Creating a crapshoot.

 

So, for the third straight season—and the fifth straight, if we take out the Covid season—the team with the best, regular-season record in the National League did not even make it to the NLCS. 

Or, as some MLB announcer put it in a tell-tale description, "the first seed" didn't make it. As if major-league baseball is like any other pro sport, or maybe the NCAA tourney.

It hasn't been quite as bad in the Junior Circuit—but 3 AL, "no. 1 seeds" have also failed to make the ALCS over the past seven seasons now. In 2023, the teams with the top three records in the majors—and the only 100-win teams—were all eliminated before they even reached the league championship series.

This has been attributed to many things: the long layoff that the division winners get as a "reward." The shorter series that the teams play, earlier on—which, ironically, make it MORE likely the lesser team will win in baseball. 

Various ideas have been submitted to do something about this. I would favor adding two more teams, dividing the leagues into four divisions of four teams each, then having only the division winners in the playoffs. They would all play seven-game series, in each round.

Under this format, nobody could get to the playoffs without finishing first in something. 

But I doubt if MLB is looking for a "solution." The current system gives the likes of Brian Cashman a rationale to hide behind:  "Just make the playoffs. It's all a crapshoot."

More and more, he's right—though this still doesn't account for why Houston is going to its seventh straight ALCS (Hint: J.V.). But more importantly, the format allows MLB to sucker fans into thinking that their team can finish third in their division and still have a fair chance of taking the World Series. Everybody into the pennant race, gang!

It's lotto baseball, and don't forget, you can still win something getting three in a row or the powerball number.

To me, this is to distort one of the great joys of baseball, which is the long season. Baseball, everyday, for six months. Baseball that means something—at least for teams that have reached a certain level of excellence—and baseball that ends with a meaningful championship. Or wonderful, excruciating heartbreak.

Baseball without the long season meaning much is a long day's journey into Hohumville. For better and for worse, baseball isn't football or basketball, and it can't be those things. It shouldn't try. Those of us who actually follow and love the sport know that, frankly, even back in the Two "Playoff" Team era, the World Series was already something of a crapshoot. You knew the best team through six months of hard-fought play.

Nothing could take that away. 

What's worse, Crapshoot Playoffs reflect the way the game is played today. Batter by batter, pitch by pitch, baseball has become a giant crapshoot. Strikeout or home run, with each roll of the dice. All greater skill and subtlety is eliminated.

So it is with what we have in this pathetic wreckage of a playoffs today, where Arizona or Texas could easily be World Champs. 

C'mon, seven and eleven! Rooting for the numbers makes as much sense—and gives as much joy—as watching these champion frauds.