Home MLB Wild for the wild card?

Wild for the wild card?

by Matt Smith

Both of the early games today, including the Arizona-Pittsburgh clash taking place right now, are from the National League. That’s a good thing for neutrals considering the four American League play-off spots have now been finalised. The Yankees clinched their thirteenth consecutive trip to October last night, once again reigniting debates about the wild card.


The 2007 American League has arguably shown the worst of the wild card. The West and Central divisions were eventually won at a canter by the Angels and Indians, leaving the East as the only battle heading into the final week. Only it wasn’t really a battle at all. Yes the media hype was there as it involved the Red Sox and the Yankees, but it was a phoney war. As the Tigers slipped away, it became obvious that both teams would makes the play-offs. It’s not often you can say a Red Sox-Yankees battle is devoid of tension, but you can in this case.

The National League is a completely different story. All three divisions are far from settled, despite most of the teams involved having only four games of their season left to play. The Central provides purists with their dream situation: two teams fighting it out in a winner takes all contest. Whoever falls short (probably the Brewers) sees all their efforts going to waste. “That’s the way it should be” some people will cry, and it’s hard to argue against the sentiment.

Yet the Central also shows how the wild card works. The reason why this division will only produce one post-season participant is because the standard of play by the teams in that division has not been high, relatively speaking. There’s a more than valid argument to say that whoever wins the wild card will actually be a stronger team than the Cubs or the Brew Crew. While the wild card might put two extra teams into the play-offs, it generally doesn’t dilute that competition. If anything it increases it.

Hunting for a perfect structure is a hopeless task: you will never get everyone to agree on what provides the best competition and entertainment. Each option has its good points and its bad points. With the current 2 leagues/6 divisions/ 8 play-off teams set-up, the positives of the wild card outweigh the negatives in my opinion. The AL regular season race might end as a slight anti-climax, but we’re still left with four very good AL teams heading for October baseball. The end to the NL regular season is far from an anti-climax and we will end with one fairly good team (with all due respect!) accompanied by three, rather than two, top teams. It might not work out so well every year, but the wild card has helped to produce an exciting end to one league this year at least, and it will set up a great October.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.