MLB’s proposal to expand the post season to 14 teams is a question for the future. With the implementation of changes contingent on the next round of collective bargaining, the status quo will likely remain for at least the next two seasons. So, instead of looking forward to what might change, let’s look back and examine how the proposed format would have played out retrospectively.
As the charts above show, adding two more wild cards does significantly lower the bar for the postseason in both leagues. By extending the format to a seventh seed (fourth best record for a non-division winner), the average minimum win total for that slot since 1998 would be a paltry 83 and 84 wins in the National League and American League, respectively. That compares to a respective average of 94 and 91 wins for the lowest wild card in each league under the current system.
In terms of distribution, the tug on the average is pretty strong. If the proposed system had been in place since 1998, 85% of the additional post season teams would have recorded fewer than 90 wins, and 30% would have had fewer than 85. What’s more, MLB would have been faced with the embarrassment of having four sub.-500 teams make the post season.
That the expanded format would lower the quality of playoff participants is clear, but how about fairness? Under the new format, the discrepancy between the average win total of division champions and the lowest seed would grow by nearly 10 games in each league (from 3 to 12 in the AL and 4 to 12 in the NL). Upsets are great, but by increasing both the instance and degree of disparity, the proposed format runs the risk of marginalizing the regular season. After all, if 80-win teams regularly get a chance to knock of 100-win teams, what exactly is the point of playing 162 games?
If the expanded format is likely to lead to lower participant quality and less fair outcomes, does it have some other redeeming quality? Perhaps, as some have argued, it will lead middle tier teams to spend more money on payroll in pursuit of the added playoff slots? It’s hard to determine how individual teams will react to the new dynamics, but history doesn’t augur well for either increased spending or improvement among the middle tier. As the chart above shows, the percentage of revenue allocated to payroll declined after 2011, when a fifth playoff slot was added, so the suggestion that expanding to seven will open team coffers seems dubious. Also, as depicted below, there really is no difference in seed-based totals before and after the addition of the fifth wild card in 2012. In other words, if teams weren’t compelled to chase byes and/or additional playoff slots under the last expansion, why would they be otherwise motivated now?
If history is a guide, it’s likely that the net result of MLB’s proposed post season expansion will be a less fair playoff format with weaker teams who have less incentive to spend money on payroll. That doesn’t sound like a recipe for increased interest, so if MLB is counting on more being merry, they could end up with a lot of unhappy fans.
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