Do first-round byes disrupt hard-earned momentum? Not so fast
Teams coming off byes lost 5 of 8 Division Series in past 2 seasons
Congrats to the Dodgers, Guardians, Phillies and Yankees, who performed well enough for six months this season to earn a first-round bye past the Wild Card round. That gave them time to rest and reset their rotations – all while entirely avoiding the risk that their seasons might come to a quick end in the first round’s best-of-three series, as happened to the 99-win Rays last fall.
At the same time, though: Won’t you spare a thought for the poor, doomed Dodgers, Guardians, Phillies and Yankees? The layoff they’ll face while waiting for the Division Series will cost them all their momentum and ruin the timing of their hitters, since they’ll be forced to sit idle while the Wild Card teams get to keep their skills sharp in must-win games.
Not exactly. Perhaps not at all.
It’s not hard to see why the bye is viewed as being a detriment, of course. In the first two years of this playoff system, look at what’s happened.
In 2023, the bye teams lost three of the four Division Series matchups.
That’s a mere 3-5 record for the rested teams, and it’s particularly understandable why Braves fans might feel like the bye isn’t the advantage they’d like it to be; they have, after all, lost to a Wild Card team in their own division, the rival Phillies, after a bye in two consecutive Octobers.
On the other hand, the sport is wildly different in a short October series; when the Braves’ hitters struggled against Philadelphia pitching last year, they had to deal with the top Philadelphia quartet of Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suárez and José Alvarado throwing 66% of the innings in the NLDS – after throwing only 38% of Philadelphia’s regular-season innings. If hitters don’t hit in the playoffs, look to their opposition, not their calendar.
