In my opinion, there are two benefits to the new Post Season Model in Major League Baseball.
First, winning your division means something. You don’t want to be put in a one game playoff.
Second, it makes the end of the season more exciting. This point isn’t as objective and benign as the first point, but it still holds true. Forcing these effective game 163’s, and increasing the chances of actual 163’s feels contrived and manufactured, but they are exciting.
Now the new Wild Card format feels classic like how the “World Baseball Classic” feels classic, but last night, as you know by now, an umpire call changed the course of the game, the fans started throwing objects on the field and the Wild Card game between the Cardinals and the Braves became legitimately historic.
To make a long story short, ball was hit to the shallow-ish part of the OF, fell between two fielders who thought the other fielder called it, and as it came down, the Umpire called the infield fly rule.
The reactions to this play generally call for one or two revisions to Major League Baseball. Some call into doubt the playoff system. Others call a revision for the infield fly rule and/or Umpire placements in the playoffs. This call was a direct result of an interpretation of the rule, but throwing out the playoff system is a disproportionate response.
Game changing moments in games that shouldn’t happen, happen all the time. They are usually hidden deep in a season or in a playoff series, so the reform movement doesn’t come up as much. What happened to the Braves sucks, but for the overall fairness of Major League Baseball, this new format is the best possible. It makes winning the division mean something, and a three game series would give the winner of that series a distinct advantage over division winners as well.
