MLB's postseason is here... and the format is still dumb

There are two things I want to make very clear before you read this article. Number one, I do not hate fun. Second, I love watching baseball evolve and change. Now that that has been addressed. Let me explain why the 2020 expanded postseason is a slap in the face to baseball.

Reaching the postseason is an accomplishment. Fans watch as the best of the best battle it out. Not unlike the rest of the 2020 season, this postseason will look very different.

MLB is trying to frame the 16 team expanded postseason as fresh and new. Imagine all of the ballparks we get to see in the Wildcard games! Yes, that is the subject of one commercial.

I don't need to see four(?) different ballparks for the best-of-three Wildcard series. What I would rather watch are teams that actually have winning records play baseball.

Major League Baseball, if you are listening... I never asked for more baseball. I asked for better baseball.

(Given the shortened season and everything going on, my point is not to complain about getting more games. Again, I am not the fun police. Maybe, I am just upset that my team won't be playing in October.)

Take the Milwaukee Brewers for example. After a loss in the final game of the regular season, their record fell to 29-31. They never spent a day over .500. They set all kinds of offensive records, and not the good kind.

They are going to the postseason.

The 29-31 Houston Astros are going to the postseason.

If history repeats itself, which it has a tendency of doing, these teams will demonstrate that they do not belong. A la the Kansas City Royals in the 1981 shortened season. They went 50-53 and subsequently were swept in the Division Series.

Or, if baseball in 2020 decides to do its thing, we could see two teams with losing records play each other in the World Series. Baseball is weird, man.

As I prefaced this blog, I am all for fun in the sport. I think bat flips, homers, and breaking the "unwritten rules" of the sport are breathing new life in America's past-time. Even the extra innings nonsense isn't that bad!

My hope is that the integrity of the sport is maintained. Playing into October should still mean something, not just squeaking by.

Ask me again on October 21st when I am watching two teams play at a neutral site. I may be eating my words. But for now, the expanded postseason should be left in 2020.