Impact of Postseason Format on Top Major League Baseball Teams

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00:00More in the National League than the American League, but it probably applies to both.

00:07If you look at last year's National League postseason, there were two great teams who

00:16were head and shoulders above the entire NL, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves.

00:26Last year, they were the only 100-win teams in the NL.

00:31The Braves were 12 games better than the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Dodgers 8 games better.

00:39Those teams, in fact, were two of the three teams that we saw win 100 games, with Baltimore

00:45in the American League being the other.

00:49Again, that kind of goes to the point I'm going to make, is of our three 100-win teams

00:56last year, none of them played in the champion series, AL or NLCS.

01:05That cannot be.

01:08Those teams have home field advantage and play in one series before they would be able

01:14to then advance to the CS.

01:18If you look at it, the changing postseason format, we have not seen that buy be a benefit.

01:28There's legitimate arguments building that it is a negative.

01:32This season, if you look in the American League or even in the National League, there's not

01:38as big of a gap.

01:4098 wins for the LA Dodgers ends up with them having the top record in the NL, top record

01:46overall in baseball.

01:47Philadelphia Phillies at 95 wins is the second best record in all of baseball.

01:53Those 95 Philadelphia Phillies victories, it's just one more, or two more, excuse me, than

01:59the Milwaukee Brewers.

02:01However, the Dodgers and Phillies, just like last year with the Dodgers and the Braves,

02:10have spent all season as the two best teams in this league.

02:18I am not telling you that if one of them doesn't win the World Series, the format is a sham.

02:27I'm not even telling you that one of them has to represent the NL in the World Series,

02:35though I think it should play out that way.

02:39If we once again get to the NLCS and we are breaking down a matchup that doesn't involve

02:51both the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, that is a huge problem.

03:00Again, I think they both should get there, but the fact that last year neither Atlanta

03:07or LA were there is a massive red flag to their format.

03:12It is, and it is not to say that, oh, I can't stand upsets.

03:19I'm not doing something where, oh, TV ratings wise, you're killing us by getting these other

03:24teams in.

03:25It's not that.

03:27You play 162 games and you want the teams who prevail at the end of those 162 to be

03:40given the benefits of your postseason format because that's how this stuff works.

03:48The Dodgers are going to be given home field advantage, lost the buy, because the way the

03:54format is structured is they've earned those benefits.

03:59Well, a sample size is building that those are not benefits and that they are detriments,

04:07that they are negatives.

04:10If we are breaking down an NLCS of Brewers-Pandres, I don't care that they both won 93 games,

04:19only two less than Philly and five less than LA.

04:23If we're breaking down Brewers-Pandres, they have to change the format.