Upsets don't mean there is problem with baseball's new playoff format

There have been some very surprising results in the divisional round of the Major League Baseball playoffs, as the 101-win Baltimore Orioles and 100-win Los Angeles Dodgers both failed to win a game in their respective series.

With the 104-win Atlanta Braves also on the verge of elimination going into Thursday's Game 4 of the NLDS, this has ignited some discussion as to whether or not baseball's playoff format is to blame. 

Specifically, the bye that the top two divisional winners in each league get has caused a stir.

Starting last season when Major League Baseball increased the number of playoff teams, the top two division winners in each league have been automatically sent to the divisional round while the the last division winner and three wild-card teams play in a best-of-three wild-card round.

The criticism with the format is that time off has actually been a disadvantage to the top teams and played a major role in the number of upsets we have seen in the first two years of the format.

Last year two of the four teams with byes failed to win their divisional series, and this year two of the teams with byes failed to win even a game. 

It is possible that three of the teams with byes will be eliminated if Atlanta fails to advance. 

Even with those results, the arguments against the format seem pretty flimsy at best.

For one, we simply do not have enough data to know what sort of impact the format has or what impact the time off has. This format has only been in place for two years, and when you are dealing with that small of a data pool, there is going to be some random noise in there. We simply need more seasons and more data to fully understand what is happening.

Second, it just seems illogical to argue that getting a bye through the first round is somehow a bad thing. 

Not only are the teams getting a rest after a grueling 162-game season and avoiding the first round of the playoffs, but they are also playing teams that have already burned through their best pitchers for the start of the series. When the bye teams open their series, their rotations are perfectly set up to start their aces with fully rested bullpens, while the wild-card teams are have to start their No. 3 or 4 starters with bullpens that have already been taxed. 

If a 100-win team cannot take advantage of that, that's on the team, not the format. 

Finally, last year's World Series champion was the Houston Astros, a team that had the bye, had the rest and still managed to keep winning. The Astros are also through to the ALCS this season with a great chance at repeating. It's hard to argue the format is a problem when the only World Series champion we had under it had the bye. That's the goal. 

If you just want the top teams to keep moving on and avoid upsets, you have to eliminate the number of playoff teams. That horse seems to already be out of the barn, and there is too much money to be made for MLB to do that. As long as you have more teams in, you just have to accept that in a short series sometimes upsets are going to happen. That is why we actually play the games.