Opinion: Why baseball’s second round is called the LDS is historically bizarre

Major League Baseball (Wikimedia Commons)

The League Divisional Series in the 2025 Major League Baseball playoffs are taking place this week. There are four very intriguing matchups currently going on in New York, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles. These are four American cities that have rich baseball histories.

Why does Major League Baseball call these series Divisional Series could be considered strange and bizarre. One reason is for 14 seasons in the MLB postseason when a divisional series playoff matchup took place from 1998 to 2011, teams inside the same division never played against each other. If the wildcard team was in the same division as the team with the best MLB record, then these two teams would never play head-to-head. The wildcard team would then play the division winner with the second best record in the league. The way the playoff system was formulated, you could call it the Anti-Divisional Series.

Today, teams within the same division are able to play against each other in the League Divisional Series. Why they still call these matches League Divisional Series makes no sense. Major League Baseball should just call the round the second round like we have in the National Hockey League Stanley Cup Playoffs and National Basketball Association Playoffs. Another term that would make sense would be American League Championship Series Semifinals and National League Championship Series Semifinals.

In terms of the length of the two LDS series, I am OK with both series being best of five. I do not like the fact that there are four best of three wildcard series. I think there are too many teams that make the postseason (12) when there is a 162 game schedule. The first round is too short, and all teams that make the playoffs should be given the opportunity to host a playoff game.