How might a college football or basketball style playoff work in MLB?
As we bask(?) in the crowning of the Dodger’s at the conclusion of the country’s least favored World Series and the ensuing offseason frenzy has just begun, I thought it might be fun to engage in the kind of hypotheticals that emerge in the immediate post-World Series media. Namely, were the World Series champions the “best” team that season or did they just have a good postseason? It’s an interesting question if for no other reason than it delays the inevitable discussion on free agency that seemingly always boils down to how much money one of the mega-market teams will spend on a single player. The question also hints at the blurred line between objective (X team led the majors in Y categories) and subjective (X team had the most talent or was the most rounded team in the majors) that can vex fans and pundits alike. There is an alluring finality to the champion also being the “best” team in the league rather than simply being lucky or streaky, but we need look back no further than the last iteration of the Fall Classic for a matchup between two teams that objectively were not the strongest on either side of the ball. That doesn’t mean either team was undeserving for reaching and winning the World Series, but it does create a limit on applying a “best” tag to either team. Given that the World Series is obviously not going anywhere anytime soon, it got me wondering if there were any alternatives that the league could explore – regardless of their plausibility.
Now that college football is entering its final month and college basketball is set to start in the next week, it got me thinking on how they recognize team accomplishments. In particular, I like the college tradition of crowning both a regular season champion as well as a postseason champion. It recognizes the distinctive differences between the two parts of the sport’s season while also awarding each team for their respective accomplishments. While there’s obviously a world of difference between them – beginning with the lack of compensation for the majority of the athletes in the college world – I still think there is some value in looking at how this tradition could be applied to MLB. The regular season and postseason in baseball are completely different beasts. Players, managers, and fans prepare and react completely differently in the postseason than they do in the regular season – rightfully so. Every play and outcome is magnified in the playoffs – to the point when an innocuous single or walk could elicit significant applause in the playoffs while only getting tepid recognition during a regular season game. That magnification is exactly what makes playoff baseball so compelling to watch, but would be emotionally and physically exhausting if it was sustained through an entire regular season.
For what it’s worth, as much as it might pain me to say it, the Dodgers do have a legitimate argument for being one of the best teams in the majors this year. They had the best record in the majors while fielding the best offense (by OPS) and a slightly above average pitching staff. But the baseball annals are replete with teams that were objectively middling and won the World Series (a la the 83-win St Louis Cardinals in 2006) while historically successful teams like the 116-win Seattle Mariners are footnotes. The small sample size and chaotic nature of playoff baseball create havoc, but do a poor job in determining which team was the best in a given year. Designating a regular season champion wouldn’t dilute the achievement of the team that won the World Series. In fact, it might provide some soothing salve for teams that had successful regular seasons, but were summarily bounced from the tournament like the Phillies in the last two iterations. We already do some version of this since many of the most prestigious awards (MVP, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger) are voted on and thus exclusively focused on the regular season. Why shouldn’t we expand that same formula to include the teams those players are on at the same time? We could just as easily have regular season champions from both leagues and then pennants won in the same way as they are now. I recognize that a sport that is so intrinsically tied to tradition is unlikely to support such a radical departure from that tradition, but it certainly provides interesting fodder for discussion. What do you think? Could some kind of change like this be possible? Is any regular season recognition worthwhile or is the World Series championship the only goal worth pursuing?