 55 years ago. A life without any playoffs in Major League Baseball is not exactly ancient history. 

Hell, the first Division Series didn't take place until 1995. Suddenly, we're talking about adding a full round in advance of that — in which no one gets a division-winning exemption? That's gonna be a "no" from me, dawg. Growing the playoffs from ostensible nothingness to 16 participants, inside of two generations, is a pendulum swing too extreme. 

The Goldilocks Principle asserts people of my father's age are equally wrong in the opposite way. Having no playoffs wasn't pinnacle baseball either. True, the objective was clearly understood by all parties on Opening Day: Finish atop the AL or NL and you earned that World Series berth. But old timers yearn for a return to this way of life because of selective memory. It's easy to look upon the format fondly in the glow of Championship years, when playing for a trophy meant there was no multi-round gauntlet to endure. What happens to that logic when the local ball club is 9.0 games back by the end of May? How quickly we expunge those occurrences from the mind. With only one way in, that is a real possibility. 

Thus, I'm proposing we turn back the clock, but not thaaaaat far.  

Impartially, many things have changed for the better since 1968. The Wild Cards are a beautiful blend old-school and new. They keep more teams in the hunt, deeper into the year — making a better on-field product. Teams like the 2023 Seattle Mariners aren't on life support, 8.5 games behind the West-leading Texas. Flip over to the Wild Card Standings tab and the GB shrinks to 3.0.  

This arrangement feels so organic to me. The fundamental building blocks to the plan have been living (albeit dormant) inside the sport all along. It is a Base Eight league; always has been. For 59 seasons of Major League Baseball, a fan/player/manager/owner could open up the newspaper to find their ballclub sitting in 8th place... and be none too pleased about it. And it may sound strange or sadistic to want to see this scenario make a comeback, but the context around cellar dwelling has changed.  

Using present-day wins and losses, the Chicago White Sox would be dead last in my proposed American League East. In the past, a 31-42 record deemed the product "impossible" to sell to fans beyond the Fourth of July. Those that fell to a depth of .425 this late in the season were viewed as too far gone, with too many teams to climb over; all-but mathematically eliminated by the All-Star Break. This is why, from 1923 to 1985, the Trade Deadline was June 15. Fire sales could begin much sooner. 

Unlike your grandaddy's eighth place, however, the White Sox wouldn't have to catch the 51-24 Rays. They'd have the "modern luxury" of needing only to run faster than the slowest — Houston's 39-33. After all, hope is a powerful economic driver. A last-place club potentially buying at the Deadline? What are world.  

The glowing example of how my proposal rights wrongs can be found in the San Francisco Giants from 1993. That club won 103 games, but did not qualify for the NLCS that year — still the only round of the playoffs at that time. It could be argued that denying the second-best team in all of baseball a spot in the playoffs played a role in everything that transpired over the 18 months that followed. This list includes the establishment of the Wild Card and six divisions, labor unrest over a salary cap and revenue sharing, and a vacant commissioner's chair.

Compositionally, those '93 standings were so clean — (4) seven-team tables. Picture that setup with one more in each. Offer up a "Best of the Rest" lifeline to those Giants, Expos, Cardinals, and Astros in the NL; Yankees, Rangers, Orioles, and Tigers in the AL. That's perfection. 

Unknowable for absolute sure, but my proposed game board would have provided that year's World Champion Blue Jays with equal (or better) shot at winning it, even with more challengers. That's because the Chutes & Ladders nature of the bye would have allowed them to skip an entire round. The survivor pool is down to eight before a division winner arrives. Dispatch of an 85-win Wild Card winner and the ALCS would have been the very same Toronto vs. Chicago it was in real life; perhaps an easier foe for the reigning champs.

Winning a division would return to its pre-1969 perks. For those that think the 1970s and 1980s were the best decades in baseball history, you'd be hard-pressed to find many World Series showdowns that weren't like it was back then: AL East or West Champion vs. NL East or West Champion. When implemented correctly, the byes are that powerful a chip to hold.

