John Smoltz wants a change to the wild-card playoff system. His two ideas, expressed on the Fox Sports broadcast last weekend, go like this: Either make the opening wild-card series best of three or make the division series against the wild-card team include four home games for the team that won the division.
Both ideas have issues. But, they represent thoughts around the imperfect wild-card system that was born out of trying to package the drama of sudden death with the season-long effort of making fans think their team could slip into the playoffs. Call it the Longoria Effect.