Wild-card teams advancing and bye teams losing are part of beautiful chaos of the MLB playoffs, not a problem

We're now in the midst of the third year with this current playoff format and the constant online litigation of it makes it seem like the third decade. It started happening once the Mets beat the Phillies . You see, the Mets were the No. 6 seed in the National League this season, just like the Diamondbacks last year and the Phillies in 2022. That means that if the Mets get to the World Series, it'll be three for three by the six seeds on the NL side in this format.

The stats on social media started flying regarding the NL wild cards -- everyone is ignoring the AL, as the 2022 Astros won the World Series -- trying to prove that the bye is a disadvantage. If we pretend that's true, then the kneejerk reaction is that the playoff format has to be changed.

Why?

Do people scream about the NFL playoff format whenever a better seed loses?

I don't know. Probably. There's whining about everything in the sports world, I suppose.

This time, the kicking and screaming rose almost immediately after the Mets won. Then a funny thing happened: every other bye team won. All that consternation was for naught.

Even if a few of the lower seeds advanced, this is all just total nonsense.

We've already been over this in Snyder's Soapbox, where I pointed out that baseball between two good teams in small samples will very often see the inferior team advance . That's just how it's going to be. This is a large-sample regular season that transforms into a small-sample sprint in the playoffs.

And I'll reiterate: An inferior team advancing in the playoffs isn't a reason to restructure the bracket.

Plus, is it really that shocking that the Mets beat the Phillies in a series? Yes, the Phillies were six games better in the regular season as a whole, but the Mets have been great for a while. In fact, since June 2, when the Mets woke up, the Phillies were 54-48 compared to 65-38 from the Mets. The Mets were 10 1/2 games better than the Phillies over that timeframe.

Do we really need to act like the Mets are some little engine that could and that it's such a travesty they advanced in the playoffs instead of the Phillies? They've been better for more than four months.

Phillies right fielder and part-time sage Nick Castellanos said the following after the Game 4 loss to the Mets ( via NBC Sports Philadelphia ):

"Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I'm gonna give them credit, because right now the Mets are playing really good baseball. They're hot. From watching them play in the beginning of the year, in April and May, and watching Jose Iglesias be able to unify them and get the city to buy into something bigger is nothing short of incredible. Just give them their credit. They beat us. Is there a lot of things that we could've done better? Yes. Is there more things that we could've done different? Yes. Do I think that they are a better team than us? No. But this series, they were."

It's easy to latch onto the part I bolded and spin it as sour grapes or being a sore loser or something, right? It wasn't sour grapes at all. Look at the rest of the context. He's absolutely right and even though I pointed out the Mets were the better team for more than four months, one could also reasonably argue that the Phillies were the better team for all of 2024, including this past series. They still have a better record, after all, if we add regular season and playoff records together.

The best teams don't always win the playoffs. The World Series champion isn't always the best team. It is the champion. Undisputed, even! That team won the tournament.

It's a point that needs to be repeated again and again. The randomness is most extreme in baseball due to the nature of the sport. The best teams are definitely not always going to win in the baseball playoffs. Do you really, genuinely believe the 2023 Diamondbacks were a better team than the 2023 Dodgers ? C'mon. It wasn't even close, yet the D-backs won that series fair and square, so they moved on. That's how the playoffs work. That's how sports work.

If you want to focus on the best teams in the regular season and discuss them as the best teams, you have the regular-season standings. My colleague Dayn Perry has, for years, called for a trophy and much more celebration for the team that wins the regular season . It could reasonably be argued that it's tougher to end up with the best record in the regular season than to win the World Series once you get to the playoffs. Some teams pull off the feat of winning both the regular season and the playoffs ( hello 2016 !). Some don't. I still maintain that the team with the best record losing in the playoffs doesn't negate that they were the best team. They just weren't the champion. There can be a difference and we have the capacity to understand it.

In terms of the playoffs, we're all smart enough to realize that lower seeds are going to advance and sometimes they aren't even major upsets. Knowing this, instead of fretting so much about format and bye teams and days off and splitting hairs about anything and everything other than the actual, on-field play, maybe just enjoy the games?

The games have been awesome. It can't be fun to see Pete Alonso's home run in Milwaukee in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series and immediately lament a six seed toppling a division winner instead of enjoying the excellent theater the playoff format presented us. Ditto for Francisco Lindor's grand slam. I just can't imagine being a neutral-party sports fan (that is, not a Mets or Phillies fan), seeing that grand slam and immediately thinking, "man, this is stupid and suuuuuuucks ."

This is the playoff format. The best teams aren't always going to win in the playoffs and that's been the case for decades upon decades. Did you really think the 1960 Pirates were better than the Yankees ? Or the 1990 Reds exponentially better than the A's because they swept them? The 1987 Twins only won 85 games. We could keep going.

Nowadays, though, if a low seed advances or even threatens to advance, it's time to re-litigate the playoff format. How boring would it be if the better teams won every single series? What's even the point of the playoffs then?

The upsets are going to happen. My advice is just to enjoy the ride instead of feeling like the format needs to be changed.