REKINDLING THE HOT STOVE
@JOE_SHEEHAN
In the two-plus years that I’ve been writing for Baseball America, a recurring theme has been the lack of competitiveness in baseball, especially below the top of the pyramid. The 2012 change in postseason format that divided a single wild card slot into two halves and a one-game playoff made teams less interested in pushing hard to win a wild card berth. Parallel to that, league-wide revenue growth made it so teams can be in the black financially regardless of their on-field performance.
The effects have been dire. Rob Arthur of Baseball Prospectus reported last fall that 2018 and
