This year, the Milwaukee Brewers (93-69) were FAR better than the Chicago Cubs (83-79) in the regular season, winning the NL Central with a comfortable 10-game lead in the division.
Unfortunately for Milwaukee, the Phillies (95-67) and Dodgers (98-64) were just a little bit better overall, earning themselves a critical first-round bye.
That left the Brewers to face the Mets in a best-of-three Wild Card series to advance, and well…
Womp-womp! Brewers eliminated after just three playoff games.
It’s okay, you can enjoy it. That may be three more playoff games than the Cubs have had in four years. And one more playoff win than the Cubs have had in seven years, but … come on. The Brewers’ postseason futility is so close to becoming a thing. And it’s our right as Cubs fans to laugh at their struggle, no matter how bad our team has been in the interim. It’s what we have.
But once you catch your breath, this early exit should serve as an important reminder: merely getting into the postseason is good and all, but the teams that get the first round bye are in such a dramatically better position.
For most of my early baseball fandom, the MLB playoff format consisted of eight teams making the postseason — four from each league (three division winners and one Wild Card team). Under that system, just getting into the tournament was enough to give you a real shot at advancing all the way (baseball is a silly sport and pretty much any team can win a short series).
Sure, you could get home-field advantage here or a better matchup there by winning more games in the regular season. But generally speaking, baseball is gonna baseball. So simply punching your ticket to the postseason was legitimately — mathematically — a good enough goal.
And while getting in is certainly better than not, teams can and should shoot a little higher in the current setup.
In 2022, MLB expanded the postseason to 12 teams, six from each league including three division winners and three Wild Card teams. The top two teams in each league, however, get a bye straight to the five-game NLDS. And let me tell you, that’s a BIG deal.
Not only is avoiding the peril of a short three-game series absolutely critical, as we’ve just seen. It’s so flukey in outcome, and leaves your overall World Series odds at something like 50% of the teams who got the byes.
The ability to both rest AND align your rotation/bullpen is a huge advantage, too. I do believe in momentum, but I believe in health, rest, and matchups even more. Any single baseball series – let alone any given game – is already a borderline coin flip. So small tilts in your favor are as much as you can get.
And that brings me back to the Cubs.
Depending on what kind of fan you are, this may sound either naive (let’s just get to playoffs first!) or tone deaf (of COURSE the Cubs should aim higher than a Wild Card ticket!), but I’m going to say it out loud anyway: The Cubs’ goal should be to PROJECT as one of the top-2 teams in the National League when the offseason comes to an end. Or at least have a credible path to getting there. Every single year.
What do I mean by that? Well, this season, I’d say the Cubs had a credible path towards a back-end playoff berth. Obviously, they fell short of that goal, which left them out of the postseason picture entirely. But they finished with a winning record, and were arguably one legit closer (or slightly better luck with injuries) away from getting a Wild Card spot. But that’s beside the point.
Sneaking into the playoffs this year probably would have been enough for where this club is right now. Get in, see what happens, enjoy the ride.
But after ANOTHER season/year goes by, that starts to feel less and less like an admirable goal. We want MULTIPLE playoff series and a legitimate shot at another title. And the best way to do that is to avoid this perilous first round altogether. The only way to do that is to win enough games to finish as the first or second seed in the NL.
So I am begging — for the hundredth time (and perhaps futilely) — for the Cubs to have a big offseason.
This team might naturally improve as young players develop and prospects emerge. But that might be only enough to get them INTO the playoffs. They need to take a much bigger leap if they want to set themselves up even better than that. Otherwise, you might be stuck watching Pete Alonso end your season on a ninth inning homer just three games after you got into the playoffs.