Pujols? Trout? That Kind of Luxe Just Ain’t For Us. We Crave a Different Kind of Buzz.

Sweeep! If the Mariners couldn’t be involved, an Orioles-Royals ALCS is certainly my second-best scenario.

There was a recent discussion in comments about the recently modified wildcard system. I feel more strongly than ever that if there must be a wildcards, the two-wildcard sudden-death format that preserves much of the value of a division title is vastly preferable to the status quo ante. But the very worst argument against it one game is just a random crapshoot, so there should be at least a 3 game play-in series. The rather obvious problem is that a 3-game playoff would for all intents and purposes be just as much of a random crapshoot. The fact that a 5-game series that was easily the biggest mismatch on paper resulted in a sweep by the underdog should make pretty clear that if you disapprove of playoff formats in which the best team doesn’t reliably win, you’re just against the concept of MLB playoffs altogether.