Time to rethink baseball's postseason format?

Paul White | USA TODAY Sports

St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright could end up on the second-best team in the major leagues this season but — with his team battling the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the National League Central — could be on a division runner-up.

Qualifying for the playoffs is one thing. Not being rewarded for six months of excellence — in fact, being placed in a tenuous position to survive — is another. And it's a question that splits major league players.

The Cardinals will be in the one-game wild-card playoff for the second consecutive season if they qualify without winning the division. In the American League West, the same fate could await the Texas Rangers.

"I would not recommend that game for anybody," Wainwright says.

Yet, his team could be there again despite outperforming leaders of other divisions. St. Louis is among the top eight teams, which were separated by five games entering Wednesday night. The top 13 teams were less than 10 games apart, and that list includes three teams each from the NL Central, AL Central and AL East.

For long stretches of this season, three Central division rivals – the Cardinals, Pirates and Cincinnati Reds – had the top three records in the National League.

Whoa, says Kevin Youkilis, who's spent most of his major league career in the AL East, which frequently had the two best teams in the league and often a third contender.

"You should have an equal opportunity with 15 (teams) and a wild-card game," he says. "It could be anyone. It could be the third team in the AL East. I have a hard time if the third-place AL East team has the same record as somebody in another division. Is it fair? Probably not."

But that's the way the current format works: Win your division, get in the playoffs and earn what amounts to a first-round bye - regardless of how mediocre your record.

That's what happened last season, when the 88-win Detroit Tigers won the AL Central, earned a Division Series slot and wound up in the World Series, while the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers - who each won 93 games - met in a one-game knockout. The Tampa Bay Rays won 90 and the Los Angeles Angels 89 games – yet both were locked out of the postseason.

This year, the potential inequities are even more pronounced. Teams in the same division could finish 1-2-3 in their league and two of them would be relegated to that one-game playoff.

For those who haven't experienced the one-game playoff, let Wainwright set the stage from last year's experience:

"Last year, we played against a tough Atlanta team in Atlanta, almost got killed by everyone throwing stuff on the field (after a disputed umpire's call). We faced Kris Medlen. At that time, he had won like 20 straight games. Luckily we had Kyle Lohse go out there and pitch a great game."

But the Cardinals really had no basis for a complaint last year. They had the worst record of the five NL playoff teams and advanced to within a game of the World Series. But to get stuck in that coin toss of a game this year - there must be a better way, right?

"Well, play better, I guess," Wainwright says.

The balance concept

While this is the second season with five-team playoff format, following the Houston Astros move to the AL, it's the first with two, 15-team leagues.

That concept, which requires interleague play every day of the season, was championed by the players' union for more than a decade because players wanted a more balanced schedule, one in which division rivals' schedules included the same opponents the same number of times.

That's why Wainwright, despite loathing the wild-card game as a player, prefers the status quo.

"It does place the importance on winning the division," he says. "Before, a wild-card team (in the four-team format) was given the same luxury as a division winner. It's not that way anymore."

Cleveland Indians designated hitter Jason Giambi, who has been on six division winners and three wild cards, agrees.

"With the Yankees, we were winning the division (with the AL's best record), and sometimes you couldn't even play the wild-card team because they were in your division," Giambi says of a playoff provision that no longer exists. "I've always said there should be a repercussion. You're a wild-card team. You're supposed to be at a disadvantage."

But, if wild cards are being determined by comparing teams from different divisions – or the scenario exists where a division winner could be weaker than a second- or third-place team in another division, why not take the balance concept to the limit?

Best five team advance

San Diego Padres manager Bud Black is intrigued by the idea of blowing up the divisions and simply having two leagues where the best five teams make the postseason.

"I would strongly advise our leagues to look at that scenario, and going back to a balanced schedule," Black said. "Then it's truly equitable, where you're playing everybody the same amount of times and you take the top five or six teams out of each league and then you have playoffs."

Black's 2007 Padres, back when there was one wild card per league, lost a one-game playoff with Colorado for that spot. The Padres finished with 89 victories, the same as NL East champion Philadelphia and four more than the Central champion Cubs.

Eliminating divisions would be a bit of a throwback to the days before the 1969 expansion, except with more than one team per league getting to the postseason. Until 1969, when divisions were created, only the regular-season league champions advanced to postseason play, which, at that time, consisted of just the World Series.

Now, having six five-team divisions makes for a more competitively equitable schedule, but it's far from perfect - and that's before considering logistics.

Players union executive director Michael Weiner said recently, "The schedule sucks, it truly does."

But he was referring to revenue-driven decisions that have teams playing night games before making long trips to the next day's game, or the flexible scheduling that allows Sunday games to be switched from day to night.

Finding a workable formula that combines balance and satisfies the calendar is challenging. Players themselves - let alone fans - find it difficult to keep up with the permutations.

So any radical alteration may never gain traction - unless coming seasons produce further inequities, real or perceived.

"There's no way you're going to even find a perfectly fair system," says Giants outfielder Hunter Pence, whose club won the NL West and World Series last season. "I kind of like it the way it is. Just play good baseball and you'll find your way in."