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Eric Paddon's avatar

The balance of power between AL East and AL West shifted starting in 88 with the rise of the A's juggernaut. That said the situation that existed in the 80s revealed the reason why wildcards were needed. The 84 Royals got to postseason with a record that would have been fifth best in the AL East. And the 87 Twins took a World Championship with a record that would have been fifth in the AL East as well.

The Don Mattingly Yankees would have made the postseason multiple times had the wildcard existed in the 1980s and IMO that could have had a bearing on Mattingly's chances for making the Hall of Fame. Kirby Puckett had identical career numbers to Mattingly and got in on the first ballot and IMO his playing on two championship teams was a big influence there.

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ScarletNumber's avatar

Making the issue worse is that from 1979 through 1993 the AL played a balanced schedule so the divisions were just there for decoration. It's not as if the Royals had a better record because the AL West was better from top to bottom; they were just lousy compared to the AL East in 1984, but because of geography, they got to play the Tigers in the ALCS

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