That's my hope for the next 4+ decades of pro baseball. The difference: San Francisco would have gotten scooped up and invited to the Postseason. And they wouldn't have stolen the 2 seed away from Philadelphia (that year's NL East Champ). 

We're not abandoning all old ways and turning this into a selection show, nor a BCS-style algorithm. We wouldn't need the playoffs if laying out the bracket becomes a "Tell me who the best teams are in order" exercise. October needs a little unpredictability or else why have a Postseason at all? It could run like most European football leagues or the NHL's Presidents' Trophy — reward being the best of the regular season. 

Those saying "The more Wild Cards the merrier" should be satisfied with my modifications, too. For the first time in baseball history, a fifth-place finisher in a division could potentially make the playoffs. Think about that. Very progressive and growth oriented.

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What Works For Football Doesn't Always Fit With Baseball

Undeniably, there will be some folks calling for an identical 8x4 structure of the National Football League. Not trying to sound 85 years old with this commentary, but a shift in rewarding mediocrity (i.e. making sure everyone leaves a winner) has been palpable in recent years versus youth sports in my day. Forget any separation between Generation X or Y (Millennials); as parents, they've blended together into Generation Participation Trophy. For Major League Baseball, handing out eight division titles on an annual basis would walk a fine line near that ideology. If everyone's accomplishments are special, then no one's are.  

Plus, outcome be damned, the optics of a 7-9 Carolina Panthers team hosting an NFC Wild Card match-up with the 11-5 Arizona Cardinals, back in 2014, aren't great. Sometimes over-dividing your total into too small of clusters is a problem. 

The use of eight division winners in professional football has more of a rationale because the sample size — to determine who is actually good in that parity-filled "any given Sunday" environment — is extremely small. For starters, teams not only fail to play everyone else in the league, but the version of the teams they do face could swing wildly depending on scheduling, which is dumb luck. In a sport that oftentimes comes down to a final possession, randomness like weather and injuries play a gigantic role in the result. And there's no coaches or media poll; no committee ranking system (like there is in college) that could apply a quality quotient to the win or loss. So, sure, your team carries a 10-3 record into Week 15... but can you proclaim with certainty that they're any good? Better be safe and let a bunch of teams qualify for the playoffs and let it shake out from there. 

Professional baseball's so very different. The runway is endless, meaning it shakes the  "contender vs. pretender" trope of football. You don't luck into 95 wins the same way a string of favorable ball bounces can flip an on-paper 10-win NFL team to a division winner. To me, this means the need to cast a wide net — four divisions per league, all with automatic access to the Postseason — isn't as vital. Not only that, it's never been part of the sport's DNA. My forthcoming examples, using the 2023 mid-term standings, suggest granting three division winners might already be unjust to better Wild Card options. Let's not compound it.  

My next challenge to that 8x4 plan: What in the world would you call these divisions without it sounds hokey or college conference-esque? Watching a pregame ceremony on Opening Day where a team raises a "National League North Champions" banner, for an 84-76 record, is as ridiculous as it sounds. You don't have to be a baseball purist to your core, like me, to say that. In fact, it is the casual fans that would roll their eyes the hardest at such mediocrity being rewarded. That's a lot of annual banners that would begin to feel like participation trophies. Remember that "winning the pennant" matters because there is only one up for grabs?

There are also some geographical quandaries that arise when you aim to make smaller groups of four. And before anyone says it: No, we should not do away with the National and American Leagues. That is to say no division should contain the Yankees AND Mets, White Sox AND Cubs, Angels AND Dodgers (I suppose). That's not a stodgy, inflexible, outdated hot take, either. I'm open to progressivism and adapting as to not die, but we have to draw a line somewhere. Traditional match-ups that could only exist in a World Series, especially those from iconic Fall Classics past and cities with two franchises, have to stay in separate leagues. Have to. 

