DownSwinging.com

I know this is a few days old and many others have already commented on it, but I want to catch up on articles I wanted to write. Anyway, Peter Gammons wrote a short piece for with the idea that baseball expand its playoffs to ten teams. The idea being that there were no good playoff races this year (as I wrote about a little while ago, even before the Rockies pulled away from the NL wild card pack) and that in order to make things interesting, for the sake of baseball, to make two wild card teams in each league. And I could not disagree more.

This is just one season where there has been little pennant race action, and in most others, it comes down to the wire in multiple division. Overreacting to one year that is basically an anomaly is bad thinking, and seems particularly strange for someone like Gammons who has been around so long.

No, what is more important is maintaining the integrity and meaning of the regular season. It’s a concept that is completely lost on those who follow the NBA or NHL, because such a high percentage of their teams make the playoffs. While those sports complain about baseball’s long schedule, at least baseball actually plays a season that matters. Might as well give all the good teams a bye in the NBA for the regular season, and make the middle eight or so battle it out to see who can be eliminated in the first round anyway.

Baseball is so unpredictible, you want it to be hard to make the playoffs. Very hard. And that’s how it is. And that’s how it should be.