How exciting would it be for an 82-win team that slashed payroll to make the postseason? Wait ...
That’s one way to look at MLB’s proposed playoff expansion, which would expand the number of teams in each league and also give the team with the best record in the AL and NL a bye to the Division Series, among other tweaks.
Currently, baseball has the smallest playoff field (10) of any of the four major sports.
As first reported by Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the idea is to add two more wild-card teams in each league. The division winner with the second-best record gets to pick its playoff opponent for a best-of-three series, which replaces the current wild-card format. The third division winner also gets to pick from remaining teams.
The talk is MLB doing a “Selection Sunday” of sorts on the final day of the regular season, with the best team in the AL and NL simply sitting back and watching the opening series play out. The division winners would host all three games.
So what’s driving this? TV, of course. More playoff games means a richer package as MLB negotiates its next contract with networks, especially if there’s a NCAA Tournament feel to the opening round of the postseason, with 4-6 games in a day.
The MLBPA would have to sign off on any changes, and the earliest it could happen is 2022.
“Expanding the playoffs in a sensible way is something worth discussing when part of a much more comprehensive conversation about the current state of our game,” union head Tony Clark said in a statement.
The apparent downside? While tweaking the playoff format could actually add some excitement, it likely wouldn’t do enough to discourage tanking, would put mediocre teams in the postseason and allow some organizations to justify non-action as “playoff contention.”
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February 11, 2020 at 08:57PM
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MLB considers playoff expansion, with some interesting tweaks - MLive.com
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