DGS49
Diamond Member
The one-game Crash&Burn of the Pirates' 2014 season profoundly illustrates the folly of a one-game playoff in Baseball. The KC-Oakland debacle tells the same tale.
Baseball is not like other sports. Each team is almost completely re-constituted with each starting pitcher and the pitcher on the other side. With Steve Carlton on the mound, the 80's Phillies were a powerhouse; with anyone else, they were a laughingstock. In competitive football and basketball, the better team generally wins every game. In baseball, even the worst teams win 1/3 of their games and the best teams lose 1/3 of their games. Its the remaining third - tested over a long season or a substantial playoff - that determines which is the better team. A one-game playoff determines only that on that particular day, with those pitchers and under those circumstances, one team won a game. In short, it means next-to-nothing. In no way can it be even proposed that a single game determines which of the two teams is the better, or more deserving, team.
Baseball went too far when it added the second wildcard team. With a single wildcard, you had a playoff between the Division Champion with the worst record playing against the non-champion with the best record. It served the (sort of) legitimate purpose of preventing an excellent team from being frozen out of the playoffs simply because it had the bad luck of being in a superior division.
A "playoff," by definition is intended to determine which of the two teams is the better team. The One&Done in MLB does not do that and it is a sports abomination. It needs to be killed.
Baseball is not like other sports. Each team is almost completely re-constituted with each starting pitcher and the pitcher on the other side. With Steve Carlton on the mound, the 80's Phillies were a powerhouse; with anyone else, they were a laughingstock. In competitive football and basketball, the better team generally wins every game. In baseball, even the worst teams win 1/3 of their games and the best teams lose 1/3 of their games. Its the remaining third - tested over a long season or a substantial playoff - that determines which is the better team. A one-game playoff determines only that on that particular day, with those pitchers and under those circumstances, one team won a game. In short, it means next-to-nothing. In no way can it be even proposed that a single game determines which of the two teams is the better, or more deserving, team.
Baseball went too far when it added the second wildcard team. With a single wildcard, you had a playoff between the Division Champion with the worst record playing against the non-champion with the best record. It served the (sort of) legitimate purpose of preventing an excellent team from being frozen out of the playoffs simply because it had the bad luck of being in a superior division.
A "playoff," by definition is intended to determine which of the two teams is the better team. The One&Done in MLB does not do that and it is a sports abomination. It needs to be killed.