MLB Has A Postseason Problem, And Here Are Some Ideas Of How To Fix It | Ian Miller

October is here, and with it, MLB's postseason tournament. This season marks year two of the league's new wild-card format, meaning we now have more information on what it means for the playoffs moving forward.

And even though there's a few more games remaining in the division series matchups, it's safe to say that we know enough to form some conclusions. Especially with regards to what MLB's decisions mean for the value of the regular season.

In short, it's solidified that winning as many games as possible in the 162-game schedule is virtually pointless once you've done enough to make the playoffs.

Four teams, two in each league, were given byes into their respective division series, as well as home field advantage: the Los Angeles Dodgers, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves.

Through the first two home games of each series, those teams, who won an average of 99 games this year, went a combined 2-6. And one of those two wins required a miraculous 4-run comeback from the Braves.

It'd be easy to pass that off as a one year aberration...if the same thing hadn't happened in 2022. The 111-win Dodgers won one game, losing the NLDS 3-1 to the 89-win Padres. The 101-win Atlanta Braves lost their series 3-1 to the 87-win Phillies.

Between the two leagues, the team with the better record in the 2022 division series went 8-8 against the wild card teams. Including a three-game Astros sweep.

While there's nothing wrong or concerning with upsets or underdogs making postseason runs, it's become abundantly clear that MLB's rule changes have made the postseason even more of a random coin flip than it already was. And demolished the value of a dominant regular season in the process.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 09: Freddie Freeman #5, Mookie Betts #50, Miguel Rojas #11, and Max Muncy #13 of the Los Angeles Dodgers are seen during the fourth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game Two of the Division Series at Dodger Stadium on October 09, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

MLB Regular Season Is Pretty Much Pointless

The anemic performance of the 100-win, bye-having, home field advantage enjoying teams the past two seasons isn't surprising. Not because of some inherent flaw, or because those organizations or players are "chokers," or managerial flaws, but because that's how baseball works.

It's been estimated that in order for the better baseball team to enjoy the same likelihood of winning a postseason series as the better team in the NBA does in their playoff format, MLB would have to play best-of-75 series. Each round. Obviously that's not happening.

Baseball teams are too evenly matched, something that plays out frequently during the regular season. The Kansas City Royals won a series over the 100-win Dodgers this year. The division-winning Astros lost two consecutive series in September to the lowly A's and Royals.

If you put either of the MLB-worst Royals or A's in the playoffs, they'd win the World Series 5-6% of the time. The best team in baseball, this year the Atlanta Braves, wins it just about 17-20% of the time.

So why does this matter? In the abstract, it doesn't. Neutral fans don't care if the Dodgers, Orioles or Braves win the World Series as opposed to the Diamondbacks or Rangers.

But MLB has tangentially created a situation where the regular season has become almost entirely irrelevant. Because of the randomness inherent in small sample size tournaments, there's virtually no value in winning 120 games compared to 80, as long as you actually make it into the tournament.

What's the incentive for teams to try harder to secure a bye and home field advantage, when we've now seen in consecutive years that the bye and home field don't actually provide an advantage? When the inevitable happens, and a team with just 78-80 wins makes the playoffs, they'll be nearly equally likely to win a championship as a hypothetical team that won 125 games. Because that's how small sample sizes work. And it's making the regular season even less important than it already was.

How It's Changed, And How To Fix It

As MLB progressively expanded over the years, the postseason format changed dramatically.

For years, the World Series pitted the team with the best record in the American League regular season against the team with the best regular season record in the National League. Then as MLB expanded, they incorporated the league championship series, sending the two division winning teams directly to the ALCS or NLCS, with the winners advancing to the World Series.

Then the league expanded again, moving to three divisions, necessitating the addition of a wild card team. Then they added another wild card team. Then another.

The more teams that enter the tournament, the more random it becomes.

Now, with three wild card teams and three division winners, MLB's tried to give ostensible advantages for the division winners or teams with better records. Except we've seen that in practice, those advantages are functionally meaningless.

Just this year, the Rays hosted a wild card series and got swept. The Brewers won the NL Central and got swept in their series. Again, neutral fans don't care. But as this new format continues, many may begin to ask why they're spending hundreds of dollars to attend regular season games, when past a certain point, there's no meaning to them.

The Dodgers could win 100 games again next year, and lose in the NLDS to an 82-win Marlins team. Because that's how the sport works. But knowing that to be the case, why spend a fortune to go to a home Dodgers game in August when they already have an 95% chance to make the players? For team owners, why spend money in free agency when the difference between 82 wins and 120 is effectively nonexistent?

MLB could, and likely should, give teams more reasons to actively try and win more regular season games. By giving those teams who do try, actual advantages in October.

The league has shown it has no problem expanding the playoff schedule into November. So make the division series matchups a best-of-7, instead of 5. The more games, the incrementally more likely it is that the better team wins. They could also eliminate off days between the wild card series and the division series.

This year, because the Diamondbacks swept the Brewers, they had two off days to set up their rotation before the NLDS, meaning they'd have Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, effectively their only two quality starters, to pitch in games one and two. As well as the opportunity to have them start a combined four times in a five game series. Whatever minuscule advantage the Dodgers had with the bye was effectively nullified by travel days built into the schedule.

Heck, go further...give the top two teams in each league an automatic 1-0 series lead. It wouldn't guarantee a series victory, but it sure would make it harder for the wild card teams to win. And it would make upsets even more impactful and exciting. While providing an actual, meaningful advantage to teams that won 100 games in a season and won their divisions.

Not because the Braves and Dodgers should be the only teams to win a World Series, but because there should, and must, be some reward for consistently putting together successful regular seasons.

MLB Needs To Make Changes

Giving teams a real incentive to win more games is a good thing, regardless of who's doing the winning. If an 82-win wild card team still manages to win the coin flip tournament with actual disadvantages, good for them.

But whether it's due to the extended layoff after the regular season, randomness, bad luck, or some combination of all those factors, winning more games is the most irrelevant it's ever been.

This postseason is a perfect example. The Dodgers, assuming they don't make a miraculous comeback, are set to hold three of the six biggest postseason series losses in MLB history. Essentially, they've fallen prey to three of the six largest upsets, based on win total differential in the regular season, in baseball history.

Some will say it's because of "choking," and with how poorly the Dodgers have played in the past few postseasons, that may have some validity. But the actual explanation is that few other teams at any point in MLB history have even played postseason series with win total discrepancies this large.

If a team won 100 games in the 1930s, they'd play another team that won a similar amount of games in the World Series. And frequently lose. Winning 100 games in the 1970s generally meant you'd play another team with at least 95 wins in the league championship series, before facing another 95-100 win team in the World Series. And those exceptionally good teams would frequently lose.

Now teams that win 100-110 games play 83-84 win teams in October - and they still frequently lose. Because that's how baseball works. The Royals and A's win small sample size series over the Astros. The Rockies can, and frequently do, win three out of four games against the Braves.

Most fans don't care now, or dismiss concerns as only based on one particular team. But once it's their favorite team in the "win a whole bunch of regular season games and lose in the postseason to the 83-win Marlins" position for a few seasons in a row...they might. And they might start to wonder if it's worth paying attention to six months of baseball, or spending money on season tickets and parking and concessions and merchandise, all for games that, once past an 83-85 win threshold, have been rendered almost entirely irrelevant.

Time and time again, online baseball discussion centers around the fact that the postseason tournament is all that matters. For good reason. But MLB's chase for more revenue has made it even more random than it's ever been. And it's destroyed the regular season in the process.