I think he is talking about average teams. A team can win 81 and make the playoffs, why try for 90? To get around this, divison winners get byes. Let the others fight for HFA.
If you look at the standings, teams are actually trying and there isn't this large amount of under .500 unworthy teams. The quality of baseball has improved significantly. Now, if you do this, top 3 seeds should get byes and the other seeds play a winner takes all tournament for the 4th seed.
They are viewing 7 and 8 as wild cards, so they will be bottom seeded. Like a wild card with 104 wins would be the lowest seed in the real playoff field. The top two in each division are auto bids since the divisions don't play each other to determine who is best. Thus, each division must have fair representation and you cannot assume a third place team is better than any second place team in another division, even with a better record.
Don't worry, Houston will get healthy and be formidable come playoff time. Every team in the bracket looks scary on paper except the Jays. And even they have some talented bats.
So Ricky doesn't make the call to bring in Dyson for Eloy? He also has no say in starting McCann against Berrios? I know these days the front office influences a lot of decisions, but o think Ricky has more leeway than people think.