MLB Eliminates One-Game Playoffs In New Playoff Format
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Amid the excitement stemming from Thursday's positive news in baseball, a key aspect of the postseason might have gotten overlooked. To put it succinctly, one-game playoffs have gone extinct.
The league and the union agreed on a 12-team postseason field, with six teams from each league making the playoffs. The division winners with the best records will get byes to the divisional series, while the lower four teams in each league will compete in best-of-three series (3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5) in what is now called the wild card round.
That new format eliminates the one-game wild card game that MLB added in 2012 as a way of driving up excitement, fan interest and on-field urgency to begin every postseason.
But that's not at all. Because of the expanded playoff field, there will be no more real one-game playoffs, either.
In the past, in order to resolve a tie at the end of the season, the involved teams would play a 163rd regular-season game to determine which team went home and which team moved on. Now, instead of a de facto one-game playoff with everything on the line, final spots will be determined by specific winning percentages from the season.
It was these organic instances of high-drama that inspired MLB to institute the scheduled one-game playoff format in the first place. These didn't happen every year, but when they did take place, the October drama was unrivaled.
The 2018 season required two such games in the National League, with the Brewers beating the Cubs to win the NL Central and the Dodgers beating the Rockies to win the West. The Rockies then beat the Cubs in the one-game wild card, ending Chicago's season. The Brewers and Dodgers went on to play a seven-game NLCS.
MLB held 163rd games in 2013 (Rays-Rangers), 2009 (Tigers-Twins), 2008 (Twins-White Sox) and 2007 (Padres-Rockies). (We're still waiting for Matt Holliday to touch home plate in that last one.) Historically, of course, Bucky Dent launched his famous -- or infamous, depending on your zip code -- home run over the Green Monster in Game 163 of the 1978 season. The Yankees would end up winning the World Series that year. The Red Sox did not.
Prior to 2012, the one-game tiebreakers obviously didn't happen every year. But when they did happen -- or, more often, when they loomed as a possibility through the final week of the season -- they produced a unique level of drama that was impossible to replicate.
Alas, they are now a thing of the past. The league can make more money with more teams in the postseason, thus watering down the playoff field. It's appropriate, then, that the drama is watered down with it.