Hour 2: AL Playoff Bracket & Mike Lupica

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:31)
This is The Michael Kay Show podcast.

**Michael Kay** (0:34)
I gotta get more Kay.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:35)
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**Michael Kay** (0:43)
Let's take a look at the upcoming American League playoffs. So if the season ended right now, the Yankees would play the Red Sox in the wild card, and the winner of that series would play Tampa Bay. Now, I don't think there's anybody that would argue that the three best teams in the American League are the Yankees, the Rays and the Red Sox. Now, on the other side of the bracket, the White Sox would play the winner of Cleveland against Houston.
So one of those three teams, far and away at the next level behind the Rays, the Yankees and the Red Sox, one of those three teams is going to have a spot in the American League Championship Series.
It doesn't quite make sense to me. Now, I know divisions are important and the top two records in the division winners will get buys. So that would be the White Sox and the Rays right now. But don't you think that there should be re-seeding?
So like the Yankees and the Red Sox, they're going to have a better record than the Chicago White Sox who will win the Central.
But instead, Tampa Bay, which has the best record in the American League, would have to play a team with the second-best record in the American League, the Yankees and the Red Sox. So how does that make sense, and how is that fair? Why should Tampa Bay, with the best record in the league, have to play the American League Division Series against a team with the second-best record, while the White Sox, who win the Central, get to play the winner of Cleveland and Houston?
One of those teams might not even have a 500 record. How is that fair that the White Sox have an easier path to the World Series than the Rays? You're not rewarding the Rays for having the best record in the American League. Don't you think the fair thing would be to recede?
Tampa Bay should play the weaker team. So the weaker team would be the winner of Houston and Cleveland. That's who Tampa Bay should play in the Division Series, and the White Sox should play the winner of the Yankees and the Red Sox. Now, I'm not an overly reactionary guy where, a couple of years ago, remember, everybody, well, in the NBA, you've got to break up the Eastern and the Western Conference. The Western Conference has so many better teams. It's going to be like this forever. No, it's not. Everything is cyclical. Everything is cyclical. Because I don't know if you caught it, but the NBA champions came out of the East. They're the New York Knicks. And they beat the San Antonio Spurs out of the West. So let's all take a deep breath about that. So I'm not asking for any humongous change in the way business is done in baseball. Just like very simply, very simply, the Tampa Bay Rays should not be penalized to play the second best record in the first round, when it's very easily, they should be playing the worst record coming out of the wild card. But that's not the way it's going to be. And the only explanation that I've heard about this, and it's laughable to me, is well, we like to have brackets. You know, just like the NCAA. It's not like the NCAA. It's not like the NCAA. It shouldn't be about brackets. I think we can all follow what's going to be next. Let's make it a meritocracy. Why should the team with the best record play the team with the second best record in the division series, and not the team with the worst record? I don't get it. I don't get it. It's a bad look for baseball. It really is a bad look for baseball. Let's go to Andrew in Hoboken. Andrew.

**SPEAKER_5** (5:06)
Hey Michael. Thank you for taking my call.