The Year Without A Pennant Race

Tonight in Phila-delphia, Russ Gload completed a 4-game sweep of the second place Braves, giving the home team a 10.5 game lead and reducing their plainly absurd magical number to five. Meanwhile in St. Louis, the Cardinals got a shutout effort from Chris Carpenter to draw to 8.5 of the first place Brewers, and 6.5 games of the wild-card Braves. In Colorado, Arizona nailed down a come from behind win to take a 7-game lead on the reeling Giants.

In the American League, things are a little better, in that we have one actual pennant race between the Rangers and Angels, who are separated by 2.5 games. The Tigers lead the Central by 9 games, and the Yankees and Red Sox are doing their annual It Doesn't Matter race to see who gets home field in a second-round matchup that won't happen. Woo!

And if your pulse isn't quickened by any of that... you are not alone. Honestly, unless the Braves fall apart in the next week or two, there isn't going to be a moment of suspense in the National League for the last two weeks of the year, and in the AL, you are hosed unless you've got Rangers or Angels.

So every fantasy league championship is going to be left up to a bunch of AAAA guys, the season records are going to be compromised, and even fewer people outside of MLB+ markets are going to even remember or care about the end of the season.

Which means that, of course... we're going to have more wild card teams, and soon. More mildly over .500 teams in the playoffs, which are pretty much random chance in the small sample size anyway. Way to go, Bud!

And all of this makes me wonder... at some point, can't we just cut the franchises down to the 12 markets that still pay and care, and just roll back the national television deals?