If the assumption is that all current "American" and "National" affiliations will continue as is — and the expansion teams split up as one AL and one NL — then decisions become difficult rather quickly. Grab a map and give the futile exercise a go. How quickly we forget the NFL's setup doesn't "work" either; they simply prey upon old rivalries (Dallas being "East") and/or beat us into submission (Indianapolis being "South"). Baltimore is both south and east of Buffalo, yet the former gets to play in the AFC North. It's maddening when you really dissect it. To align under these monikers, Major League Baseball would have to perform similar Jedi mind tricks.  

It's reminiscent of Gary Gulman's state abbreviations bit. The task starts off so promising that it seems like it'll be buttoned up in five minutes. Working your way down the Atlantic coast, the AL East would consist of Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. Done. Easy. Even if Tampa Bay has to leave town for Montreal or North Carolina, the geographic cluster would remain the same. 

Similarly circling teams in the Pacific Time Zone, your AL West would be Seattle, expansion Portland (or Salt Lake City), Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Neat and tidy. Next.  

Clubs around the Great Lakes, east to west... Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago. Ope. What do you do with Minnesota? Which of those clear-cut Northerners are you throwing in the South with Kansas City, Texas, and Houston? This feels like a non-starter; all five cities are above the 41st parallel. So do you end up having to switch some NL teams to the AL? I don't know if the buy-in is there, as it would take more than one club to say "yes."

The same problems occur in the National League. An East with New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Miami (straight down I-95) is nearly identical to its American League counterpart. It works too well to not press on, right? The trouble is you run into all sorts of ways to conveniently cluster NL teams in threes and fives, but not fours. 

San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona, and Colorado — our contemporary NL West — are so isolated that dropping one is illogical; exacerbating an island effect. Colorado ain't exactly "North." Furthermore, Pittsburgh and Colorado being division mates would create one hell of a competitive/travel distance imbalance. Toss the Rockies in the NL South and you turn your back on a delightful 300-mile-radius circle you could draw around expansion Nashville that encompasses Cincinnati, Atlanta, and St. Louis.  

The solution is so much easier. American League cities west of the Mississippi [River] are West; east are East. The same is true-ish of the National League, with the exception of Milwaukee and Chicago. North America's longest river has conveniently split our country down the "middle" for centuries. It can continue to do so in the AL; that little plastic grocery store checkout divider just needs nudged over to Lake Michigan for the NL. 

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Analyzing The Future System Using Today's Data

The standings as of June 18, 2023 are impeccable at depicting my point. I literally could not ask for a better real-world example to show the differences between the current format and my proposed. 

Huge caveat: The records will undoubtedly change come September. We're not likely to see preseason contenders such as the Mets, Mariners, Padres, and Guardians stay buried in the middle of the pack all Summer. Similarly, there's a chance the Twins and Brewers start to pull away and make the records of the Central Division Champions respectable. 

The following is the crapola that would be bestowed upon baseball fans, if the season ended tonight. Ya know, after the city of New York hosted ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball for what felt like the 19th time this season: 

Here is what my proposal would turn the bracket into:

This feels like an eye doctor's "Which is better: 1 or 2?" refractive exam. I'm biased, but how could anyone argue against Option 2? Is the goal not to provide the lowest seeds with the longest odds to win it all? Yankee and Dodger fans would certainly detest me for taking away their easier paths to the Division Series. But that noise would pale in comparison to the hate mail I'd receive from supporters in Minnesota and Milwaukee. 

Those Central Division [Midseason] Champion Twins and Brewers would go from protected 3 seeds to completely left out of the playoff picture! 

Sorry, not sorry. Minnesota and Milwaukee are not playoff teams. Forget the eye test, anyone watching the game on a nightly basis knows neither 2023 roster would pass the smell test. A combined 73-70 record does not belong. These two are proof we don't need a token third division in each league to add more underserving participants. Adding a fourth division would only exacerbate the problem. 

So let's take a look at the 2023 Postseason match-ups of those that do make the mock cut, and analyze how the series improve (at least on paper).

People in Baltimore would be cheering the loudest; justly compensated for the sneaky third-best record in baseball. In reality, the Orioles' renaissance season is currently on pace to meet Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout in a short series. That's not fair at all. Only four MLB teams are currently playing .600 ball and Baltimore is one of them. The #4 spot in the AL bracket is commensurate with that level of production?

