Or more to the point, the so-called home-field advantage in the postseason is just that — so-called. So far this postseason it’s been proven to be completely false. Three out of the four American League playoff teams, the Yankees, Rays and Rangers, are a combined 6-0 on the road while, in the National League, the Phillies clinched their series against the Reds with a sweep-completing victory in Cincinnati and the Giants closed out their series with the Braves by winning twice in Atlanta.
Which brings us back to that nagging question, which commissioner Bud Selig has been loathe to address until just recently: With home-field advantage clearly not that much of an advantage, doesn’t there need to be more of an incentive not to settle for the wild card? I’m not sure if Girardi and the Yankees’ seemingly cavalier attitude about trying to win the division — and then winning their two games in Minnesota — was what finally prompted the commissioner to admit he’s taking another look at the postseason format. I only know when Selig says he’s going to consider adding two more wild cards to the process, to create a playoff between them to advance in the postseason, you can pretty much go to the bank on it happening. Soon. As in next year.
Ugh. First off, it would take hundreds of games to prove that home-field advantage doesn’t exist in the playoffs and not, like, ten. Look at the league splits this year: Home teams boasted a .559 winning percentage. Last year? .549. 2008? .556. 2007? .542. And so on.
Second, while adding a second Wild Card team in each league would have made this year’s boring AL pennant stretch a bit more exciting — adding an all-Sox battle to the mix and providing the Yanks with incentive to take the division — it also would have severely cheapened the end-of-season drama on the other coast in the Senior Circuit, allowing the Giants, Braves and Padres into the postseason instead of forcing the three teams to compete for two open spots.
And creating a system wherein Wild Card teams had to square off in either sudden death or best-of-three series to advance to the division series would only make the entire process significantly less fair.
In the case of this season, it would mean the Yankees — who compiled the second-best record in the American League while playing an unbalanced schedule in the toughest division in baseball — might see their world-championship hopes vanquished at the hands of an inferior team because of the whims of a short series or, even more ridiculous, a single game.
And then, from that point, it really wouldn’t be any safe bet that said inferior team didn’t go on to itself win the World Series, as — like Madden mentions — Wild Card teams sometimes do.
That’s what Madden is missing here. A five- or seven-game series among two good baseball teams is not nearly long enough to distinguish the clearly better club, and so the playoffs often come down to the whims of randomness — which team gets hot, who gets a few good breaks, what week Jeff Weaver decides to pitch like Cy Young.
That’s fine. It’s exciting, and it’s part of why we watch October baseball. But the 162-game schedule is a huge part of what makes the Major Leagues so awesome — it’s almost always long enough to firmly establish which teams deserve to continue playing into the postseason. Extending the playoffs to more teams would cheapen the first six months of baseball and only increase the likelihood that a less-deserving champion emerges at season’s end.
Tedquarters 
These arguements are stupid. Having the wild card can have 2 potential effects depending on how a season shakes out. Like this year it happened to make the AL east race a snooze fest. But it also juiced up the NL WC/West race. So this year ot worked both ways.
Like you said adding another wild card would be more of the same. It could provide more incentives for a team to play hard, but it could just as easily render and exciting race useless as you pointed out.
Just leave the darn thing alone. Although I would like to see baseball ditch the 5 game series, much like the NBA did a while back. I think that there’s just too much quirkyness in a 5 game series where some freak happening can swing thinks to much in such a short series. I think a 7 game series better determines the better team. Clearly the MLB wouldnt mind more post season games.
Great final point.
And this idea of home-field advantage being non-existent is hysterical to me. Baseball is the sole major sport where the rules of the game are altered to favor the home team.
Not to mention adding extra playoff games only makes the season longer, when it’s already too long to begin with.
To be fair, Madden didn’t say that there’s no home-field advantage in the playoffs. He only stated that home-field advantage in the playoffs is not significant enough to motivate a team to try to capture the division title rather than a guaranteed wild card spot. And I think that’s probably true, especially for a dominant team like the Yankees.
But I agree with your points about expanding the wild card – it runs into the same type of disincentive problems and probably lead to more mediocre teams finding a way into the postseason.
Establishing a balanced schedule, getting rid of the divisions, and allowing the top four teams from each league to advance is probably the only fair way to determine the most deserving playoffs teams, but I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.
To your point about the Yankees:
“…who compiled the second-best record in the American League while playing an unbalanced schedule in the toughest division in baseball — might see their world-championship hopes vanquished at the hands of an inferior team because of the whims of a short series or, even more ridiculous, a single game.”
i say tough…win the division. It should mean something. Otherwise just put the teams with the 4 best records in each league as seeds 1 through 4.
And oh btw… the Yankees feasted on the O’s.
I’ll submit, for your approval, my playoff-fix proposal:
1. Switch the Arizona Diamondbacks to the American League, and the Tampa Bay Rays to the National League.
2. Realign the league as follows:
NL East – Mets, Phillies, Braves, Marlins, Nationals, Pirates, Reds, Rays
NL West – Giants, Dodgers, Padres, Rockies, Astros, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals
AL East – Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Blue Jays, White Sox, Indians, Tigers
AL West – A’s, Mariners, Rangers, Angels, Royals, Twins, Diamondbacks
3. Division winners get into the playoffs. The 2nd and 3rd place teams in each division play each other in a one-game playoff in the home stadium of the 2nd place team. Winner goes to the playoffs; loser goes home.
So, you’d get four one-game play-ins every season. You could do two days of doubleheaders on TBS for this, and just condense the playoff schedule a bit, otherwise. (There should be fewer off-days for the sake of competition, anyway.)
It’s not particularly “fair,” per se, to let the season come down to one game. But that’s the type of system you’d need to revitalize divisional competition. No one would want to be in the play-in, if they could avoid it.
This method would also address the unbalanced schedule issue (you would only be competing for playoff spots against teams with the same schedules).
I realign only for the sake of geographic logic; it didn’t make sense to me to have the Brewers and Cubs in different divisions, or to break up the Cubs/Cards rivalry.