Enlarge By Stephen Dunn, Getty Images Jonathan Broxton and the Los Angeles Dodgers finished the regular season tied for the third best record in the league (95-67). They face the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Division Series.  PLAYOFF LETDOWNS Playoff disappointment for stellar clubs Since baseball adopted a six-division, wild-card format in 1995, several outstanding clubs have failed to reach the World Series: Season Team Record What happened 1997 Atlanta Braves 101-61 Lost NLCS 4-2 to Florida Marlins, who finished nine games behind them in regular season 1998 Atlanta Braves 106-56 Lost NLCS 4-2 to San Diego Padres 2001 Seattle Mariners 116-46 Lost ALCS 4-1 to New York Yankees 2003 Atlanta Braves 101-61 Lost NLCS 4-2 to Houston Astros, who finished 10 games behind them in regular season  2009 POSTSEASON Pennant race: Complete postseason schedule. Photo gallery: Catch the postseason highlights in pictures. Bloggin' baseball: USA TODAY chose a fan blogger for each playoff team to contribute to our postseason coverage. Read their posts.

When they step onto the field today to open the playoffs, it will mean virtually nothing.

They will get an extra home game if their best-of-five division series go the distance, but the Yankees and Dodgers say the format can be more of a curse than a blessing.

"The greatest pressure in the entire postseason," Dodgers manager Joe Torre says, "is having Game 1 at home. You lose that game, and everything you've worked for all year, everything you've done to gain an advantage, is now gone.

"And that just scares me to death."

Whether it's fear or just a perception that the playoffs are unfair, in recent years players, managers and team executives have been growing more frustrated with the three-round playoff format, which made its debut in 1995.

"The Yankees have 26 world championships," Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says. "If we had played all of those years with divisions and wild cards, we would not have 26 world championships. This is much more perilous, a lot more combustible."

Cashman was the GM and Torre the manager of the last team to finish with baseball's best regular-season record outright and win the World Series, and that was 11 years ago when the 1998 Yankees had 114 wins.

This year's Yankees, who led baseball with 103 wins, will try to end that streak when they open an American League Division Series against the Minnesota Twins today at Yankee Stadium. The Dodgers, with a 95-67 record, will start their National League Division Series at home vs. the St. Louis Cardinals.

If either team loses, their home-field advantage is gone.

"I'm telling you, it's not fair," says Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter, whose team again faces the Boston Red Sox a year after finishing with baseball's best record and losing to them in the opening round. "You look at the Kansas City Royals, and they can still beat you twice in three games. The same thing can happen in the playoffs. It might be good for Vegas, but it's bad for baseball. Who wants to see a fluke win the World Series?"

Wild cards can be pesky

The Yankees and Dodgers don't even get to open the playoffs against their league's wild-card team because the postseason-qualifying Red Sox and Colorado Rockies are from their respective divisions. Then again, playing the wild-card winners might not be much of an advantage.

Nine wild-card teams have reached the World Series since 1995. Four have won, including three in a row from 2002 to 2004. Last year's World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays was the first in seven years that did not include a wild-card entrant.

"If you have the best record in your league, you should be rewarded for your great year," says Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, who has been in the postseason every year but one since 1995. "The way it is now, the wild card is the same. It shouldn't be like that. There should be a big difference."

Seven years ago the Angels forever changed their image as a star-crossed franchise, winning the World Series for the first time in franchise history — as a wild-card team.

They didn't have home-field advantage against the Yankees in the AL Division Series but won Game 2 in New York and never had to return. They didn't have home-field against the Twins in the AL Championship Series but won Game 2 on the road. They had the home-field advantage in the World Series against the San Francisco Giants.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia isn't about to hand back the World Series trophy, but he says he strongly believes the playoff format needs altering.

"The wild-card team should have a much tougher road," Scioscia says. "It should be a much greater challenge where you have to scratch and claw."

Not everybody thinks this randomness is bad for baseball. The issue is like looking at a carnival fun-house mirror: The image is distorted, depending where you are standing.

"There are so many upsets and the unscripted drama," says Turner Sports President David Levy, whose station broadcasts the division series and NLCS this year, "but that's what sports is all about.

