3 Things That Need to Change in Current Playoff Format

1. Home Field Advantage in Divisional Series

In the current format, the higher seeded team plays the first two games on the road, followed by the remaining three at home, which puts the higher seeded team at a huge disadvantage. A perfect example is last years ALDS between Oakland and Detroit. Oakland was the 2nd seed, while Detroit was the 3rd. Detroit however got to play the first two games at home, winning both, 3-1 and 5-4. Because of this Detroit had a 2-0 strangle-hold in the series. When Oakland won their first two at home, 2-0 and 4-3, you had to feel that series would have gone differently if Oakland started at home. Oakland went on to lose game five, 6-0. There is no true way to know if that made a difference, they could have blown that 2-0 series lead like Detroit almost did, but that doesn't make the format right. A best-of-5 series is bad enough to begin with, but it makes it even less fair hor a higher seeded team. If the lower seeded team wins both at home, they essentially had home field advantage.

How it Should be Fixed: They should return to the old 2-2-1 format. That format guarentees that the higher seeded team can't play more road games than home games.

2. Divisions Determining Playoff Teams

Even with the one wild card format, this system was bad. Now with the two wild card format this has become very unfair. A perfect example of this happened in the American League last year. Detroit qualified for the playoffs with the lowest record amoung AL qualifiers, 88-74, and even recieved the 3rd seed as the AL Central champion. Tampa Bay finished with a 90-72 record. They however failed to win their division, five games behind the Yankees. They also didn't get into the wild card game, as they were three games behind both Texas and Baltimore. Also last year, Texas and Baltimore were the 4th and 5th seeds, and Detroit was the 3rd seed despite having five fewer wins.

How it Should be Fixed: Either let the top four teams get into the playoffs regardless of their division. If there has to be a division qualifier, seeding shouldn't be determined by whether or not a team wins their division, but by record.

3. One Game Wild Card Playoff

 Far too much can happen in one game to be fair in determining a 162-game season. The 163rd game was guarenteed between Texas and Baltimore anyway, as they both had 93 wins. The NL wild card provided a perfect example of its unfairness. In 2011 Atlanta would have been guarenteed a spot in the NLDS against Washington. They had six more wins than St. Louis, but Atlanta's season ended (most likely, although there is no way to know for sure) because of umpire Sam Holbrook's infamous infield fly rule call. That game also marked the end of Atlanta all-star Chipper Jones' career. That call not only cost him an appearance in the NLDS, but also a shot at his second World Series Title.

How it Should be Changed: They need to return to the one team wild card format, that had worked well for years. Forcing teams into a one game playoff to determine the fate of their season isn't worth adding one team in each league to the playoffs.