MLB's Wild Card Game

[Damian]

MLB's wild card game should be a three-game series. (Shorten the season and fix the problem.)

 

[kmoney]

I have mixed feelings on this. A series is more fair, but the excitement from a must win game is fun. At the very least I think they should be honest and not call the WC teams playoff teams. If KC had lost against the Athletics I wouldn't have thought of them as making the playoffs. It's a play-in game, nothing more. Just like the NCAA doesn't really start with the Tues and Wed play-in games.

 

[Damian]

I have mixed feelings on this. A series is more fair, but the excitement from a must win game is fun. At the very least I think they should be honest and not call the WC teams playoff teams. If KC had lost against the Athletics I wouldn't have thought of them as making the playoffs. It's a play-in game, nothing more. Just like the NCAA doesn't really start with the Tues and Wed play-in games.

Baseball is based on series. If you want a one-game-elimination playoff system, then shorten the season from 162 games to 16.
This way you can have your ace pitch every game. (The way baseball is currently set up in the regular season, to win a series you have to beat the opposing team's pitching rotation, not merely their ace pitcher. So, the postseason should run along the same lines.)

By the way, I like the way the NCAA runs their baseball and softball championships. But keep in mind that college baseball and softball teams play a very short season. Also, they don't play series during the regular season.

The eight teams are split into two, four-team, double-elimination brackets, with the winners of each bracket playing in the best-of-three championship series. (source: Wikipedia: College World Series)