NL Wildcard; Surprising Teams Making a Push

Two teams that made the Playoffs in 2011 are making a surprising surge for the second Wild Card spot. 

Don't look now but the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers are both sitting at 72-71 and find themselves 3 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for that, new, second Wild Card spot. The Phillies have won 7 straight and 8 of 10 while the Brewers have won 3 straight and 7 of 10.

Both teams appeared to be an afterthought this season after they both won their respective divisions in 2011 (they both lost to the eventual World Champion Cardinals). On August 1st the Brewers were 11 games back of the Wild Card while the Phillies were 12 games back.

Now here we are on September 13th and both teams enter play with a realistic shot to advance to the one game playoff for the right to enter the NLDS. But can they do it?

Never mind that. Here's the real interesting story.

Bud Selig has accomplished exactly what he set out to do and that's create more playoff excitement in more cities for a longer period of time. If there was only the one Wild Card spot available the Atlanta Braves would hold it and have an 8.5 game lead over both teams with 19 games to play. It seems as though that lead would be a little bit more difficult to overcome at this point. So give Bud some credit there. Fans in Milwaukee and Philadelphia are getting a little September magic and even if their teams fall short of the Wild Card it's certainly more interesting to watch when there's something on the line (never mind the fact that both teams have been under .500 for the majority of the season and are still just .500 clubs now).

Here's my quarrel with the whole situation - and has always been my worry ever since the second Wild Card was announced - suppose the Phillies or Brewers do win that second spot and end up beating the Braves in the one gamer. Then what have we learned? Aside from the fact that MLB has created an artificially dramatic one game playoff in an effort to recapture the magical end to the 2011 season it is rewarding mediocrity. A one game playoff is an absolute crapshoot. The Braves who have been the far superior team all season long now have to face an added, inferior, obstacle in order to advance to the playoffs. Yet it is entirely possible that they could lose.

It seems to me that this system is in theory a great idea but in practice is problematic.

If you look at the AL it is working like a dream. Two games separate the Orioles/Yankees and leading A's. Out of those teams it's likely one will win the AL East and the other two will take the Wild Card spots. Fantastic. Both teams deserve to there they've had great seasons. In the old system one would obviously miss the playoffs in an heartbreaking end to their season. At least now they'll have one final shot to really make the playoffs. That's the good.

On the NL side you could potentially have a 90 win team (the Braves) facing off against a team that's floating around the .500 mark. The Braves clearly deserve to be in the playoffs. The team floating around the .500 mark, um, not so much. Yet here we are with the realistic possibility that the Braves could find themselves on the outside looking in at a team that should never even come close to making the playoffs but did because of the added Wild Card. To me, that's the bad.

I want the best teams in the playoffs. I want a team that's grinded out the best record over the 162 game schedule (or at least the second best record if we're talking Wild Card). Otherwise what's the point of the season? I don't want the team that had a great run in the final two weeks and just pushed their record above .500. Despite that they're still a mediocre team at best.

If we just want a dramatic finish let's just forget the whole season and just pit every team against each other in an NCAA March Madness style playoff.

The 162 game schedule is in place to weed out the pretenders from the true contenders, is it not? I guess not anymore.

In theory the added Wild Card is a fantastic way to allow more franchises an opportunity to compete and offers fans exciting, meaningful and quality baseball until the very end. In practice it rewards the undeserving and does little more than provide additional revenue.