Extra Wild Card Excitement?

I am not buying any added excitement from adding an extra wild-card team in baseball. 

In the AL if there had not been an extra wild card, the end result would have been exactly the same.  Since the Orioles and Rangers finished with the same record, the result would have been a one-game playoff like what happened.  The added wild card probably only removed drama, as the Orioles could see the Yankees winning early and knowing they were playing in a one-game playoff on Friday whether they won or lost.  Without the extra wild card, the Orioles could have been playing to avoid the one-game playoff.  Also the A's-Rangers loser would not have been guaranteed at least a one-game playoff, likely increasing the drama associated with that game.

In the NL, the extra wild card probably increased interest, though the Cardinals race for the last spot never got that close down the stretch, and the one game playoff was pretty dramatic.  Still I would take the un-manufactured drama of the A's-Rangers game or last year's final day over the manufactured drama of the Cardinals-Braves game.

Number of Playoff Teams: NBA vs. NHL Comparison

The NBA and NHL have fairly similar structures to them. Each league plays the same number of games, 82, plays the same length playoff series, 7 games, and lets the same number of teams in to the playoffs, two 8 team conference playoffs. Both have a problem with their playoff structure from my point of view. However, it is not the same problem for each. In the NBA you have a number of teams that have little or no chance of winning even after making the playoffs. The talk-show hosts in Chicago discussed whether it would be better for the Bulls to make the playoffs or miss and improve their draft position. Getting the 8^th seed has very little value in actually winning a championship. In the NHL since every team can win the regular season matters very little if you are in playoff qualifying position.

This year the semi-final matchups in the NBA will feature the 1 and 3 seeds facing off in one conference and the 2 and 4 seeds in the other conference. The NHL will also not have any duplicate seeds between the conferences as the 1 and 2 and either the 6 and 8 seeds or the 7 and 8 seeds.

This outcome in the NHL vs. the NBA is not new. Since going to approximately the current playoff system the NBA has seen three 8-seeds beat 1-seeds in the first round in 54 matchups. These results may overstate the likelihood of an upset as two of the 8-seeds won 5-game playoff series, rather than the current 7-game series, which should give the weaker team a better chance. Also one of those two seasons was strike-shortened, so the regular-season performance should be less tied to post-season performance than in a normal-length season. In the NHL, 8-seeds have beaten 1-seeds nine times in 32 matchups. Only one of those came in a strike-shortened season and all of them were in 7-game series.

Here's the thing. Neither situation is optimal. The NBA situation simply adds in teams with no chance of actually winning, while the NHL situation leads to a de-valuing of the regular season as any team that makes the playoffs has about as good a chance of winning. The difference in outcome is probably attributable to differences in the nature of the sports (less competitive balance in general in the NBA, hot goalies in the NHL). Regardless of the cause the problem is too many teams in the playoffs and it does not depend on the underlying nature of the sport.

Wild Cards and Meaningless Games in the NFL

It seems every season there is a discussion about teams resting their starters for meaningless/nearly meaningless games at the end of the NFL season. These discussions get a little confusing because there are three different questions associated with the problem. This season the questions have come up with the Colts-Jets game last week and the Bengals-Jets game this week. Since most writers at least relate to the first two issues, I will just link to a number of examples to begin with (see here,
here,
here,
here, here and here)

1. Is it optimal for the team to rest starters? The optimal choice in this question differs between the Bengals and the Colts. When the Colts played the Jets, they still had one regular season game and were locked into a bye. A case could be made that they took their foot off the gas too soon. In the Bengals case, however, it is their last game and they will not be getting a bye, so they will have to play next week as well. Not only that, but their last playoff trip was ended when their quarterback got injured on the first series of their first playoff game. For that reason, I think they will be a little worried about injuries. I think I would be inclined to not go all out in the last game.
   
2. Is it moral for the teams to not try/go half speed in games that don't matter? Is it ok to do so unless the other team is going to be in the playoffs? I will not discuss the first question, but I will point out a problem with answering in the affirmative to the second. Let us say that the 4 and 5 seeds are locked in place, but that the 4 seed is playing a contender for the last playoff spot and the 5 seed is playing non-contender. If there is an advantage to resting players (see question 1) then the 5-seed would have an advantage over the 4-seed. That result does not seem fair to me.
   
3. Is there a way to design a playoff system that does not lead to teams resting players for key games for other teams? Jerome Bettis suggests that the NFL fix this problem but does not suggest any solutions. One reason he does not suggest a solution (and for that matter why the NFL has fixed the problem yet) is that there are no easy solutions to this problem. Pro-football Reference suggests three proposals that would help in some circumstances. Proposal 1 would eliminate the automatic home game for division winners, meaning that relatively poor teams that have clinched the division would still have an incentive to win to get a better seed. Proposal 2 at the same link would have a flexible number of playoff teams, meaning a 2-seed would lose its bye unless it was at least three games ahead of the 7-seed. The third proposal would be to have flex games for the last two games of an 18-game schedule. These flex games would be chosen so that playoff contenders played other playoff contenders. There are a couple of problems with these solutions. Proposals 2 and 3 are pretty revolutionary. Proposals 1 and 2 would not have fixed the Colts' and Bengals' problems this year, not that fixing this particular problem was the only idea behind the proposals. The only way to completely fix this problem would be to have no wild card teams and guarantee that teams only play intra-divisional games the last two weeks of the season. So unless you are willing to suggest that or something truly unusual like the above, it is simply a problem you will have to live with.