The MLS Playoff System, Post Mortem, Ad Naseum, Et Cetera-- Where the Critics have a point...

Now that the dust has settled on the MLS playoffs, it's as decent a time as any to take another look at the MLS playoff format.

Taking the 2007 playoffs into account, the higher seeds advance 70% in the first round. In the second round (single game elimination), the higher seeds advance 80% of the time (as both New England and Houston did this time around).

#2 seed Houston, of course, won the whole thing against fellow #2 seed New England.

So why was everyone complaining? I think there's a few arguments.

1. Quality of Play. Other formats might create more attractive games.

2. Creating incentives for intense play in the regular season. Rewarding higher seeds more (or differently) might make the regular season more meaningul.

3. Rewarding strong regular season performance. #3 is sort of the flip side to #2-- central to #3 is the idea that a team that does well in the regular season ought to have an easier road to the championship. The playoffs ought to reduce the number of fluke results for such teams.

As I've stated before, #2 and #3 appear to be dealt with pretty well by the current system. MLS high seeds already advance at a very rate. Making the rate even higher might have the perverse effect of making the playoffs seem less compelling if fans think the playoffs are just a rubber stamp affair.

But, even with a 70% advancement rate with higher seeds, the MLS playoff critics still have a few points.
1. Higher seeds win because they are better teams-- not because of the playoff format. This argument is 50% brilliance and 50% not-so-brilliance. First, the not-so-brilliant part: the higher seeds are only playing against teams that that they are better than because... wait for it... playing weak teams is part of the format's reward for being a higher seed. And the stats have shown that it's a pretty hefty advantage indeed.

But here's a more nuanced take: higher seeds aren't given much other advantage in the two-leg format. If a higher seed is hit by inopportune injuries (like Razov and Galindo's injuries for #1 Chivas USA, or Emilio and Moreno's injuries for #1 DC United), then their "better team" advantage evaporates because of bad timing. Injuries are a fact of life in sports, but this doesn't seem entirely "fair" that the playoff advantage gained from an entire season of work could be destroyed because of injuries at precisely the wrong moment. This is precisely the case where you'd want a higher seed to get a more concrete advantage, such as playing an extra game at home.

Then there's also this developing problem: Right now, MLS playoff teams include a few teams below 0.500. The worst MLS playoff teams are frequently pretty bad teams. However, when the league expands to 16 teams, gone will be the days when the 8 seed is a below 0.500 team. The 8 seed will be a progressively better team with each expansion of the league. What's this mean? It means that the advantage for high seeds in the current format will be correspondingly diminished. If, in five years, we start to see 1 and 2 seeds start to fall regularly to their lower seeded opponents, we'll need to revisit the playoff format.

2. The playoff format doesn't reward regular season prowess. Obviously, the stats show that the regular season is rewarded in the post-season with advancement about 70% of the time. But what if, as I suggested previously, no onr believes that the format is rewarding, even though the stats show that it positively is? Fans won't believe the regular season to be meaningful and players won't play like it is.

There are a couple of reasons why this might actually be the case.
A. Playing weaker teams only gives you a bonus if you actually play hard and are better. So your reward for playing hard and being better all season is... two more games of needing to play harder and be better in the playoffs. People like getting perks: having home field advantage is a little like getting a perk-- if a home team plays a visitor even, they'll likely win.

B. The MLS playoff format isn't an intuitively obvious reward as it is in other US leagues. The rewards might not be concrete enough or be compelling in small increments (i.e. would you rather play the Fire as a #1 seed or the Wizards as a #2 seed). Economists are frequently confounded by evidence that people frequently make irrational decisions because of little presnetational differences. If that's the case in MLS, maybe we need to re-think how the playoff format is presented to the players.