Imagine being a fan of the Tampa Bay Rays. You have the pleasure of watching a winning team night in and night out, but instead of living and dying with every pitch during this September pennant chase you are watching meaningless games played by a team with no chance of making the playoffs.
Should the best teams make the playoffs? This question has plagued Major League Baseball over the last few seasons and this year in particular. This season it is clear that the best ten teams will not be battling for October glory.
How are the playoff teams decided?
There are three divisions in the National League and three divisions in the American League. The team with the best record in each division qualify for the playoffs. Additionally, the two teams with the best record in each league to not win their division make the playoffs, though they are penalized for not winning their division by having to play a one game playoff versus the other wild card team.
Why doesn’t this work?
Each season some of the best teams in baseball are penalized unfairly by these rules. A prime example is seen this season in the Tampa Bay Rays. As of September 20, they have a 85-66 record playing in the historically tough AL East. This record would put them in first place in three of the other five divisions, as well as right in the thick of the NL wild card race. Instead the Rays are in third place in the AL East, 17.5 games behind the first place Red Sox and 7.5 games behind the second place Yankees. They are also 5.5 games out of the second AL wild card spot with only 11 games left, an all but insurmountable deficit.
The Cleveland Indians have already clinched the AL Central division with a record of 85-66, identical to the Rays. The Indians have undoubtedly benefited from an easy schedule, playing in a division with no other teams above .500. The Indians have only played 51 games versus teams who are over .500 and they have a record of 20-31 in those games. Meanwhile the Rays have played 72 games vs. teams over .500 with a record of 33-39 in those games. Clearly the Rays had to fight much harder and play much better than the Indians to earn their 85 wins.
These rules are unfair for the New York Yankees as well. Finishing in second place behind the Red Sox, who have had a historically great season, the Yankees will have to play a one-game playoff versus the Oakland A’s, a great team in their own right. The Yankees 91 wins would put them in first place in every other division except the AL West. It is a shame that such a good team will have to play a do or die game right off the bat while worse teams go straight to a best of five series.
History
This season is far from a perfect storm, these issues have persisted throughout the last few seasons. In 2015, the National League Wild Card Game was played between the 98-win Pittsburgh Pirates and the 97-win Chicago Cubs, the two teams with the second and third best records in all of baseball. When the Cubs beat the Pirates 4-0 in that game, the second best team in baseball that year was eliminated right off the bat. Then the 100-win St. Louis Cardinals had to play a best of 5 series with the Cubs, when in theory they should be playing the worst playoff team since they had the best record in baseball that year. Meanwhile, the Cubs were disadvantaged because they had to use their best pitcher, Jake Arrieta, against the Pirates, so Arrieta could only pitch once against the Cardinals. The Pirates and Cubs would have finished in first in every other division in baseball that season.
The 2006 St. Louis Cardinals won the NL Central division with a 83-78 record that would not have won any other division or wild card in the league that season. They made the playoffs and went on to win the World Series, the lowest win total by a World Series winner in the history of baseball. The MLB playoffs are largely a crapshoot where any team can get hot and make a run but one would be hard-pressed to say the 2006 Cardinals deserved to make the playoff that season when five teams that had better records than the Cardinals that season failed to qualify for the playoffs.
A Proposed Solution
Major League Baseball should restructure their playoff seeding so the best ten teams make the playoffs more consistently. Ignore division winners, take the top five teams from each league and seed them one through five. Make the Wild Card Games between the two lowest seeded playoff teams in each league, this way the teams being penalized with a one-game do-or-die game are actually the worst playoff teams. It is a simple solution that would make things more fair for teams like the Rays , a very good team in a great division that will be watching the playoffs from the couch this winter.
2018 standings as of 9/20 from MLB.com
2015 and 2006 standings from baseball-reference.com
Full Count 
I enjoyed your insight on the MVP race in both the NL and AL. My choices would be for Christian Yelich and Mookie Betts. I believe that the second half of the season Yelich had was one of the best I have seen. He lifted up that entire team and pushed them throughout their run in the playoffs. Mookie also had a great year and is deserving of the MVP. I followed the red sox for the duration of the season and Mookie was their catalyst all year long. He provided superb defense and a lot of home runs to fuel their World series run. While the Red Sox were an extremely talented team, Betts still was the best in the league when healthy.
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