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Is having no 100-win teams good for MLB? | Baseball Bar-B-Cast

Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman discuss if the fact that there will likely be no 100-win teams in Major League Baseball this season - for the first time in a decade - is good or bad for the game heading into the postseason push. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Most of the people that I talked to about this in front offices expect us to have an 100 win team again next season that this is more of a blip than it is a trend.

But it is really stark.

I mean, we had three last year for the year before that and we're gonna have none.

Does it make the league more entertaining to follow?

Will it make October less entertaining?

I'm curious whether you like, how do you feel about this?

Well, right, when we talk about it in a wild card context and ultimately, what we end up saying is, oh, look at all these 80 to 85 win teams kind of trying to crawl their way and just claw their way into, oh, here we sneak in the third and then who knows anything can happen?

And a lot of fans I feel like, feel like, oh, really?

Should we be rewarding these not actually great teams to get into the postseason and that's its own discourse.

But so then what is the upside and downside of not having any teams that are way out ahead of everybody else?

Right is in theory, division races.

Right.

And division races are inherently more compelling than the race for the third wild card where it just looks like Atlanta or any of these teams.

Actually, that good winning the division is extremely important now.

And I think it's something that if there was ways to continue to incentivize it more, I think it would also continue to be a good thing in baseball.

And if those are, are still relevant because I feel like recently we've had a few where it's like we got division races wrapping up on September 10th and it's like, all right, well, that's fine.

And now we're just looking at all these teams and, and the race, which is what September is about are we're talking about teams that are just not that compelling.

Now, we all know that they can get in and then just go on a run.

But I think that's maybe the discourse around like a postseason race has in some cases been lost because some of these teams are so far ahead.

I like it when we have Monsters and Minnows, when we have juggernauts and underdogs.

Seeing the Diamondbacks go into L A last year and pants them was like, whoa, wow, that's crazy.

Where if you have 292 win teams, it's like, well, can't wait for this coin flip and there's still good narrative drama in that.

But I think that having both at the same time is probably the best option.