MLB Playoffs 2011: 162-Game Season with 8-Team Playoff Is Ridiculous

Major League Baseball’s playoff system is joke.

If they are really going to stick with the ridiculous 162-game marathon of a season, more teams need to make the postseason.

It’s not fair to the 30 teams, and it’s not fair to the 30 fanbases to put them through all of those games just to have just over a quarter of them go through that rigorous grind to come up with nothing.

I know what you’re thinking, that only the best deserve to make the playoffs, but we are seeing good teams in tough divisions missing the playoffs in favor of scrub teams in bad divisions.

The most exciting playoffs that aren’t single-elimination like the NFL are the NBA and NHL playoffs. They both have 30 teams, just like the MLB, but have 16 teams compete in postseason play.

Some of the best games happen between 1 and 8 seeds and 2 and 7 seeds, as it’s always fun to watch an underdog upset one of the favorites.

Baseball does not give fans a chance to witness this, as their playoffs are too exclusive and selective.

This season, we saw the Atlanta Braves and Boston Red Sox narrowly miss the playoffs as the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays went on late-season runs to earn spots.

While that was exciting, how much more exhilarating would it be to see (hypothetically) the eighth-seeded Red Sox play the No. 1 Yankees in a seven-game series?

I really think MLB should cut down the regular season in favor of a 16-team playoff format with best of seven throughout the whole thing.

It would appease more fans, make more games ‘meaningful’ and cut down on the waste of time that is the regular season.

We can usually easily identify who is going to make the playoffs early in the season, so why waste time waiting until late September. It’s good for the game and good for us fans.