When Major League Baseball added a second wild card in each league in 2012 and made a winner-advances wild-card game for each one, it got it right for a couple reasons.

-- It gives teams more incentive to win their divisions and not just make it in. Also, it rewards the No. 1 seed with an opponent whose pitching staff is not as rested as the top seed's.

-- It starts the playoffs with a bang. MLB put the wild-card games on Tuesday and Wednesday, away from football, and made them the best kind of postseason drama it can offer -- winner take all. Instead of easing into the playoffs, they start with a sprint.

-- Howard Primer