ShareThisWith football upon us, baseball is about to get buried until the playoffs start.
With a just a few weeks left in the season, let's look ahead. Not to the playoffs but to 2012. There is a strong probability that Major League Baseball will add a fifth playoff team (another wild card) to each league. The league feels it will keep more teams (and their fans) in contention longer and will create more of a disadvantage for the wild card teams to advance deep into the playoffs (a long-standing complaint is that there is no advantage of winning your division versus being a wild card).
Through Monday's games, if a fifth playoff team was the rule, the battle for the final spot would look like this:
American League
Tampa Bay 77-63 --
Los Angeles 77-64 .5
Cleveland 70-68 6
Chicago 70-69 6.5
Toronto 70-71 7.5
National League
San Francisco 74-67 --
St. Louis 74-67 --
New York 68-71 5
Cincinnati 69-72 5
Four of those nine teams -- Tampa Bay, Toronto, Cincinnati and the Mets -- are all at least 7.5 games out of a playoff spot. The Rays, Giants and Cardinals are the only ones currently within 10 games of a playoff spot. The Angels, who trailed Texas by two games, and San Francisco, who trailed Arizona by eight games, would essentially still have two chances to make the playoffs. They could rally and win their divisions, but they also have the extra playoff spot to fall back on.
An extra playoff spot wouldn't be of much benefit to Chicago and Cleveland, but it gives Cincinnati, the Mets and Toronto some hope, which is nice considering their playoff chances ended before the NFL lockout did. But it would mean everything to Tampa Bay and St. Louis. With a fifth playoff team, they would be playing meaningful baseball every day for the next three weeks.
Quite frankly, a fifth playoff team in each league may be the only thing (besides a new stadium in Tampa) that can save the Rays over the long haul. What they have accomplished these last four years is remarkable (four consecutive winning seasons, two division titles and a trip to the World Series from the AL East with a low payroll). In fact, it is legendary. But the likelihood of Tampa Bay and its $60 million payroll (tops) being able to finish ahead of Boston or New York and their combined $360 million payrolls is unrealistic.
So, yes it is a bit of a gimmick. But so was interleague play, and that has worked out pretty well. Major League Baseball needs to do all it can to keep as many teams and their fans interested in their product for as long as possible. Currently 18 of the 30 teams are at least 7.5 games out of a playoff spot. By adding one playoff spot in each league that number would be reduced to 12.
That is change you can believe in.
So get ready for some football. But in the coming years maybe you won't have to root for the Yankees, Red Sox or Phillies for baseball season to consistently last into September.
Never mind October.
(David Moulton writes for the Naples Daily News in Florida.)
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