Yankees’ Wild Card Series win gives Guardians great chance to quiet postseason hand wringing forever

Death, taxes and people complaining about the Guardians in the postseason.

Sure, there may be some times where those complaints are valid (like last year when the Guardians snuck into the postseason despite a .226 batting average), but this year’s discussion shows everyone has officially jumped the shark when it comes to Cleveland’s inclusion in the postseason. 

This fall’s topic du jour stems from the Guardians’ side of the bracket, which has the Guardians facing off against the White Sox in the American League Division Series after Chicago dispatched the lowly Astros in the Wild Card Series. 

Meanwhile, the Yankees are facing off against the Rays in the ALDS in the top part of the bracket after dispatching the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series. 

Everyone with eyes and a bit of ball knowledge can tell that’s an unfair seeding structure, but that’s how baseball works sometimes.

Were the Yankees and Red Sox punished in this year’s postseason seeding because they were in an incredibly competitive division? Yes. but they both had a chance to win the American League East but failed to get the job done behind the Rays. 

But that imbalance has led to a national conversation about postseason reseeding, with some hypothesizing that it could be a topic discussed in labor talks during the upcoming lockout. 

But the Yankees’ win over the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series gives the Guardians a great chance to silence that discussion, since their path to the World Series is now either going to go through the Rays (who finished the regular season with an Al-leading 98 wins) or through the Yankees (one of the biggest brands in sports). 

The Guardians path to the postseason gives them a chance to silence their postseason detractors

One of the beauties of baseball is the reward for an 162-game marathon being a sprint through the postseason via a best-of-three, five or seven series.

While the MLB postseason structure is pretty simple, it’s different compared to the other big sports leagues.

The NBA has done away with valuing division titles and seeds team by record regardless of where they’re at in the division, but it’s hard to imagine MLB doing because of how much the sport values division titles. 

The NFL reseeds their postseason after the Wild Card round, but that’s a bit easier to do in the NFL since teams have a week to prepare for the next round of the postseason. 

But the best way for the Guardians to table all these conversations is by taking care of business against the White Sox and whichever team wins the ALDS series between the Rays and Yankees. 

Right now it’s easy for every team to punch down on the Guardians’ path toward the postseason, but it’ll be harder for detractors to make those arguments if Cleveland shows out this postseason.

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