Years from now, we will be looking at Major League Baseball’s second Wild Card as a blessing. We will wonder how the game’s postseason ever existed without it. It opens the field of playoff contenders and promises the excitement, intensity and buzz that many think baseball lacks. And yet, hardly anyone in baseball likes it.
Beginning in 1994, MLB included one Wild Card team from each league into its playoff system. Those two teams joined the six division winners to make an even eight-team bracket. But in later years, teams had started to run away with the Wild Card. Interest was low as postseason spots were wrapped up in early September and playoff races became runaways.
And so the second wild card entered in 2012. Each league now has two Wild Card spots, allotted to the two best non-division winners. Those two face off in a winner-take-all, win-or-go-home, heart-pounding Wild Card Game. One game. This is baseball’s equivalent to March Madness, short lived though it may be. When attention in playoff series has been lacking, for two nights the sporting gods shine a spotlight on baseball, on every pitch and every error and every bundled-up fan willing the team to victory and a chance in the next round. It is just what baseball needs.
And yet since its inception, the second Wild Card has endured critics from every area of the sport. They say too many bad teams are in the playoff hunt. They say the Wild Card Game should be a three-game series. They say it is in fact more exciting to have only one Wild Card spot, making the regular season more important and leaving two teams to duke it out down the stretch in September.
Those arguments are not unfair, but are perhaps misguided. There may be too many bad teams in the playoff hunt, but this new system makes room for teams to improve. On September 1, there were four teams within five games of the second Wild Card spot. The second team, the Anaheim Angels, had a 66-66 record. Not great, but not terrible. Anaheim was 3.5 games out of the second Wild Card at this point, and a whole seven games behind the Yankees, who held the first Wild Card spot. In the old Wild Card system, Anaheim would be out of contention. Picking up seven games on a team in one month is near impossible. 3.5 games is a lot easier.
Anaheim finished the season within a hair’s breadth of the playoffs, losing out to Houston on the last day of the regular season. With only one Wild Card spot, Anaheim would have been eliminated from playoff contention far earlier. They may have had a .500 record in early September, but they made a run, finishing with a respectable 86 wins. If they were out of contention at that point, the room to make a run would not have been there. Their season would have effectively ended much earlier, and they would have packed up their bags. Mediocrity in early September does not a bad team make.
But, those curmudgeons say, forget about the Angels. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to have all of these teams fight for one spot? When the top two Wild Card teams wrap up their places in the postseason, there’s nothing else to watch. Those two teams should contend for one spot.
Maybe, but doesn’t this format also make winning the division more important? A team winning its division means that it gets to skip the Wild Card Game and can move on securely into the first round of the playoffs. In the old system, it didn’t matter how a team got into the postseason—as long as a team made it, they had an essentially equal chance of succeeding. This new system puts a premium on division titles and makes these races much more exciting.
Even though the Blue Jays and Yankees appeared as locks to make the playoffs back in August, their fight for the American League East has been a must-see offensive slugfest. Over the last few weeks of the season, Texas, Houston and Anaheim all played an intense game of musical chairs at the top in the AL West. Though its playoff hopes had been cemented nearly all year, Pittsburgh had to put up a fight with St. Louis to brush past the Wild Card Game. The second Wild Card may be determined early on, but with the Wild Card Game, there is more focus on how a team gets into the playoffs, not just that it does. Such a system creates more buzz, as it puts more onus on winning the division.
Fine, these stick-in-the-muds may say, but baseball is not a game of isolated matchups. The regular season is made of three-and-four game series between teams, and the postseason should be the same. It is not fair to have these two Wild Card teams fight it out over the stretch of 162 games, and then have their seasons depend on one game. To them, I say, Who cares? Do we watch sports for fairness, or for excitement?
Last year, each league’s Wild Card Game was by far the most-watched playoff game before the World Series (and even rivaled some World Series games in viewership), and there are always classic October moments. In last year’s American League Wild Card Game, Oakland tragically gave up a four-run lead in the eighth inning and eventually lost to Kansas City on a walk-off hit in the 12th inning.
In the 2013 National League Wild Card Game, the baseball world stills remembers when Reds starter Johnny Cuteo, unnerved by chanting Pittsburgh fans, shakily dropped the ball on the mound and gave up a home run on the next pitch.
In a prolonged series, these plays would be lost in our collective memory bank. But the intensity and finality of the Wild Card Game focuses all of our attention into a special few moments. They stick with us and continue down in baseball lore because they mean something. They carry more importance.
There will be more moments like these, moments that remind us of the raucous October crowds and the weight of each pitch. The second Wild Card is perfect for baseball and will continue to add that autumn magic for years to come. •
