MLB Changing Postseason Structure - WTF?

[King]

https://nypost.com/2020/02/10/mlb-plotting-playoff-expansion-with-reality-tv-twist/

 

what the f***

[King]

"Imagine a team picking its playoff opponent. Think about Brian Cashman and the Yankees deciding whether to face the Red Sox or avoid them in the first round of the postseason. All on live TV.

 

Well, it is probably coming soon to the major leagues.

 

MLB is seriously weighing a move from five to seven playoff teams in each league beginning in 2022, The Post has learned."

 

[Terminator]

Here's the actual playoff format:

 

MLB is seriously weighing a move from five to seven playoff teams in each league beginning in 2022, The Post has learned.

 

In this concept, the team with the best record in each league would receive a bye to avoid the wild-card round and go directly to the Division Series. The two other division winners and the wild card with the next best record would each host all three games in a best-of-three wild-card round. So the bottom three wild cards would have no first-round home games.

 

The division winner with the second-best record in a league would then get the first pick of its opponent from those lower three wild cards, then the other division winner would pick, leaving the last two wild cards to play each other.

 

Then the higher seeded teams get to pick who they play among the lower seeded teams.

 

There's a lot to process here lol.

 

I don't necessarily mind the expansion of teams, I think something needs to be done about the thousands of pointless games being played in August and September of every year. I also like the first round being all home games in a best of 3 series for the higher seeded team. Those teams picking who they play is a bit weird though.

[King]

Manfred

 

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[Terminator]

Kind of warming up to the idea of the higher seeds choosing who they play too. You could auto reseed each team but if you do that you might as well just let the teams pick. After all, a rotation that is really top heavy is probably a better rotation in the postseason than a deep rotation which would be better for regular season. Or perhaps the top seed has 2 lefties in their playoff rotation and they get to choose who to play instead of automatically taking on the tougher matchup.

 

Kind of fun and creates a lot of buzz for fans and sports talk type discussion too and MLB definitely needs more of that. Plus, this gives an advantage to the higher seeds who deserve it after a grueling 162 game schedule. I just don't like the current playoff format where winning 11 games in the postseason is too much of a crapshoot.

[BTS]

I don’t hate it

[wilko]

[Boxcar]

Rob Manfred f***ing sucks ass.

 

This is reminiscent of the NHL adopting mandatory shootouts to end tied games

[Jimcanuck]

I hate the sudden death WC game. Happy that gets replaced.

 

Disagree with a team picking its opponent. That's just silly.

[Ehjays]

I hate the sudden death WC game. Happy that gets replaced.

 

Disagree with a team picking its opponent. That's just silly.

 

Im undecided how I feel with a team picking their opponent, At first I thought no, then I thought teams play hard all year to earn the right why not....and to add to it, I believe it could give the "picked" team a a little fire under their ass....similar to how a batter feels when a team chooses to walk the guy ahead of him to get to him.

[P2F]

This isn't what needs to be changed and is far too gimmicky for my liking.

[Beans]

Of all the ways to expand the postseason... terrible.

 

But the fact that it was leaked shows that they’re just testing the waters, seeing how fans react. The final proposal is still in the works and will have to be less gimmicky and more basebally than this.

[Sammy225]

This seems f***ing stupid. As someone said way to gimmicky

[Laika]

Seems great.

 

Manfred for HOF?

[Abomination]

I don't know if I really like best of three for all teams other than the top one in each league. I do like the idea of the top seeds picking who they want to play.

[Pendleton]

I don't know if I really like best of three for all teams other than the top one in each league. I do like the idea of the top seeds picking who they want to play.

 

The whole thing is stupid and seems like it's setting up to be one of corny reality tv shows full of forced suspense. It does nothing for the sport or to draw interest in the game, just manufactured drama/and storylines that aren't needed to make playoff baseball interesting. Rivalries are great when they happen organically, we don't need to be force fed these "your opponent chose to play against you, how does that make you feel?" dramatics twice a year.

 

In before they choose Seacrest to host and go to commerical every time something is about to happen.

[RobinThicc]

More teams should make the playoffs. Thats the only change I'd make. Seems like the most obvious one too.

[Pendleton]

More teams should make the playoffs. Thats the only change I'd make. Seems like the most obvious one too.

 

Half the teams making the playoffs is just absurd. If you haven't proven to be more than a middle of the road ballclub after 162 games, you don't deserve to be in the playoffs.

[Spanky99]

The whole thing is stupid and seems like it's setting up to be one of corny reality tv shows full of forced suspense. It does nothing for the sport or to draw interest in the game, just manufactured drama/and storylines that aren't needed to make playoff baseball interesting. Rivalries are great when they happen organically, we don't need to be force fed these "your opponent chose to play against you, how does that make you feel?" dramatics twice a year.

 

In before they choose Seacrest to host and go to commerical every time something is about to happen.

 

Bwahaha

[bones10]

That's a pretty interesting proposition, I'm not sure I believe the whole 'baseball is dying' hysteria, sure it might not be the 2nd to the NFL anymore, but does even have to be?

[Beans]

That's a pretty interesting proposition, I'm not sure I believe the whole 'baseball is dying' hysteria, sure it might not be the 2nd to the NFL anymore, but does even have to be?

