If Next Year Were This Year In The MLB Pennant Race

Johnny Damon realizes the wild-card races are about to get wilder.

Under next year's likely rules, the Tampa Bay Rays would be entering the next-to-last weekend of the season with a one-game lead for the final AL playoff berth instead of trailing by four.

"Obviously for us right now, being down, we would like it implemented now," the Rays outfielder said. "But we'll have to wait another year."

Chances are baseball will expand the playoffs from eight to 10 teams next season, with the top two also-rans in each league meeting in a made-for-TV one-game playoff for a berth in the division series.

Under those rules, the big, bad AL East would be on track to sending three teams to the postseason.

It'd be a new look for baseball — one-third of the 30 major league clubs in the playoffs. Still, that's fewer than the other major sports: 12 of 32 make it in the NFL, and 16 of 30 in both the NBA and NHL.

Heading into Saturday, the Los Angeles Angels would be trying to overtake the Rays for the American League's final berth. On a low-budget team competing with two of baseball's biggest spenders in the Yankees and Red Sox, an extra wild card would give Tampa Bay a lot more hope to make the postseason. Of the seven teams in the AL with winning records, four are in the East.

"If they want to throw it out there right now, I accept," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "I think it's good for baseball in general. I think it's good for cities. I think it's good for franchises, fan bases, et cetera to have even more people interested or involved at this time of the year. Beyond that, it is in our best interest. No question. I'm not going to deny that."

In the National League, where just six of 16 teams have winning records, the St. Louis Cardinals would be 1½ games up on the San Francisco Giants for the last spot.

"It's important to be the NL Central champions," Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter said. "Your goal is that. If you don't do that, it's find any way you can to get into October baseball. Once you get there, anybody's got a shot, and if this extra wild card comes into play next year, sweet, you have a better chance to go to the playoffs."

Baseball has long been the most conservative of the major sports. Pennant winners went directly to the World Series from 1903-68, then postseason teams doubled to four with the start of the league championship series. Wild-card teams were added in 1995 — delayed a year by the season-ending strike — when the playoffs doubled again to eight clubs.

When Commissioner Bud Selig appointed his special committee for on-field matters in December 2009, few could have known that two of its members — Angels manager Mike Scioscia and Cardinals manager Tony La Russa — would be on teams that would have benefited had the expanded playoffs begun this season.

"I put in a call every day to the commissioner trying to get it done this year," La Russa said kiddingly. "He hasn't returned my calls."

Detroit manager Jim Leyland, another member of the committee, is convinced owners and players will agree to the change.

"They are going to go with that. I'm sure they are," he said. "It's going to keep other people's fans excited. It's probably going to create more interest in September baseball."

Since the start of wild cards in 1995, the Giants would have gained four extra berths under a 10-team postseason. And while extra wild cards would have caused much more of a scramble in this year's pennant races, that's not true every year. In 2005, Philadelphia would have coasted to the last NL berth by a five-game margin.

On three occasions — the Astros and Cardinals in the 2001 NL Central, the Red Sox and Yankees in the 2005 AL East, the Dodgers and the Padres in the 2006 NL West — teams finished with identical records atop divisions. First place was decided by regular-season head-to-head record and served primarily to determine postseason slotting.

Under the new system, managers might push harder to finish first in those situations in hope of avoiding the first round's one-game playoff.

"I'm in favor of rewarding teams for having the best record," Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "I want to make the regular season matter as much as possible."

A club in a one-game playoff would try to use an ace starter — who then would be unavailable for the division series opener.

"You don't want to be in that game," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.

Already, some players are contemplating the changes. More pressure. Less rest. Perhaps fewer July trades, with more general managers thinking their clubs have a chance.

In the 16 seasons of the current format, there have been four wild-card World Series champions: the 1997 and 2003 Marlins, the 2002 Angels and the 2004 Red Sox. Five other wild cards have reached the Series only to lose.

And 17 second-, third- and fourth-place teams, according to STATS LLC, have failed to make the playoffs in years they had better records than winners in other divisions, including four in 2008 who had a higher percentage than the NL West champion Dodgers.

"It'll definitely be different, a different feel in a lot of clubhouses. A lot of teams who think they're out if it in June or before the All-Star break now have life," Arizona right fielder Justin Upton said. "There's a little more incentive to win your division, I think. From July on, it's going to be a grind. The team that wins the division is probably more likely to succeed because those teams fighting for the wild card are still going to be playing hard in August and September."

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AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley, AP Sports Writer Will Graves and AP freelance writer Doug Alden contributed to this report.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.