Parity - not just for football anymore.

Five teams.
Four Games.
Three Playoff spots.
Two Division Winners.
One Big Mess.
Zero clinched playoff berths.

The National League is nothing more than mediocrity at its finest. With four games left, all three divison winners can win their division or finish out of the playoffs entirely. There is a legitimate chance that not a single team wins 90 games in the NL, and there is a very real possibility of 5 teams ending with an 89-73 record. Further, no one has the possiblity of clinching a playoff spot until Friday at the earliest.

I wish I had access to the Elias Sports Bureau, or hell, just the ambition to look at the last thirteen years since the wild card was enacted, and try to find another year where it took until at least the third to last day of the season to confirm at least one playoff team in a league. My immediate guess is that it has never happened.

History is happening before our eyes and it is times like this we have a very important decision to make - is this a good thing? Sure, it makes it exciting for the next four days, but what about the playoffs? Is it good for a sport where a team that plays relatively close to .500 an entire season, like the St. Louis Cardinals last year or the Twins in 1987, can win it all?

I suggest it isn't. I suggest it indicates the very flawed nature of the playoff system in general when a team with one or two legitimate pitchers can struggle so much during the regular season to win games consistently, but then be rewarded with a team set-up like that during the playoffs due to the large number of off days and shortened series.

Further, it's getting worse this season. Baseball is going to larger time delays between games to put more games in prime-time. Baseball is simply a different game in a short series where games are not played daily. In no other sport is it set up this way. Basketball is still the same game in the playoffs as the same players suit up each day. Same in football and Hockey. The only caveat that can possibly be made is the basketball has extended breaks in between games, thus older and more fatigue prone teams have more time to rest. Otherwise, the playoffs mirror the regular season.

Baseball made a mistake going to the wild card 13 years ago. No other stat can prove that more than in the last 13 years, something like 15 teams have one 100 games. Only one of them has actually won the World Series. The baseball playoffs simply reward mediocrity and unfairly benefit teams with two or three star pitchers and nothing else.

A team should reap the benefit of playing 162 games and being the best over an extended period of time. That benefit should be 8 victories in the playoffs against stiff competiton and World Series ring, not a 5 game series where one mistake or stroke of bad luck can wipe away a half year of being the best.