MLB Wild Card play-off, 2020

I dislike baseball’s play-offs, especially the fact that a team that finished second over a 162-game season can still win the World Series and be called a champion. I really dislike the addition of a second “wild card” team to the post-season formula this year, which theoretically means that a team can finish third and end up as a champion. Yes, I know this is the way it has been for decades in football, basketball and hockey, but they are lesser sports, after all.

Baseball’s rules for the new one-game play-off between the wild-card teams, however, marks a new low in baseball’s integrity. Since it the single game is a separate play-off round, the suits who run the game have decided that managers can devise a unique 25 player roster for that game alone, and reconstitute the team if it goes on to the next round, a three-out-of-five series. The practical effect of this rule is that two teams will face each other not only bearing insufficient resemblance to the teams that actually earned the play-off slot, but will also play with a roster that would be disastrous over the course of  a season. Continue reading →