AL Wild Card Scenarios

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by Peter_Spaeth

I doubt that, I think it had much more to do with making scenarios like today possible, where more teams remain in contention until the very end.

Keeping more teams in contention was part of it as well, but there were definitely seasons when there was just one wild card that teams didn't play for the division at the end so they could rest players or get their pitchers lined up for the playoffs because the only difference between winning the division vs the wild card spot was one home game in a series. Having to play a single elimination game now with two wild card teams makes winning the division much more worthwhile.

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by jayshum

Keeping more teams in contention was part of it as well, but there were definitely seasons when there was just one wild card that teams didn't play for the division at the end so they could rest players or get their pitchers lined up for the playoffs because the only difference between winning the division vs the wild card spot was one home game in a series. Having to play a single elimination game now with two wild card teams makes winning the division much more worthwhile.

One home game in a best of five series is a pretty big deal, no?