Friday was a great day for Major League Baseball, as it finalized its postseason expansion agreement with the Players Association. Beginning this season, two additional Wild Card teams will join the postseason festivities; one in each league.

Under the new format, the two Wild Card winners will face off in a one-game playoff round, with the winning team advancing to the Division Series against one of the three division champions in its league.

In the world of sports where fans and media alike often complain that changes are simply unnecessary, it appears nothing is being protested in this scenario.

Increasing the amount of franchises that compete in October will no doubt turn out to be an excellent move by MLB. And there are plenty of reasons why.

Let’s start with the obvious. We love drama in sports. We love buzzerbeaters in basketball, last second scores that determine the outcome of football games, and walkoff home runs in baseball. It’s always been that way and it should remain so.

There are times when that drama is amplified, and that includes when there are postseason implications at stake; playoff positioning, homefield advantage, and most importantly — championships.

A one game do-or-die setting provides more intensity, suspense, and entertainment than any other point during a sports season. We see it every year with the NFL playoffs and its ultimate conclusion, the most watched event annually, the Super Bowl. When Game 7 is necessary in the basketball or baseball postseason — although this would be Game 5 in MLB’s Division Series — more people tune in than at any other point during the year.

This also shows for a month-long span beginning every March, once the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament gets going.

Bottom line is that one game determining the final fate of two great teams is excellent for sports, and that is exactly what baseball is guaranteeing to display at least twice every year beginning in 2012. It will be a heavyweight fight where one side will ultimately have to out-will the other.

Another way that MLB benefits by bringing in two more Wild Card teams is derived through a newfound importance upon a team winning their division.

It used to be ‘Just get in and hope to get hot.’ Teams will no longer be able to fall back on that with the new system in place. Clinching a Wild Card berth will drastically decrease a team’s chances at winning the World Series, since the probability of making it out of the Wild Card round will essentially be 50-50 in a one game situation.

Now no team who believes that they are legitimate championship contenders will be complacent and use the Wild Card spots as a safety net. They will not want to risk their entire season on one game, because as everyone knows, anything can happen and the better team or team with a pitching advantage will not always win.

Finally, the regular season will become a lot more interesting in the long run. Before the Wild Card came into effect in 1995, teams who were not completely terrible but aware that they had no chance at winning their division, folded and became pathetic all the way up to the final days of the regular season. But from 1995 on, these teams have gained new hope, and five Wild Card teams have gone on to win the World Series – the 1997 and 2003 Florida Marlins, the 2002 Anaheim Angels, the 2004 Boston Red Sox, and just recently, the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals.

The level of competition will begin to rise yet again, as there will be one last chance for new teams to make it to the playoffs. Having more teams be relevant towards the end of the season makes for much more exciting baseball than in years past.

MLB actually got this one right, and everyone will see after the All Star break passes. If you thought you’ve seen it all, just sit back and watch.

Image Courtesy of   Bill Florence / Shutterstock.com

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Once news broke that Josh McDaniels was re-hired as the Patriots’ offensive coordinator, most assumed that he would be joining the team next year, not next week in a divisional playoff matchup against the quarterback he once drafted, Tim Tebow.

Although current coordinator, Bill O’Brien, agreed to become the new head coach at Penn State last Saturday, it was determined that he would still retain the role of New England’s offensive coordinator throughout this postseason. McDaniels, who had previously held the position for the Pats from 2006-2008, was chosen as his replacement shortly after and will shockingly serve the coaching staff as an offensive assistant beginning Saturday night with a trip to the AFC title game on the line against the Broncos.

Adding a new coach right before a huge postseason showdown is already an interesting move to begin with, but considering the fact that McDaniels brought in Tebow and coached Denver from 2009-2010, it is raising even more eyebrows across the league. Many are outraged by the idea of McDaniels possibly being able to provide New England new information about Tebow specifically.

That concept should not be too large of a concern, though. New England did an excellent job of containing Tebow’s heroic antics, handily defeating Denver on the road 41-23 back in Week 15, without McDaniels’ assistance.  Tebow threw for just 194 yards that day, as the Pats were able to easily overcome an early deficit.

Still, that does not justify what New England has attempted to do coming into this crucial game. Hiring someone who once coached or played for your opponent is not a crime in sports. If anything, it is gamesmanship, as we have seen it occur countless times. However, the timing concept in this scenario is absolutely absurd.

Imagine if this happened to your team. With so much at stake in a do-or-die situation, would you not be livid knowing that the team you are battling against has inside information as to what you were trying to do – and that they were able to bring the informant in just days before?

The fact that the NFL allows teams to add unnecessary pieces to their coaching staffs in the middle of the postseason is simply unbelievable. We have never seen anything like this take place in other major sports, so why does this league think that it is acceptable, especially when preparation plays a bigger role than it does in any other sport?

If a team has to have a strict playoff roster set before the end of the regular season, then it should go the same way for coaches as well. The role that they play for their teams needs to be more respected.

Unfortunately, we are not psychics, so we cannot outright proclaim that actions like these really do change the outcomes of games. Instead of giving the fans, players, and coaches alike something to strongly complain about, do not give them the opportunity at all by forcing coaching staffs to remain the same during the postseason.

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