Climax Series

The Climax Series (クライマックスシリーズ, Kuraimakkusu Shirīzu) is the current annual playoff system implemented by Japan's Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB).

[1][2] This system proved problematic when the Hankyu Braves won both the first and second halves of the 1976 and 1978 seasons, making a playoff series unnecessary.

[4] If a first-place team had a substantial lead in the standings nearing the end of the regular season, the league's champion would have been decided and there was little excitement until the start of the Japan Series.

In the first stage, the teams that finished the newly shortened, 135-game regular season with the second- and third-best records played each other in a best-of-three series.

[5] For the 2006 Pacific League Playoffs, PL officials removed the five-game lead requirement in favor of automatically awarding the first-place team the one-win advantage.

[6] This rule change became a non-factor after the eventual first-place Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters clinched a Japan Series berth in two straight games.

[8] Citing the Hanshin Tigers' poor Japan Series performance, he speculated that the CL's lack of postseason play was a disadvantage.

[1] During meetings held later that year, PL and CL officials disagreed over proposed plans detailing the new playoff system.

[10] The PL disapproved of the CL's intentions to continue awarding their league title to the first-place finisher in the regular season while using the playoffs to determine which team would compete against in the Japan Series.

[12] The two leagues also agreed that neither regular-season champion should receive a one-game advantage in the final stage of the Climax Series, claiming that it was unnecessary from a business point of view.

Unlike Major League Baseball (MLB), NPB games may end in a tie if there is no winner after 12 innings of play.

Robert Whiting described its creation as "long overdue" and believes it stimulates more interest in Japanese baseball.

[31] Japanese baseball writer Asa Satoshi explains that while the system isn't perfect, it reduces the number of throwaway dead rubber games played and its need is reinforced by its popularity with fans.

[32] However, Satoshi goes on to question the decision to award the league pennant to the team with the highest winning percentage instead of its Climax Series champion.

He also argues that a system that allows for half of the teams to advance to the playoffs and potentially win the Japan Series undermines the purpose of a long regular season.

To address the matter of lower or losing teams possibly advancing, some have proposed giving the league champion an extra game advantage in the final stage if they won the league by ten or more games or, even stricter, a team would simply be excluded from the postseason if they finished the regular season with a record below .500.

Sportswriter Ko Hiroo takes inspiration from MLB's Wild Card Series and proposes that NPB's twelve teams should be restructured from two leagues to three divisions.

[36] When looking at two postseasons, one before and one after the implementation of the Climax Series, Hiroo concludes that the addition of a playoff has had a positive effect on NPB from an entertainment and business perspective.

Okada believes the Climax Series strikes a balance between these two completing perspectives while also providing fans with more dramatic baseball.

The Japan Times columnist Wayne Graczyk has suggested that this format be scrapped in favor of MLB's one-game playoff.

[3] The Japan Times columnist Jason Coskrey believes that the "phantom win" gives the pennant winner too much of an advantage.

[40] He describes the situation as NPB "trying to have its cake and eat it too" by trying to reap the benefits of a playoff system while also trying to maintain the traditional showdown of pennant winners in the Japan Series.

He believed this to be the right balance as it maintained the importance of the regular season while also allowing for an occasional surprise that excited fans.