Expanded Wild Card Is Bad News for Sox Fans

Certainty is boring. Near certainty isn't much better.

USA Today says

The winner of the one-game playoff between the two wild-card entrants will face the team with the league’s best record in the Division Series. The expansion is designed in part to place a greater reward to the six division winners.

Fine. Great for other teams and competitive balance. But bad for the Red Sox, who are now a virtual lock for the playoffs every year.

Baseball Reference has the standings for every regular season. By my quick count, there were only two years in the last 10 when the Sox would have missed the expanded Wild Card net. Baseball's most loyal fan base (and arguably most lucrative, with the sellout streak) is now asked to spend 162 games rooting for an 80% certainty.

Imagine you're watching Star Wars, and you hear:

"Only a precise hit will destroy the Death Star."
"How precise?"
"80 percent of its surface area. The other 20 percent is -- "
"I got it. That's a relief. Let's go."
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz (from the next seat)

How excited are we supposed to get when the Sox can finish third in their division and still sneak into the postseason?

This is not sustainable. It is a mistake. Baseball is not football. The season is a long haul that has to compete with summer. We need the suspense of a pennant race.

If you want more playoffs, make four divisions and take the winner of each one. That has its own problems, of course, and you might need to add teams that will stink for years. But we can fight the Evil Empire all year long, or hope someone else picks them off in the first round. No fun.

Pictured: MLB's new office. It has enough firepower to destroy an entire season.