Hockey Gay wrote:
The 1 game playoff is awesome.
The only reason people are discussing this is because god forbid the Yankees lose tonight. Same thing happened with the Cubs in 15 until they won it and then everyone stopped talking about it. No one talked about it last season.
It's partially the Yankee thing but also the disparity between the teams. This is the first year in a while that it's been more than 1-2 games.
Here is what Rosenthal wrote. I love the doubleheader idea, that's great.
Rosenthal: If Yankees or D-Backs lose, expect wild-card outrage—and calls for change; more news and notes
Ken Rosenthal
1 hour ago
Hoo boy, imagine the reaction if the heavily-favored New York Yankees lose the American League wild-card game to the Minnesota Twins tonight. The reservations many fans, players, and executives share about a 162-game season boiling down to a one-game play-in will burst out, fueling coast-to-coast debate and setting social media aflame.
Baseball would face immediate pressure to expand the wild-card round and prevent other superior regular-season teams from suffering similar fates. A new format also could include what Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz and many others in the game believe is necessary—a fairer, more rigorous wild-card round that would ultimately provide a greater reward for division champions.
Fans outside of New York would howl in protest over a so-called “Yankee rule,” accusing baseball of kowtowing to the television networks that, in search of higher ratings, want to show the Yankees as often as possible. I work for one of those networks, FOX, and yes, business is better when the Yankees are involved. But outrage will be just as warranted if the Arizona Diamondbacks lose to the Colorado Rockies in the National League wild-card game on Wednesday night.
Both the Yankees and D-Backs won six more regular-season games than their wild-card opponents—the Yankees finished with 91 victories, the Twins 85; the D-Backs had 93 wins, the Rockies 87. Only once since the inception of the wild-card round in 2012 has the spread between wild-card opponents been as large, when the Atlanta Braves won 94 games to the St. Louis Cardinals’ 88 that first year, and lost the one-game knockout, 6-3.
In each of the past six wild-card games—one in each league over the last three years—the difference in victories between the wild-card opponents has been one or zero. No real disparity, no cause for complaint. But the other issue with the wild-card game—that it is not enough of a hindrance for the participants—is a constant concern no matter what the final standings say.
Travis Sawchik of The Athletic recently wrote on Fangraphs about the two-game, wild-card round used by the Korea Baseball Organization (KBO); the higher seed needs to win only one game to advance, while the lower seed must win two. Joel Sherman of the New York Post expanded the concept, arguing for the wild-card round to remain one game only if the participants finished within four games of each other; otherwise, the round would follow the Korean format, giving the superior team the edge yet preserving drama for the networks.
Neither concept would extend the postseason, particularly if baseball employed a doubleheader and play the two games in one day. Smoltz, FOX’s lead analyst, offers additional suggestions—a best-of-three with a doubleheader on the second day or a best-of-three played on consecutive days. Either way, the off-day before the start of the Division Series would be removed, putting the wild-card winner at a major disadvantage with its pitching for the next round.
Think about it: If the Twins eliminated the Yankees by beating them twice, no one could rightly say the Yankees did not have a good enough opportunity to win. But if the Twins win a one-game elimination and/or the Rockies knock off the D-Backs, complaints will be justified, and not just from the networks. A team with six more wins than its opponent in the regular season should get a bigger break in the wild-card round.
I know what some of you are thinking: Ken, you would not be writing this if it were the Rays playing the Twins and not the Yankees. I’d like to believe otherwise; the circumstances would be unfair no matter who was playing. If the Twins pull off the upset tonight baseball will get the uproar it deserves—and needs.
Is this article supposed to be taken seriously? Cuz I'm having some trouble with that.