And baseball is popular with Gen Z (though not millenials). The hysteria is mostly over how poorly baseball does with Gen X.

[TBJ12]

Half the teams making the playoffs is just absurd. If you haven't proven to be more than a middle of the road ballclub after 162 games, you don't deserve to be in the playoffs.

 

More teams making the playoffs will almost certainly increase interest in the game. It would cut down on the number of teams tanking every year and could even help increase salaries. I'm guessing the players are going to be on board.

[glory]

I hate the idea of more teams making the playoffs, but MLB is not exactly on fire as far as attendance and mainstream marketability. Even looking at highlights and seeing stadiums 1/3 filled in July is disgusting and bad for the sport. I don't know if increasing the number of playoff teams would improve attendance, especially if teams find the benefit of outright tanking to be more beneficial than getting a WC spot, but at this point MLB needs to do something to attract more fans during the season.

 

I didn't read the entire thing because I had a long day at work and don't feel like trying to decipher that playoff format, maybe I'll do it in the morning, but this was inevitable. Plus if there are more inventory of playoff games, then it increases the game's marketability to TV networks as the article said (original live content is coveted nowadays).

[Jonn]

I think to many teams make the playoffs in hockey and basketball. I think right now in Baseball its the right amount. Not really a huge fan of these changes. Would it create a buzz and have people taking about sure. But by year 3 everyone won’t care. If this is their way of trying to get people with short attention spans to like Baseball I’m not very optimistic about the future.

[Dick_Pole]

The right to choose your opponent doesn't bug me, as long as they don't make it gimmicky as other people have said. If an AL East team has 84 wins facing good opponents and an AL Central team has 85 wins while racking up 30 wins against KC and Detroit, it obviously makes more sense to want to face the Central team. This is baseball's lame response to the problems created by the dumb scheduling.

 

What I have a problem with is the rest of the format. Especially the WC home team under the imbalanced schedule. Imagine a scenario like this:

 

NYY - 100 wins

TB - 87

Sox - 86

Jays - 80

O's - 50

 

Cle - 89

Min - 88

Chi - 75

KC - 50

Det - 50

 

Hou - 95

A's - 87

Angels - 85

Tex - 80

M's - 70

 

So because the Twins run up their record against s*** opponents, they get the huge advantage of being the home wild card team. While legit teams with 85 wins don't even make it.

 

If you're going to put in so damn many wild card spots, don't have teams with wildly different schedules competing for the same spots! I know the NFL has this problem but there are only 16 regular season games. The NHL and NBA have figured out a nice balance between rivalry and strength of schedule and they aren't exactly run by geniuses.

 

My proposal would be:

 

-Expand to 32 teams

- 4 divisions of 8

- face division opponents 12 times, non-division league opponents 8 times, have a few interleague games

-2 division winners each league that get the bye, four wild card spots compete in round 1

-top team in the league gets to pick the opponent for the next round. Or don't pick them. I don't care.

 

Or if the MLB absolutely MUST have the Yankees and Red Sox face each other once a month or else the world will combust, then make 4 "leagues" of 8. Where you play your seven division opponents a bunch of times and everyone else 3 times. Top 3 teams in each division/league make the playoffs. But the format still follows the AL/NL World Series split. Top 3 teams in each league should be good enough so that a good team doesn't miss the playoffs unfairly.

[Dick_Pole]

Haven't franchise values inflated about as quickly as the Toronto housing market since the 1990's? The business of baseball isn't exactly struggling. I get that the increase to the owners' pockets is part of the reason why they choose to put their head in the sand over the long term health of the sport.

 

Baseball is boring to some. But look at all the boring crap that's popular right now. Like esports. People will like s*** if you let them bet on it and let them feel like their a part of a community to supplement their miserable lives.

[Deadpool]

Baseball teams have 162 games to prove if they suck or not, we don't need more teams in the playoffs. We sure as s*** don't need short series and gimmicks that let inferior teams fluke out wins.

[King]

 

holy f*** lol

[TheHurl]

Haven't franchise values inflated about as quickly as the Toronto housing market since the 1990's? The business of baseball isn't exactly struggling. I get that the increase to the owners' pockets is part of the reason why they choose to put their head in the sand over the long term health of the sport.

 

Baseball is boring to some. But look at all the boring crap that's popular right now. Like esports. People will like s*** if you let them bet on it and let them feel like their a part of a community to supplement their miserable lives.

 

values are way up. But they sold their cash cow, and for the first time ever they didn't get an increase in the TV deal. There are predictions that they will be behind eSports in viewership within 15 years...and they got passed by basketball already (the numbers are worse when you do it for males under 35). I don't understand North America's love of the huge playoffs (personally I hate seeing medicore teams benefitted) but they do. Owners love it too. So this was always in the plans. The reality show s*** is what has been talked about for a while, having a big media event where the players can be marketed. I can see them having cameras on each team. Players dressed in suits or their own clothes. True baseball fans could give a s*** who Stroman hopes to see matched up, but it's actually what's been lacking.

 

Personally I like none of it. From a business side I understand all of it. And with the PA asking for changes to service time or the arb system...the owners are going to want something back.

[Spanky99]

 

holy f*** lol

 

No f***s given.