"The strong brands and big-market teams is what drives big TV ratings. But when story lines start building, and the deeper in the series you go, there's that building that can overcome the small-market syndrome.

"If the Yankees lose Game 1, you're going to get a lot more interest. If they got up 2-0, there's not such a big story line. When Tampa beat Boston last year in Game 7 (of the ALCS), it was the largest-rated (baseball) telecast in the history of cable."

The postseason's wide-open nature might help explain why there have been 17 teams in the World Series since 1997, with eight champions in the last nine years.

Player agent Scott Boras disagrees.

"Baseball likes to say they have competitive balance because of the variety of teams that have won the World Series," Boras says. "The playoffs have created a championship-caliber balance, and they view that as a success.

"But that's not how you define competitive balance. There's no correlation between competitive balance in the regular season and the playoffs. We have to keep the integrity of the regular season.

"Fans should want the best baseball teams playing in the World Series; not seeing teams there just because they got hot for a few games."

Commissioner Bud Selig, the driving force behind the switch to the current playoff format, says he understands the consternation but also sees the beauty of unpredictability.

"We've agonized over it, gone back over it again and again," Selig says, "and we decided to leave it as it is. Look, I understand all of the concerns, but the team with the best record still has an advantage all through the playoffs.

"I like it the way it is."

Ideas abound

Often the problem is with the best-of-five division series, and there is no shortage of ideas on how to improve the format, including:

•The wild-card entrants, Scioscia says, should have to play Game 1 at home and the next four on the road.

•Yankees manager Joe Girardi favors a 2-1-2 setup, giving the wild-card team the middle game at home.

•Boras recommends the wild-card team play the entire series on the road and a 3-2-2 format in the league championship series, with the lower seed getting two home games.

•Dodgers infielder Mark Loretta, catcher Brad Ausmus and assistant coach Mark Sweeney are in favor of two wild-card entrants. They would have a one-game playoff in which the teams would be inclined to use one of their top pitchers, pushing back his first appearance in the division series.

•Yankees left-hander CC Sabathia would like to see a best-of-seven in every round, with no days off, just like the regular season.

That would help eliminate the notion that one dominant pitcher can tilt a short series in an inferior team's favor and minimize weaknesses at the back end of starting rotations.

Giants left-hander and probable Hall of Famer Randy Johnson thinks the Houston Astros had the best team in the NL in 1998, when they won 102 games but ran into ace Kevin Brown twice in four games and lost to the San Diego Padres in the NLDS.

Milwaukee Brewers manager Ken Macha, then coaching and managing for the Oakland Athletics, remains haunted by the A's excruciating first-round defeats to the Yankees (2000, '01), Twins (2002) and Red Sox (2003), wondering if a seven-game series would have made a difference. Rockies first baseman Jason Giambi, who was on the A's in 2000 and '01, says the shorter series cost them a World Series title.

"The pitching we had," Giambi says, "there's no doubt we could have won it all. We just needed to get out of that first round; that's when we would have showed the depth of our staff. With (Tim) Hudson and (Mark) Mulder and (Barry) Zito, we were in great shape."

Others advocate expanding the opening round to a best-of-seven series.

"You can win 114 games like we did" in 1998, Torre says, "and you can be out right away. I think the first round should be seven games. If it's a best-of-five, one hot pitcher can change everything. When we faced the Twins with (Johan) Santana (in 2003 and '04) in the first round, that was frightening."

Yet there are those such as Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter, who faces the Dodgers today, who want to keep the first round a best-of-five affair.

"If you expand the playoffs," Carpenter says, "we'll be playing until Christmas. I would like to go home at Thanksgiving and spend time with my family."

Selig agrees and concedes he is already worried about the World Series possibly extending to Nov. 5 this year, the latest in history. If the first round was expanded, he says, the regular season would have to be trimmed.

"We're going into November, so I told the clubs that if they want to go to a best-of-seven" in the first round, Selig says, "there would have to be a reduction in the season. Nobody was willing to do that."

The playoff format is staying in place — at least for now.