Disparity in Division Quality

It’s time to change the playoff seeding, just as the NBA did recently.

The following is each division’s record vs non-divisional opponents during the wild card era (1994-present). As you can see, the NL Central (.555) has the seventh best winning percentage of any division, which equates to a 90-72 record over 162 games.

The NL East, however, has the fourth worst winning percentage (.424), which equates to a 69-93 record.

The top three teams in the National League Central also have the three best records in the league. If the season ended today, two of them would have to settle for a one game “play-in”, just to enter the tournament. This type of situation wasn’t as big of a problem before the addition of the second wild card in 2012, when all playoff teams were in the tournament. But now, it is unfair to force better teams to have to win a one game crap shoot.

If we are stuck with three divisions and five playoff teams, I would rather see all division winners plus two wild card teams advance to the playoffs with the caveat that the two teams with the worst record face each other in the “play-in” game. Admittedly, it’s not perfect, but it is better than what we have now.