Noah Seligman: It's time for MLB to eliminate divisions

(Editor’s note: Noah Seligman is a former Albuquerque resident and occasional Journal contributor.)

Say what you will about sportswashing and the flood of dirty money snaking through the upper tier of global soccer. But the English Premier League ultimately is a meritocracy where the best team over the full 38-match season is the champion.

There is inequality to be sure; not every club has a petrol dictator or oligarch laundering limitless cash into roster construction. But a win in August is three points just like a win in May. No playoffs. No late season purple patch rewarding a team that barely scratched its way into the postseason. Consistent excellence is crowned. A month-long heater isn’t enough to be champion.

That’s a clear contrast to American sports where fans are accustomed to seeing some team that just got hot at the right time vie for a championship. This is certainly the recent history in Major League Baseball. A 162-game slog over about seven months, and then it’s less common to see the best overall teams play for the World Series.

Under the newest Collective Bargaining Agreement, six teams per league make the playoffs, 12 of the 30 total teams, or 40 percent of the league. More playoff games mean more revenue for the owners because it’s more broadcast rights (now worth $12 billion from 2022-2028), sponsorships, and ticket sales. Players also benefit with postseason roster bonuses and contract incentives (with extra games) more widely attainable.

Expanded playoffs certainly offer more hope to more teams. More teams can reasonably convince itself they’re in the playoff hunt, which could be exciting for the fan base. But it erodes the significance of the regular season.

The 2022 Houston Astros claimed the ultimate trophy, beating the team with baseball’s 11th-best record in the regular season, the Philadelphia Phillies. The Phillies beat the team with the 10th-best regular season record, San Diego, in the NLCS. The 2022 New York Mets won 101 games, tied for the third most wins in baseball. But the Mets lost the NL East to the Atlanta Braves on a tiebreaker pushing them into a three-game wild card series against 89-win San Diego.

The 2021 World Series Champion Braves won 88 games in the regular season. The Braves had the 12th-best record in baseball that seasonm fifth best in the NL. By virtue of winning an underwhelming NL East, the Braves were the third seed. That season, the Los Angeles Dodgers won 106 games but were seeded fourth as the San Francisco Giants finished one game ahead in the NL West. The St. Louis Cardinals won 90 games but were seeded fifth. The Dodgers and Cardinals met in the one-game wild card playoff.

The 2019 Washington Nationals won the World Series after posting the ninth best record in the regular season. Washington beat Houston in the Fall Classic and I’m not sure the Astros have standing to complain about an injustice in baseball.

The old adage in baseball is that everybody wins 54, everybody loses 54, it’s the other 54 that make the difference. The expanded playoffs and whatever Oakland and Kansas City think they’re doing have made that obsolete.

Baseball playoffs did not exist until 1969. From 1969 to 1993, MLB used a single League Championship Series from each division winner to determine World Series entrants. The flaw in that model is the same weakness at play today. Specifically, the use of divisions. In 1993, the 104-win Atlanta Braves kept the 103-win San Francisco Giants out of the playoffs since the two played in the same division — because geography is hard.

Further expansion added the Divisional Series following the 1994 strike and a new collective bargaining agreement.

The wild card itself is of recent vintage, having arrived in 2012. Las Vegas ambassador and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred might consider additional tinkering with the format to ensure a more equitable process.

Since teams now play a balanced schedule, the divisions are effectively meaningless. Scrap them.

Sorry to be radical here, but what if MLB took the six best teams in each league? Or does that make too much sense? At present, the AL Central is struggling to get even one team over .500. Yet, Minnesota would be the third seed with the eighth best record in the AL. Meanwhile the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees sit in the AL East cellar outside the playoff picture with a better record than Minnesota. And the Baltimore Orioles and their .620 winning percentage (coming into Monday) would have to fight it out in the wild card.

The pitch clock has been a welcome change to the pace of play. Now baseball needs to undertake a simple administrative fix and dissolve the divisions. Let’s make baseball great again. Just one 15-team table for the AL and the NL. Take the best. Leave the rest.