Rob Manfred’s playoff plan is idiotic. Baseball needs a new commissioner — and fast

It’s more than past time for Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to go.

If the ridiculous efforts to “improve” baseball with silly rules like forcing relief pitchers to face at least three batters, all but eliminating the chess game that is managers angling for advantageous match-ups between pinch hitters and relief pitchers and pitching rules designed to put a timeless game on the clock aren’t enough, the latest efforts to revamp the baseball playoff format are plenty of reason to give him a pink slip.

Under Manfred’s leadership, it’s been proposed that seven of the 15 teams in each league make the playoffs every year. That’s right, basically anybody who is over .500 is going to make the postseason. The St. Louis Cardinals may never sign another free agent again. But wait, there’s more. There is going to be some gimmicky NASCAR seeding format in which the bottom seeds don’t get to play any home games — because who cares about their fans, right? And the teams with the best records get to choose their opponents. It’s not only weird, it’s dumb.

Will there ever be a mid-season trade again when the leadership every team that isn’t intentionally tanking believes its club has a chance to sneak into the playoff picture and then get lucky?

If they must fiddle with the postseason format, how about doing something that would celebrate the best teams instead of encouraging mediocrity?

For one thing, baseball needs to turn the wild card round into something more than a one-and-done situation. Having what is essentially a play-in game to the real tournament takes the skill and talent factors out of the picture in many ways, replacing them with a healthy dose of luck. After all, the worst team in just about any league could beat the best club on one fortunate day. Winning two out of three, three out of five or five out of seven games is a truer test. So, instead of giving wild card round teams a day off after the last day of the season and a day off after the wild card game, fill those two empty days with baseball.

Without causing any additional days that punish division winners, force wild card round clubs to continue playing the day after the season ends, no chance to re-set their rotation or rest players, just keep playing. To avoid travel days, the first game is at the home of the team with the worse record. Games two and three would be on the field of the team with the better record. Win in two games, get a day off. If you don’t, teams don’t get a travel day. They leave the park at 11 p.m. and fly where they’re going. Then they get up the next day and play ball. That’s how it works.

Besides that, if any modifications to the playoffs should be made at all, I’d be in favor or ELIMINATING playoff spots. Having two wild card games doesn’t make any sense other than creating a bye situation. The three division winners should get a playoff spot and then the best overall record gets in. That’s it. Otherwise, I think it would be even better to have baseball consolidate into two divisions in each league and the top two teams in each division get in. Like I said, let’s celebrate the best of the best instead of giving participation trophies to the .500 clubs.

Ever since the wild card system was put into place, baseball has been a lot less just in the way championships have been decided. You don’t have to look past the Cardinals to see examples. Of the St. Louis clubs in 2004, 2005 and 2006, which one was the best? I can’t say with utmost confidence that the 2006 Cardinals were the absolute worst of those three. Yet the team with the best record in the National League the first two seasons lost a World Series to a hot team in 2004 and a hotly-contested playoff battle to the Houston Astros in 2005. In 2006, they backed into the playoffs on the last day of the season, then they scraped past the New York Mets by one pitch to stun the Detroit Tigers. Those three years the best team didn’t win, the luckiest team won.

With a 162-game regular season, baseball isn’t about luck. It’s about proving it on the field in a marathon of a campaign. To wad six months of work up and toss it in the trash to throw darts at the board seems ridiculous. Manfred has done nothing to move baseball forward. He and his crew have cheapened the game with gimmicks and desperately searched for answers to questions they don’t understand.

Baseball deserves a commissioner who cares about the integrity of the game. The sooner the better.

Scott Wuerz

Belleville News-Democrat

Scott Wuerz has written “Cheap Seats,” a St. Louis Cardinals fan blog for the Belleville News-Democrat, since 2007. He is a former BND reporter who covered breaking news and education.