Those Los Angeles Angels have an equal gripe for being in that Wild Card Series with Baltimore. It's akin to that 6 vs. 11 match-up in the NCAA Tournament where you want both exciting mid-majors to advance. "It's a damn shame they have to play one another." A ripple effect of Minnesota's guaranteed 3 seed is the loss of a home series for both Baltimore and Los Angeles. 

The Yankees comes out smelling like a rose. [Eye roll] So typical. They were going to have a road series either way, but New York is slated to get the weakest possible opponent (in terms of win percentage and the strength of the division they hail from) in Minnesota. It's also a team they own in the playoffs. 

Dating back to 2004, the Yankees have won 13 consecutive Postseason games against the Twins — three sweeps and a Wild Card Game victory. Who wants to see another trouncing? And why is it New York, the last ones in, that is provided the most favorable match-up? Playing Minnesota would arguably be more conducive to a deep playoff run than a bye, because the wins carry momentum instead of rust building up. 

Since there is no re-seeding of Round 2, like the NHL did from 1994 to 2013, New York would also avoid playing Tampa Bay until the protection of a best-of-seven series (ALCS) existed. With one mild upset, the Yankees would circumvent the team with the best overall record altogether. 

For compiling the best overall record, The Rays' reward is looking like a best-of-five series against the team nipping at their heels in the AL East. Some prize. And the ridiculous part about this scenario is Baltimore and Tampa Bay wouldn't have been able to square off in the ALDS 15 years ago. The Orioles would have earned the one and only Wild Card, but divisional restrictions would have bumped them to a Central or West opponent. 

To be fair, Major League Baseball should have always allowed these intradivision meetings to occur, but now it comes across as hypocritical. Thus, one of the three teams in the objectively weaker side of the bracket (Texas, Minnesota, and New York) would play in the Championship Series, while either a Tampa Bay or a Baltimore would miss out. Strike one.

The bigger travesty, from Major League Baseball's popularity/image/branding point of view: The reigning champion, Houston Astros, would not be able to defend their title. Courtesy of a head-to-head tiebreaker I gave to New York (the Yankees and Astros haven't played any of their six scheduled games yet in 2023), Houston would miss the playoffs. They would do so despite being three games clear of Minnesota at present. 

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Astros has become a must-watch Postseason television. And Minute Maid Park has become a staple October backdrop for dramatic theater over the last seven seasons. Instead, treating fans to games in blustery Target Field sounds like a ratings swing and a miss. Strike two.

Change the names on the seed lines, but the exact same scenario is playing out in the National League. 

As punishment for underachieving, the 6-seed Los Angeles Dodgers would get to beat up on the Milwaukee Brewers — while their division rival San Francisco Giants would have to fly to Miami to take on a gritty, up-and-coming Marlins squad. How does that make any sense? The better finisher in the NL West would draw the tougher out. Conceivably, the Giants could tank the last few games of the regular season to back into that sixth spot. Strike three. Laugh and dismiss, but it's a plausible strategy; one that shouldn't have to ever be entertained. 

Part of the reason San Francisco would even consider it is because they, like the Angels in the AL, would be forced to travel when they shouldn't have to. So, if you're already destined to play a Wild Card Series on the road — with a ceiling that is the 5 seed — why wouldn't you play the match-ups and seek out the 6?

My proposal also allows the Phillies to sneak in and provides a glimmer of hope for repeat magic to their 6-seed World Series appearance last year. Having both of last year's pennant winners watching from the couch isn't right. Sure, they could be playing better baseball. But they're definitely playing better than Minnesota and Milwaukee.

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The Future of Major League Baseball Visualized

In a previous piece, I outlined how a Nashville MLB franchise (that feels inevitable) must belong with the National League. A simple map bears this out. Tennessee doesn't do anything to the American League's geography, other than keep Seattle on an island, and firmly place an expansion team on a new one. 

Nashville in the AL would also make the NL break up a pair like the Brewers and Cubs (for a second time in their histories), which doesn't make an overwhelming amount of sense. Coaching 101: Don't make moves just to make moves.

