In 1994, Major league Baseball moved into a three round playoff format with four teams from each League (the American League and the National League). These four teams were made up of the three division winners and a wild card team. In 2012, the playoffs were expanded to have a wild card round where the top two wild card teams from each league play each other for the right to go on to the Division series.

This, however, is a flawed playoff system as this year’s major league baseball season proved. With the NL Central housing the three best teams in the league, the wild card system forces two of these teams to play in the wild card game to get a chance to play the Cardinals in the NLDS. This is flawed because two other teams (the Mets and the Dodgers) with worse records than the two wild card teams (the Pirates and the Cubs) get a bye past the wild card round, simply because they play in a different division. It does not make sense that a team with a worse record should get a bye when two teams with better records have to play an extra round of playoff baseball.

For this reason, the playoff structure of the MLB should be changed to a similar format as the NBA where the top eight teams in each conference make the playoffs no matter what and then are seeded according to their overall record. This format could be implemented with any number of teams.

The group could be five teams per league (as it is now) or could be expanded to eight teams (as it is in the NBA). With six teams, the structure would be very similar to how it is now with a couple exceptions. The top five teams would still make the playoffs, as they did this year. The teams would only be seeded differently so that the Dodgers and the Mets would be playing in the Wild Card game for the chance to move on and play against the first seed. The Pirates and Cubs would then be moved straight into the Division series based on their regular season records which were better than that of the Dodgers or Mets.

The eight team playoff would be structured with no wild card round, but would have three rounds leading up to the World Series as opposed to two. The bracket would be made according to seed based on regular season records. The first seed would play the eighth seed; the second seed would play the seventh seed and so on.

This solution to the current playoff structure would be good for baseball because it would prevent teams with better records from being forced into do or die situations that they do not deserve to be in. This would give the best teams the most advantages, as they should be entitled to.