NL West Debacle Highlights Three-Division Problem

Well, the San Diego Padres just clinched the National League West division with a .500 record and four games remaining. They will have to win at least three of their remaining games to avoid becoming the first team in Major League Baseball history to gain a post-season berth without a winning record.

The obvious blame for this debacle is baseball's three-division format in each league that went into effect with the 1994 season. Once this went into effect, I knew it was only a matter of time before something like this was going to happen. In fact, it would have likely happened the very first year of the three-division set-up, had it not been for the 1994 season-ending strike. At the time the strike occurred (mid-August), the Texas Rangers were leading the American League West with a losing record.

What's the solution? I suggest returning to the two-division format in each league while retaining each league's wildcard entry. Here's how it would work: In each league, the winner of both divisions would get automatic post-season berths along with a wildcard team (the non-division winner with the best record). The team finishing with the best record in the league would get a bye during the divisional playoffs. The other division winner and the wildcard team would compete in a best-of-five divisional playoff, with the winner meeting the bye team in the league championship series in a best-of-seven playoff.  The advantages of this format would be three-fold - it would reduce the likelihood of teams with losing records making the post-season by eliminating small divisions (no division would have fewer than seven teams), prevent the team with the second best record in each league from missing the post-season (by retaining the wildcard entry), and give a huge advantage to the team finishing with the best record in each league (hey, those were the only teams that made the post-season, pre-1969).