Is the Second Wild Card the Problem?

by
February 16, 2018

I have wondered about this. Unlike my other articles this is going to be less analytical so don’t be mad at me and maybe discuss in the comments. There is a lot of talk about why middle ground teams are not investing to get better.

Now, of course, competitive baseball is better but we also can’t expect teams to fight a futile fight. We do now have better projections, aging curves and other stuff and we can’t teams to just act like this didn’t exist. Winning should be the goal but throwing away the future doesn’t make sense either.

In theory, the second Wild Card is another playoff spot but in reality, it is really only half a playoff spot. There is value in the Wild Card but teams are not really attacking it preseason, they will wait and see and then maybe make a small deadline move. It really isn’t worth to throw away the future for a 30% or so https://www.fangraphs.com/community/the-pirates-and-the-value-of-being-around-500/ chance of reaching a coinflip game if you are a .500 team.

The second Wild Card has mostly hurt the first Wild Card team and it has increased the incentive to be a super team especially in a weak division. IMO,  being a super team is too big of an advantage because there is also less risk to being in being kicked out by a weakened Wild Card team that has used its ace in a one-game playoff.  And at the same time there is too little reward for being the fourth best team.

That means teams either try to tank to become a super team or they try to stay a boring .500 team doing not much hoping to occasionally luck into a Wild Card like the pirates might want to do now.

We can’t just force teams to spend money foolishly, if we want teams to spend more and try to be competitive we need to actually increase the incentive to win as a non super teams and maybe also punish the super teams with a little more variance.

Now of course not anyone wants that. Some like the best team to win and baseball already has some of the more luck influenced playoffs but if you want teams to compete you need to change the rules.

One possibility would be doing away with the second Wild Card so that being the Wild Card really guarantees a playoff spot. Another thing you could do is doing away with the divisions and make it top 4 per league directly to the playoffs or maybe even use NBA-style 16 team playoffs (although that would be too much variance for me).

IMO we shouldn’t talk so much about punishing bad teams but about making good not great more lucrative. Currently, 2/3rd of each league just have little inventive to be buyers because the super teams have too much of an edge and the second Wild Card might have increased that division.

The second Wild Card was a good idea but teams have really voted with their feet and decided the second Wild Card is not a full playoff spot and thus not worth chasing with a lot of resources.





 

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tb.25
6 years ago

I’m mad at you.

Just kidding! I think another potential solution is expansion. Bringing in two new teams would require a massive overhaul of the MLB landscape, but can result in 4 divisions of 4 teams per league. That alone would increase competitiveness, as each playoff spot would be 4 teams competing, versus the current structure of one spot fought over by 6 teams.
Whether or not there is also a wildcard would be dictated by the desired playoff schedule – a wildcard team could enable a top team bye from a round 1 three game series, for example.

3
evo34
6 years ago
Reply to  tb.25

IMO, the last thing we need is for the best of four arbitrary teams to be awarded a playoff spot.

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Dominikk85member
6 years ago

I get you but then again expanding by two more teams that 2 more teams can’t win a WS that year and if it is the same number of playoff spots not make the playoffs. We already have small market teams that can’t afford or claim to not be able to afford, so wouldn’t an expansion mean even more crying poor teams?

Or do you mean to have a 16 team post season after that expansion?

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tb.25
6 years ago
Reply to  Dominikk85

Four divisions of four teams, with each division winner going to the playoffs. That’d be 8 teams. Add in a wild card team, and that would be 10 teams, which would in theory reduce competitiveness (10 teams out of 32 versus the current 10 our of 30). However, rather than divisions of five teams competing for one/two spots, divisions of four teams competing for one/two spots could actually increase the competitiveness of the sport despite a lower percentage of teams reaching the postseason.

Though, the more I think of a wildcard team, the more I realize we’d need three wildcard teams to get a top-team bye – with a bye, we’d need six teams to compete in round one, then there’d be three in round two plus the bye team, so four, then two then one.

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Stovokor
6 years ago

I’m not sure I follow the logic. Baseball inherently involves a lot of variance. There is only a 20% winning percentage differential between the best and worst teams, so when we’re talking about playoff teams, the margins are very slim, and luck plays a big role.

Given that, when is it ever not a good strategy to construct a super team? The incentives haven’t changed regardless of how many rounds of playoff baseball or whether the wild card team has used its ace. You always need every advantage you can get.

What HAS changed is that front offices are savvier than ever. They are analytically-inclined and leave no stone unturned when it comes to roster construction, fielder positioning, player development, scouting, and usage patterns. Teams are maximizing their chances of winning a WS like they never have before. This includes medium-term strategy.

By definition, there can only be a few (lets say 6ish) legitimate WS contenders out of 30 teams. For the non-contenders, rebuilding has always been the optimal strategy. More teams are doing it now because of the simple fact that front offices have never been more competent.

MLB’s structure (and this applies to US sports, generally) magnifies the issue because: i) it’s a cartel, so you’ll never lose that sweet, sweet tv revenue, ii) losing is incentivized by the draft and revenue-sharing, iii) the draft and player control system heavily incentivizes loading up on younger, cheaper players. Could go into this further since these are the real issues, but they’re also highly unlikely to ever be addressed because the owners have created a cash cow for themselves and obviously will preserve it at all cost.

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evo34
6 years ago
Reply to  Stovokor

“By definition, there can only be a few (lets say 6ish) legitimate WS contenders out of 30 teams. ”

This is true mid-season, but not really pre-season, when the most important roster moves are made. For example, no one was picking World Series teams, Cle (2016), NYM (2015), KC (2014), Bos (2013), or StL (2013) as top-6 teams in the pre-season.

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Josh.Kester
6 years ago

If they continue with 2 Wild Card spots, a potential adjustment could be the 3 teams with the top records get in while the 4th and 5th place teams fight for the final spot. In the season where the Cardinals, Cubs, and Pirates all had the 3 best records in baseball, the Cubs and Pirates had to fight for the last spot. With this rule change, they would have guaranteed spots while the other division winners would fight for a spot. This would incentive teams who are clear division winners to get better to guarantee them a full spot in the playoffs. Ties would benefit division winners.

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Aduhey
6 years ago

The JOE FAN inside of me wants each division to play meaningful baseball in September. I am already assuming the NL East race will be over realistically before September.

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