Jesse Rogers, ESPN:
Major League Baseball's expanded playoff proposal, as part of a new collective bargaining agreement between owners and players, includes the ability for division winners to pick their wild-card opponent, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The format would call for 14 teams -- seven from each league -- to make the playoffs, four more than currently play in the postseason. The three division winners in each league would be joined by four wild-card teams to make up the playoff field. Here's how it would work:
• The team with the best record in each league would get a bye into the best-of-five division series.
• The remaining two division winners would get to pick their wild-card opponent from the bottom three wild-card teams. The division winner with the second-best record would pick first, then the No. 3 seed in the league would pick its opponent from the final two wild-card teams. The wild-card team with the best record would play the wild-card team that wasn't picked by a division winner.
• Once matchups are set, the higher-seeded teams would host all three games in a best-of-three wild-card round.
• Winners in the wild-card round would advance to the division series and the playoffs would continue as they have in the past. . . .
Players contend it could disincentivize teams from spending and/or pushing for more wins knowing they might make the postseason with, say, 80 to 83 victories. Or less.
The league believes the incentives for the top seeds -- like having a bye or picking your opponent -- will keep teams aggressive both in the winter and during the season. . . .
The playoff proposal has been on the table for months as the sides negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. The old one expires at midnight on Dec. 1.
14 out of 30 teams make the playoffs in this bullshit scenario. That's half of all teams, more or less.
It's a fucking joke.
5 comments:
greed. Extend the season into November Injure more athletes who are already burnt out
He really is an asshole, isn't he?
In the NHL and NBA, it's not uncommon for sub-.500 teams to make the postseason, which is maddening, and even worse when one of those teams knocks off a top seed, albeit unlikely.
Since the 1998-99 season, only five Presidents' Trophy winners (awarded to the NHL team that finishes with the best regular season record) have won the Stanley Cup, in part because they have to survive FOUR postseason series. In comparison, six of those teams have lost in the FIRST ROUND, most recently in 2018-19 (Tampa Bay).
2021 would have seen all MLB postseason teams above .500, but only by a thin margin; Philadelphia would have been a seventh NL seed at 82-80. In 2017, the bottom two AL seeds would have been 80-82 (Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and Los Angeles all finished with this record). Miami would have made the postseason in 2016 at 79-82.
If I'm the number two seed and I won 95-100 games, losing a WC series to a sub-.500 number six or seven seed is going to feel shitty, to put it bluntly, and piss off a lot of fans.
greed. Extend the season into November Injure more athletes who are already burnt out
This is where the Players Association should be asking MLB to shorten its season back to 154 games. Personally, I'm sick of postseason baseball extending into early November.
1962-68: 10% of teams made postseason (two 10-team leagues, 1 team from each).
New Plan: 47% of teams make postseason (two 15-team leagues, 7 teams from each).
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