Wildcard Races Hot in September

Update 9/26/99 - With a week to go, all the AL races seem virtually settled. But the Cincinnati Reds have taken the lead over the New York Mets in the NL wildcard race after the Mets suffered 6 straight losses, and the Mets will be hard pressed to win back the wildcard since they have 3 more games left with the Braves. Complicating things further, the Reds have pulled within half a game of the NL Central leading Astros, and those 2 teams are scheduled for a 2 game series early this week. Readers who have participated in the current Suite 101 almost all thought the Reds would be the team left out of the postseason, but it's not looking that way right now.

Baseball purists may detest the wildcard, but it's brought some exciting races to baseball during the last few seasons. This year, many of the division races were sewn up early, but the wildcard races have proved to be compelling. Baseball is rumored to be heading towards a 4 division setup sans wildcard for each league in a few years. In my opinion, that move would be a mistake; it would reduce the number of teams in the pennant race and send, on average, lower quality teams to the postseason.

If you look at the current standings, you might think that there were some strong divisional championship races. The Mets, after all, are only 2 back from the Braves in the NL East, the Reds are 4 back from the Astros in the NL Central, and the Red Sox are 3 and a half back from the Yankees in the AL East. However, all of these teams are playing to ensure they get in the playoffs, not to win their divisions.

In the National League, 4 teams - the Braves, Mets, Astros and Reds - are fighting for 3 playoff spots. 2 of these teams will win their divisions, and one will win the NL wildcard. The team with the worst record of the 4 will miss the playoffs, even if that team wins 100 games - a possible scenario. So what matters most to each of those 4 teams is not being that team. Sure, there's probably some pride involved in winning a division, but the bottom line for all teams these days is getting into the postseason, because once you're there, you have a chance to win it all.

In the AL East, though the Red Sox aren't really behind the Yankees by all that much, overcoming that deficit isn't their primary aim. Instead, they're looking behind, at the Oakland Athletics, who are now 3 games behind the Sox in the race for the AL wildcard. With the Blue Jays now clearly out of the race after their recent dive, the Red Sox and Athletics both are focused on this two team race for the final AL playoff spot. If the Red Sox can somehow snatch the division title from the Yankees, they won't mind, but they know they won't do that without also beating Oakland.

The NL Race will be the more dramatic of the two races because the Mets and Braves have 6 games with each other remaining. The outcomes of those 6 games will be crucial to the final fate of all 4 teams in the race. The Reds are two and a half games behind the Mets in the race for the NL wildcard, and what they need to do to catch up will depend heavily on what the Braves and Mets do to each other. 

Opponents of the wildcard system surely look at these races in which the division championships are secondary with frustration. But baseball is not about to reduce the number of teams going to the postseason, so fans might as well enjoy the outstanding races the current setup does provide.