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Since Major League Baseball set its playoff system with the Wild Card Game involving non-divisional winners, there has been much clamoring about the unfairness of the setup.
And truth be told, things haven't always shaken out spic and span.
The Pittsburgh Pirates won 98 games in 2015, but finished in second place in the National League Central Division to the St. Louis Cardinals, who won 100 games.
Because they were unfortunate enough to be in an ultra competitive division that year, the Pirates were locked into the winner-take-all Wild Card Game with the Chicago Cubs, who finished in third place in the NL Central that season despite winning 97 games.
Meanwhile, the NL West Division champion Los Angeles Dodgers and NL East Division champion New York Mets received byes into the NL Division Series that year, despite winning just 92 and 90 games, respectively.
It didn't seem fair, and it seemed less so when the Pirates ran into a buzzsaw in Cy Young Award winning Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta and exited quietly from the playoffs with a 4-0 Wild Card Game loss.
The Pirates haven't been to the playoffs since, and if ever the playoff setup screamed for a new alignment, that was the year.
A similar scenario unfolded in the National League this year, when the Dodgers won 106 regular-season games but finished second in the NL West Division to the San Francisco Giants, who won 107.
The Dodgers were forced into the do-or-die Wild Card Game with the St. Louis Cardinals, which they won. That put the Dodgers into a riveting best-of-five NLDS with the Giants, which the Dodgers won by taking the final two games, including the deciding Game 5 in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta Braves won the weak NL East with just 88 wins this year, and avoided the Russian roulette Wild Card Game.
It didn't seem fair. Again. But Atlanta's six-game ouster of the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series might have silenced the critics, at least temporarily.
There is still something to be said, after all, for prevailing over 162 regular-season games and winning a division. Any division. In any year.
The only other alternative is to have leagues with no divisions at all -- as was the case prior to the 1970 season, when both the National and American Leagues split into East and West Divisions -- and to seed playoff participants according to their number of regular-season wins.
A league without divisions, however, would create its own logistics, travel, and scheduling nightmares.
The present setup, though imperfect, is still workable. This year's World Series between the Braves and Houston Astros may not be decided until early November again, and doing something like instituting a best-of-three Wild Card series would push the finish date back even later.
n In most seasons, it's a matter of the hottest team in the postseason -- not necessarily the best team -- winning all the marbles. Successful trade deadline acquisitions are almost always instrumental in the playoffs. One of the biggest cases in point this year for the Braves is outfielder Eddie Rosario, picked up from the Cleveland Indians in July. Rosario had a walkoff game-winning single to beat the Dodgers in Game 2 and give Atlanta a big leg up in the series, which he helped to clinch with a decisive three-run homer in Game 6.
n The St. Louis Cardinals' parting ways with successful manager Mike Shildt was a head-scratcher on the surface. But there is often more than meets the eye. Shildt and Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak had irreconcilable philosophical differences about how the team should be run -- including what role baseball analytics should play. The personality clash overrode the fact that the Cardinals were the hottest team in the majors late in the regular season, putting together a 17-game winning streak. Oliver Marmol, now the youngest manager in MLB at the age of 35, was promoted from his role as bench coach to replace Shildt.
John Hartsock can be reached at jhartsock@altoonamirror.com.