In the comments on a previous post, there was a brief conversation on the merits of longer playoff series, centered around the idea that a longer playoff series is more likely to see the better team emerge with a victory.

Recently, on ESPN.com’s Page 2, Tim Keown criticized the length of the MLB playoffs, saying that the wild card makes the playoffs too long:

But the bigger issue is one nobody in baseball wants to acknowledge: The World Series has declined in suspense and aesthetic value since the beginning of the wild card format. Three rounds of playoffs has cheapened the World Series, to the point where it is now the end of an endurance race, the prize at the end of a grueling trail, rather than the climax of a long season.

The wild-card format isn’t going anywhere. For baseball’s purposes, it works, keeping more teams interested and more fans in the stands. The extra round of playoffs means big bucks.

But six of the last nine World Series have ended in four or five games, and the extra round has to get some of the blame for that. The emphasis seems to have changed from winning the Series to simply getting there, kind of like the Super Bowl.

That’s a theory, but some things are inarguable: Guys wearing ski caps in the batter’s box are not good for the game. Teams with nothing left by the time they get to the World Series are not good for the game. The decreased television audience isn’t good, either.

You know what they’re talking about, though, right? Expanding the first round to seven games.

While he is specifically addressing the wild card’s effect on the playoffs, he seems not to echo Glavine’s sentiment that a longer playoff series benefits purportedly better teams.  At the very least, the two topics do not seem entirely disconnected.

But, if nothing else, the 2006 World Series seems to have notched one major accomplishment: thanks to the baseball-unfriendly weather and weary players, it has more people wondering if perhaps the MLB season is too long.  There is little hope of a shortened baseball season, but at least it’s a topic of conversation now.

Here’s one more indication of the excessive length of the modern MLB season:

• The Tigers played their first game of the 2006 season on 02 April.
• The Chelsea (MI) High School varsity baseball team played its first game of the 2005-2006 season on 13 April.
• The Chelsea High School varsity football team played its last game of the 2006-2007 regular season on 20 October; its first-round playoff game was on 27 October.
• The Tigers played game 5 — which turned out to be the final game — of the World Series on 27 October.

To summarize, the 2006 Tigers started their season before the 2005-2006 Chelsea high school season and finished their World Series appearance after the 2006-2007 Chelsea varsity football regular season.