We’re back again in the fateful month of September. September is the month where dreams are crushed and realized. September is the month where the young get their shot and the old limp on the last legs of their careers. September is the month where long balls are hit and one pitch can be the difference between between sitting on a couch and sitting on a throne. September is the month of magic in the great game of baseball, and I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am. This has been a great season, but there are a few points of contention in the month of September and the postseason that should definitely be looked at by the MLB. Nevertheless, we as fans of this great sport are in for a treat in this final month of the season. I’m here to tell you why it’s been great and what the MLB could change.

Tight (Well, Some of Them) Races

As the end of the season draws near, the races for division titles and Wild Card spots always heat up, and it is the same this year in the American League. Each division has its own tension, and they are (almost) all interesting.

• The Yankees and Blue Jays have somehow climbed from the realms of irrelevancy, and they are currently battling it out for the AL East title. While it is great to see two older teams rising up in the ranks, it’d be even better if they were both American. Sorry Toronto, but you’re just outside of the borders of the greatest country in the world.
• The Rangers are making a late-season surge to challenge the Astros in the AL West. The Angels, on the other hand, are cementing their place as the streakiest team in all of baseball as they remain just close enough to the Astros to stay relevant, but just far enough away to stay out of contention.

  

• The other division in the AL, the Central, is currently under construction, and it will reopen at the start of the 2021 season. Needless to say, the division all but belongs to the Kansas City Royals, and it will for quite some time.
  

The National League is a much different story. The smallest lead for any division leader is the six games that separate the surging Mets and the crumbling Nationals. The Dodgers and Cardinals both lead their divisions by 6.5 games, meaning that the tightest race in the NL is that for the top Wild Card spot. The Pirates currently lead the Cubs by four games in that regard, and the seven head-to-head games remaining between the two teams that will likely determine the outcome of the Wild Card seeding. The Pirates do have a four-game buffer, but their schedule is much more difficult, as they will have to play a total of nine games more between the top two division leaders in the NL. This bodes well for the Cubs, but it will be up to their young pitching staff to stop the offensive freight train that is Andrew McCutchen to lead them to home field advantage in the Wild Card game.

Expanded Rosters

In the month of September, the MLB allows all teams to expand their roster from 25 to a grossly inflated 40 players. This is a great thing for baseball. It gives the young players a chance to shine in some meaningful professional games. For some clubs (looking at you, AL Central), the system guys get to play in garbage time with the chance to be spoilers. For other, contending teams, the youngins get a great opportunity to see what the Big Show is all about. All in all, September roster expansions are great for every team around the league.*

Expanded Rosters

Expanding the rosters for some arbitrary time in the middle of the season when most clubs are out of contention? What was the MLB thinking when they made that rule? It’s ludicrous. It’s insane. It defies the old look and personality that the game strives for. Why should teams play 5/6 of the season under one set of rules only to have them change in the most important month of the season? It just doesn’t make any sense to expand the rosters and take away all of the hard work that the Joe Maddon’s and Buck Showalter’s of the world do to gameplan for the tight situations in the late innings with a short bench. Adding 15 players to every team right before the biggest stretch of the season is not only impractical, but it’s an outrage against the great managers in the league.*

Reward the Best Teams, or Nah

The current playoff system has gotten a lot of heat, and rightfully so. As it stands, the bracket looks like this:

• Division Winner With Best Overall Record vs. Wild Card Game Winner
• Division Winner with the Second Best Record vs. Division Winner with the Third Best Record

Do you see the problem yet? This system doesn’t account for the two best teams in a league (like the Cardinals and Pirates are this season) to be in the same division. It especially doesn’t take into account for the three best teams in a league to be in the same division (adding the Cubs to the prior two). With the way things are set up, the Cubs and Pirates will face each other in the Wild Card game, and the winner of that game will go on to face the Cardinals. That means that two of the top three teams in the National League will be eliminated before the second round of the playoffs. This also means that the NLCS will not be a matchup worthy to be called the “league championship series,” as there is no chance that the two best teams could face off in such a contest. I’m not saying that the MLB needs to make drastic changes to its playoff system and September rules, but I am very clearly stating that it is my opinion that Bud Selig and the MLB owners should sit down and take a long, hard look at what kind of system they are running to find some new ways to make the game more fair to the teams and more appealing to the fans.

*The author could not make up his mind about the September expanded rosters, so he picked the easy way out and decided to be both for and against them. The contradiction was on purpose; Mr. Lintner is not schizophrenic.