MLB Postseason Expands to 10 Teams: 5 Reasons One-Game Format Is a Joke

Listen up, Bud. I see what you're doing. More playoff baseball is good for the teams, fans and business. It increases drama. It gives two more teams every year a shot at a Cardinal-esque late-season run.

Fantastic, really! And while I vehemently disagree that we needed the extra two spots, I can understand why you've made it official. But if you're going to do this, do it right.

Leave the one-game format for tiebreakers. Those are epic in themselves. Baseball is a game centered around a series, hence the grand daddy of them all, the World Series. What will one game really determine in this new format?

Two more playoff teams have the chance to go all Game 7 on each other in what is essentially a play-in game. That's going to create all sorts of problems. Read on to find out why:

1. It Renders the Regular Season Meaningless

Not completely, mind you. But if Wild Card team No. 1 has 90 wins and Wild Card team No. 2 squeaked in with 82 wins, why do they have a shot to knock off a team that legitimately earned a trip to the postseason?

This new format means that a team can kick butt and take names for 162 games, finish in the top four of their league, lose to a much worse team who just happened to be opportunistic and have everything they worked for stripped away.

Changing the playoff format seems like a knee-jerk reaction by the Commissioner to the 2011 season, when two contenders were eliminated on the last day of the season. I can picture Selig drooling over the missed chance of having Tampa Bay vs. Boston and St. Louis vs. Atlanta in a winner-take-all season finale.

2. It Rewards Teams for Finishing Further from First Place

Isn't the whole point of sports and competition to win? Well, under the new format, we are now potentially rewarding a third-place team with a shot at winning the World Series. In divisions like the AL East and NL East, this is a very real possibility.

Both divisions boast three serious title contenders (Yankees, Red Sox and Rays in the AL, Phillies, Marlins and Braves in the NL) and up-and-coming dark-horse teams (Blue Jays and Nationals, respectively).

So if you were using last season as an example, the Red Sox would have made the playoffs despite an awful late-season collapse that earned them nothing besides what they got—playoff expulsion. If you watched Boston play down the stretch in 2011, you would not tab them as a postseason team. Yet with the new format, it would reward them with a second chance to beat the Rays and re-claim their spot.

3. Anything Can Happen in One Game

Baseball constantly surprises us. We don't need to force drama on ourselves with more rule changes. If you've already forgotten how much shock and excitement it can bring out of nowhere, go find tape of Game 6 in last year's World Series.

As we've seen hundreds of times, anything can happen in one game. The Astros could beat the Yankees in one random game. In fact, if they play a couple interleague series, they probably will win at least once. So, why not make a series out of it?

Pitching rotations are set based on a series. Even a best-of-three series would be just fine. One weekend, three games. Imagine watching the San Francisco Giants' rotation battling against the Philadelphia Phillies' big three in a must-win series to determine the final playoff spot!

4. Only One Team Gets a Home Game

Right, give it to the fourth seed. I get it. What's the point, then? Is this like a "Hey, good job this year but we don't quite trust you yet. Prove it!" type of thing? Again, if you're going with the fifth seed, it needs to be more than one game.

With the new format, Bud Selig and company have essentially taken home-field advantage and injected it full of steroids.

Now, there will be two teams fighting it out for one final playoff spot. Except a team with 88 wins to the other team's 87 gets home-field advantage? That doesn't seem fair.

In every series of any major sport's playoff structure, both teams get at least two home games. That's the fair and correct way to do it. Because if you think the Colorado Rockies wouldn't stand a much better chance playing an all-or-nothing game at Coors Field than anywhere else, you're crazier than Selig.

5. It Decreases Drama Later

This is a quick fix. And a hurried response to the end of 2011. Why weren't the last couple days of those respective Wild Card races good enough for Selig? It had baseball fans on the edge of their seats all day, buzzing about the crazy finishes for weeks to come.

The reason having a one-game playoff will decrease drama later is this—it will essentially be a Game 7 for the two teams involved in each league. That means they will be starting their best available pitcher. I don't know about you, but pitching is the most beautiful aspect of this sport, and the new format directly challenges the prospect of big-time pitching duels in October.

Imagine the Tigers have to play the Yankees for that coveted fourth spot. Everyone and their moms know, if available, that will pit Justin Verlander vs. C.C. Sabathia. Great! Awesome matchup of two of the premiere pitchers in baseball.

But then what? Whichever team wins that game is almost forced to rest that guy until at least Game 3 of the next round. No thank you, say the baseball lovers like me.

The Format Must Be Amended

In conclusion, Selig's decision to add two extra Wild Card teams is more of a pain in the neck than anything. At the very least, if he's going to go there, it needs to be two three-game series. Not a one-game playoff.

The regular season holds a lot of meaning—each game could determine the fate of the playoffs. But that's why there are 162 of them. Why allow a third-place team to sneak in on a .500 record and knock off a legit contender in that one game? Remember, anything can happen on any given day on the diamond.

Besides, who wants to see Rick Porcello vs. Hiroki Kuroda in Game 1 of a division series? This guy doesn't.

At it's very root, allowing the one-game format to stand is ridiculous. The concept of trading home-field advantage is completely abandoned, as is the regular drama that goes with those playoff races in the regular season.