MLB reportedly considering massive expansion of the playoff format

[NJDevs26]

Not for nothing but the best thing about the current format is the incentivizing of actually winning your division. That incentive largely gets taken away with this dopey 2-7 system. There will be scenarios where teams are playing for the division on the last day and it's only gonna be the difference between the 2 or 3 and 4 seed, it'll be like a spring training game a la Dodgers-Padres in the mid '90's on the last day of the season in the days of one wild card.

It actually might do the opposite of what they’re intending. The playoffs are going to drag on so long that they will seem even more insignificant to the average idiot. Especially when mediocre teams are getting in more often than ever before.

It'll be hard to explain the playoff system and seeding to a newbie, just like it is with the current NHL format. Yeah second-third division winners and wild card get home field for a three-game series but they pick their opponents in inverse order among three other wild card teams. Then who the **** knows how it gets reseeded in the next round? People will just roll their eyes at the permutations. But yeah I think they are looking for a dopey 'Selection Sunday' type show with four teams picking their opponents.

 

[Vegas07]

The regular season will mean a lot less with most division winners having to play in the wild card round.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

This is awful idea and Manfred will likely leave MLB in ruins by end of his reign as Commish

 

[542365]

If anything, get rid of the second Wild Card. We have 162 games to determine the best teams in each league. I like that the regular season is so important. Getting into the playoffs is very difficult. Having everyone make it like the NHL and NBA is just a bad idea. Reduce the schedule to 100 games and then I’d be more interested. There’s no need for that long of a season if every team that’s actively trying to win makes the playoffs.

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

If anything, get rid of the second Wild Card. We have 162 games to determine the best teams in each league. I like that the regular season is so important.

Totally agree. My comparison...I grew up a big college basketball fan, rooting for UCONN when they were in the Big East. Now, the regular season means so little, I couldn't care less until the tournament (and that's just because of betting). I do like the wildcard games, but leave it the way it is. Manfred sucks.

Plus, it's almost as bad with hockey. Half the damn league gets in and I'm watching the finals from a beach in mid-June. It's pretty ridiculous (though I get it's all about the $$).

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Still not a fan of having a playoff series before the divisional round like this. All that does is rust up the teams with byes. This is a half measure for those that think eight teams in the playoffs per league is too much. If they're going to do this, then just go to two or four divisions per league with four to six wild card teams, with a best of three for the wild card round, a best of five in the divisional round, and a best of seven for the championship series and World Series. They'd have to rejigger the leagues to make it work, but MLB doesn't care about anything anymore, so drop the pretense.

 

[Say Hey Kid]

If anything, get rid of the second Wild Card. We have 162 games to determine the best teams in each league. I like that the regular season is so important. Getting into the playoffs is very difficult. Having everyone make it like the NHL and NBA is just a bad idea. ...

Agreed. If major league sports really want me to get excited about the playoffs, have only four teams from each conference/league make the playoffs. The playoffs don't get good until the conference/league semi-finals. Watching the Bucks sweep the Magic (.426 W%) for example is not my idea of a good time.

 

[NJDevs26]

Still not a fan of having a playoff series before the divisional round like this. All that does is rust up the teams with byes. This is a half measure for those that think eight teams in the playoffs per league is too much. If they're going to do this, then just go to two or four divisions per league with four to six wild card teams, with a best of three for the wild card round, a best of five in the divisional round, and a best of seven for the championship series and World Series. They'd have to rejigger the leagues to make it work, but MLB doesn't care about anything anymore, so drop the pretense.

Not to mention the first time a 103-win team loses to an 84-win team in a three game series (which could well have been Yankees-Sox last year) people will scream bloody murder. They already are up in arms when there’s a 6-8 game difference between wild card teams.

 

[member 157595]

Quit trying to make it interesting for the average idiot.

Exactly.

 

[member 157595]

Agreed. If major league sports really want me to get excited about the playoffs, have only four teams from each conference/league make the playoffs. The playoffs don't get good until the conference/league semi-finals. Watching the Bucks sweep the Magic (.426 W%) for example is not my idea of a good time.

BUT EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE INCLUDED! PARTICIPATION TROPHIES FOR EVERYONE!

