The World Series will feature the fourth and 12th best teams in baseball. Atlanta won its first pennant for 22 years on Saturday night with a 4-2 victory over the Dodgers.
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This gives us an Atlanta team with 88 wins against a Houston team who soared to 95 victories thanks to their 27-11 record against the Rangers and Angels. Both of these teams are very good, but only three 100-game winners were this year. It doesn't matter if the champion is the best. They will be the deserving winners in a tough tournament whose qualification process may need some tweaking.
Although the Dodgers finished 18 games ahead of Atlanta, they did not get home field in this year's playoffs due to their failure to win their division. They would have had home field in the World Series against Houston, which is fair. Major League Baseball must decide whether winning divisions is more important than winning games.
The schedule must be balanced to ensure that it is the latter. Don't delay, grow to 32 teams and look for cities other than Montreal and Las Vegas to leverage the As and Rays for new parks. Nashville and Portland are immediate candidates to be used as accomplices in municipal extortion. If not, then there's always a billionaire looking for a tax avoidance.
Once you have 32 teams, eliminate divisions to balance the schedule and reduce the season to 154. There are two leagues with 16 teams, and the top six players make it to the playoffs. The top two teams get a week of rest, while the three through six play best-of-5 series to reach the division series. This series expands to seven games and then the LCS or World Series. MLB will insist on divisions. There should be two divisions of eight each in each league. Not four divisions. This could result in a 79-win team.
Enjoy the game of baseball as it is played by two excellent teams that were not the best but made it to the World Series. It's not worth rooting for the cheaters (yes we still want Dusty Baker to win a ring), against the racists (yes Freddie Freeman is a good guy and Tyler Matzek is a great story and Eddie Rosario is a good guy, but seriously, the Chop has been on our minds for over 30 years despite being called out as FROM THE JUMP oh and Travis Tritt singing the national anthem Saturday), but the games should be enjoyable.
