Christina Kahrl of ESPN.com on adding a 5th wild card team:

Say the Red Sox and Yankees go toe-to-toe for the AL East crown next season, all the way until their final series against one another. Say the two are tied with 99 wins on October 3, the Yankees lose, having used CC Sabathia to gun for the wild-card “round” bye, so they get squared off against … an 85-win White Sox team that was cruising comfortably with the fifth-best record in the league, and with their rotation queued up to toss their best starter in this must-win game. The Yankees get punished for trying to win, while the White Sox just need one game to advance after six months of mediocrity. How does that scenario make sense?

I already think a 5-game series isn’t sufficient enough to prove who the “better” team is. Shortening that to 1-game is downright insane. Consider the fact that both the NBA and NHL play half as many regular season games as MLB, and yet they both have 7-game series in the first round.

I don’t understand the point of 162-game season if a team could be eliminated from the playoffs after one game. If this is the plan, they might as well shorten the season to 82 games.