 

[IU Hawks fan]

Agreed. If major league sports really want me to get excited about the playoffs, have only four teams from each conference/league make the playoffs. The playoffs don't get good until the conference/league semi-finals. Watching the Bucks sweep the Magic (.426 W%) for example is not my idea of a good time.

The NBA is trash, but the 1st round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best 2 weeks of the year.

 

[Say Hey Kid]

The first 2 weeks of the Final Four are pretty fun. Your Illini may even make the tourney this year.

 

[tony d]

Saw that. Don't mind the extra playoff teams actually but choosing your opponents? No thank you.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

The first 2 weeks of the Final Four are pretty fun. Your Illini may even make the tourney this year.

Your what hurts?

 

[NJDevs26]

If if if you're going to shove anything even remotely like this down our throat then go ahead and give ALL the division winners byes, just have the four wild cards play off and the top wild card selects its opponent. At least keep something tangible on winning the division, I don't care if an 85-win team wins a division while a 102-win team has homefield advantage in a four-team playoff for the final spot in the division series.

 

[GKJ]

That sense of urgency for fans of teams in the ~16-20 range leaguewide is not there in the current system. Even if this results in waning interest in the ~6-10 spots, this creates it down the standings.

I'm a casual baseball fan and I assume the league is targeting someone like myself with this. Watching the team I follow, the Pirates, in August and September in the decline phase of the competitive cycle has been dreadful. I want to care, but the entertainment value is poor. Under this system, they're in the hunt into the final weeks in 16, on the periphery in 17 and a playoff team in 18. I would have been more interested in getting to the ballpark, freezing my butt off from the whipping winds of the Allegheny River in September, and actively watching the team on TV if they had been more competitive. That would have bled into October too; I watched much more of the postseason 13-15 than I did 16-19.

One of the great examples, imo.

As for teams given false hope, I feel that would adequately describe the Washington Nationals last season. By the same token, the Phillies (who spent what they did last winter and then barely did this year) packed it in and openly submitted that they had no interest in getting smoked by the Dodgers. Oops.

The regular season is definitely devalued if the majority of late-season games are irrelevant because so many teams are out of it. And then for others, it's 162 games to get to the wild card and if you have one bad day, you're going home. Advantages for division winners are such an antiquated notion

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

Someone was drunk at the MLB offices. Good Lord.

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

By having 16 teams in, with the 1st 2 rounds largely a waste of time?

I mean by ranking 1 through 8 by record regardless of division.

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

If the want more revenue/playoff games. Wouldn't expanding the play in game to a 3 game series or the DS to a 7 game series make more sense than this asinine proposal? The original play in game was created solely to try and recreate 2011's last day every year.

This is worse than Bettman going back to divisional playoffs to "create more rivalries" but what we really got was the same tiresome matchups every year and some years having the two best teams play in the conference semis instead of the conference finals.

 

[NJDevs26]

Someone was drunk at the MLB offices. Good Lord.

Are we sure? It seems like most of the establishment is carrying water on this, some of the main writers - even Costas. That worries me, baseball's enacted changes that have gotten more criticism than this has. What makes me laugh is the same people are going to be up in arms about how it renders the 162-game season meaningless the first time an 80-win team beats a 100-win team in a three-game first-round series.

 

[BMOK33]

The NBA is trash, but the 1st round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs are the best 2 weeks of the year.

That’s just the nature of the games. Basketball doesn’t really involve any luck at all. It’s entirely based on skill. Unless somehow an elite team is off the mark on their shooting for 7 games they won’t lose a series to a worse team. In hockey or baseball there is so much random luck/bounces/cases where a pitcher makes tons of mistakes that don’t get hit and he wins/cases where a pitcher makes 1 mistake and loses that you frequently see upsets

 

[BigMac1212]

I rather see baseball expand to a 32-team league, but what do I know?

 

[Spikey]

They should have the playoffs system the way the NHL does it.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

They should have the playoffs system the way the NHL does it.

What? Good god no. The NHL playoff seeding is a joke

 

[hoglund]

I liked it best when there were 30 teams and 4 divisions, 2 in the American league and 2 in the National league. This made the regular season meaningful and only the best make it to the playoffs, also it was easier to understand.