{"id":405,"date":"2010-11-30T17:27:55","date_gmt":"2010-11-30T22:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=405"},"modified":"2013-02-07T11:21:15","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T16:21:15","slug":"heres-why-more-wild-card-teams-is-a-bad-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=405","title":{"rendered":"Here’s why more Wild Card teams is a bad idea."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here's Bud Selig pretending he can't hear ongoing criticisms of his leadership. Photo courtesy of blogs.ajc.com<\/p><\/div>\n

By now we’ve all heard about Bud Selig<\/strong>‘s expansion plans for the playoffs.\u00a0 He would like to add 2 wild card <\/a>teams to each post season, presumably having either a sudden-death or a best-of 3 series between them in order to determine who moves on into the conventional Divisional Series.<\/p>\n

Here’s the main, singular problem I have with the plan.\u00a0 It virtually guarantees that the griphold that AL East powerhouse teams New York and Boston have on the playoffs will continue.<\/p>\n

Here’s a quick rundown on the AL East playoff representatives <\/a>since the wild card was introduced after the players strike in 1994.<\/p>\n

2010: Yankees (Rays)
\n2009: Yankees and Boston
\n2008: Boston (Rays)
\n2007: Yankees and Boston
\n2006: Yankees
\n2005: Yankees and Boston
\n2004: Yankees and Boston
\n2003: Yankees and Boston
\n2002: Yankees
\n2001: Yankees
\n2000: Yankees
\n1999: Yankees and Boston
\n1998: Yankees and Boston
\n1997: Yankees (Orioles)
\n1996: Yankees (Orioles)
\n1995: Yankees and Boston<\/p>\n

In the last 15 years, to summarize:<\/p>\n