Relocating Tampa Bay is not something I want to do. But it becomes really enticing when you look at my AL East map. It's already so northern; Montreal would do so well in that cluster. Even a Southern city like Charlotte or Raleigh would bring its "center of mass" up 500+ miles. 

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Final Thoughts For Your Thoughts

Admittedly, the September standings won't look much like they do mid-June. However, seeing all five teams from the AL East do what they've done so far perfectly illustrates some hypothetical possibilities that the contemporary structure would be ill-equipped to handle. In other words, the wrong teams would be included and much of the seeding would be incorrect — undermining the whole purpose of the regular season. 

In short: A three-division format will always be broken if one isn't treated the same as the others. Having more division winners than byes works for the NFL, because it's not just a singular odd duck per conference. 

I'd be the first to admit the 2022 Cleveland Guardians didn't do enough in the regular season to earn a home series against Tampa Bay. They were the fifth-best win percentage team in the American League. Their geographic alignment earned them protection. Which begs the question: Why are we treating some division winners differently? We're half in and half out. Either rank it 1-6 solely on merit or eliminate all rewards for sitting atop a column in the standings after Game 162. This in-between is asinine. And the ripple effect runs all the way down the bracket. Every match-up dynamic changes because of it.

If you get down to brass tacks in regards to the intention of subdividing into (2) three-division Leagues, it was solely to protect owners. Smaller groups keep more teams closer to the top for longer. It was nothing more than a raise of the net below the trapeze; franchises couldn't fall too far out of contact with the leaders. More buyers at the Trade Deadline. More "We're still in this race!" More butts in seats around the time kids go back to school.

But then in the last two years, the expanded quantity of Wild Cards doled out rendered this ideology moot. Who needs the floor to raise if you have three additional Postseason spots that could care less what division you come from? Last place is no longer a death march. Real world example: There's not a single Boston fan paying any attention to the GB column (which stands at 14.5) in the AL East. With the Rays playing .700 ball, the only thing that matters from now until October 1 is the horizontal line separating sixth from seventh in the Wild Card standings. It's the cut line in a golf tournament. Unless you're playing them directly, Tampa Bay's record means nothing to you. 

Scoreboard watching would transition from games containing geographic rivals to those in places like Houston and Los Angeles. That doesn't seem totally right, either. So why not blend a little bit of the regionality back to this contemporary open access (i.e. college football independent status) to the playoffs?

That's the modern concept we'll keep. We'll now graft it off and stitch it up to the old ways. The current format has never worked quite right. But I believe it was simply ahead of its time. It needed the right divisional breakdown for it to really show off its capabilities. 

Go back to two divisions with byes the reward for winning. There would be fewer occurrences of a second-place team finishing above everyone else in the league. That, or seed every single playoff team on overall record and be done with it. Beginning two years ago, the NBA rescinded a vow it used to make to division winners — no longer guaranteeing them seeds 1-3 in each conference. The Utah Jazz, winners of the Northwest Division in May, were the West's 5 seed. 

Point is, even in a lopsided/topsy-turvy year, you could never call anyone that stands atop a division with seven names below theirs a fluke. The same isn't true in clusters of only four. Sure, there's a "Group of Death" every World Cup, but there's also a group that — purely on merit — shouldn't see any of its members advance to the knockout round. Only having to be better than three others leads to weak resumes slipping through. Over the course of the division's realigned history, winning the NFC [L]East has had folks questioning "Why do any of these four teams get to play football in January?" 

It doesn't take much to see how vital it is for current commissioner Rob Manfred to finally get this rectified. It's a sport that is a marathon until the very last mile, where it stylistically shifts to a sprint. Everything managers preach during the Dog Days of Summer is thrown out the window in October. Have your favorite team catch fire at the right time and you could watch them the Commissioner's Trophy and attend the parade. We'll never know who would have won some of those mid-'90s titles if the system provided proper order. Here's to hoping my children never have to speculate in this same way. All the logistics, right down the Minor League ladder, are already sorted: