MLB’s proposed postseason enlargement would reward mediocrity

Posted On Feb 11, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

Baltimore Orioles v. Texas Rangers

Photo by John Williamson/ MLB via Getty Images

The MLB proposal, if approved, would expand postseason from 10 to 14 teams.

Major League Baseball is considering expanding its postseason as early as 2022, per Joel Sherman of the New York Post. Doing so would reinforce a great deal of mediocre teams.

Such a modify would need to come through collective bargaining with the players, with the current agreement loping through 2021. The details would hugely expand the wild card round, per Sherman 😛 TAGEND

In this concept, the team with the best record in each league would be given a bye-bye to avoid the wild-card round and proceed directly to the Division Series. The two other discord wins and the wild card with the next best record would each emcee all three activities in a best-of-three wild card round. So the bottom three wild cards would have no first-round dwelling games.

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

The most bulletin-board-friendly aspect is the idea of two split champions in each tournament getting to pick their first-round opponent. Also, the wild card moves from two improbably intense, but single games to a round of best-of-three series.

“Baseball is always a sport of lines, two out of three, three out of five, four out of seven. It’s always induced smell in our play, ” Rockies manager Bud Black told SB Nation back in September. “I’m not sure I would change it, but schedule-wise if it could be worked out where it’s two out of three to get to that separation successions, I’d like to be in that discussion or are talking about it.

But the biggest change in the proposed plan the team with the best record in each organization going a bye-bye straight into the division serials, evading that opening best-of-three round absolutely. It leaves an incentive among the very best squads to vie for the top spot, but at the cost of letting in a assortment of middling teams.

MLB’s last postseason alteration came in 2012, including a second wild card to each league and poising the AL and NL with 15 crews each. Under that plan, a 90 -win team “ve missed” the playoffs only four times 😛 TAGEND

2012 Rays( 90 -7 2) 2013 Rangers( 91 -7 2; lost a Game-1 63 tiebreaker) 2018 Rays( 90 -7 2) 2019 Indians( 93 -6 9)

Had baseball utilized this expanded playoff organization, those 90 -win teams all ought to have been realized into October, but so would four teams that finished with a losing record 😛 TAGEND

2014 Braves or Mets( 79 -8 3) 2016 Marlins( 79 -8 2) 2017 two of Angels, Rays, or Royals (8 0-82)

Seven more crews with between 81 -8 3 wins had a top-seven record in their league since 2012, which would have watered down the playoffs even more.

The commissioner might argue that with an increased chance to represent the postseason, more teams might be more aggressive in pursuit of October baseball. The current setup has two wild card units in each conference gambling a single tournament, with the win facing the best team in the tournament in the discord sequence. The chances for a mid-8 0s winning unit that “goes for it” just for a shot at a coin-flip game tone dour, but just ask the 2019 Nationals about the benefits of winning the wild card.

But the motivation acts both natures. Retroactively applying this expanded postseason format to every season of the current 30 -team era( since 1998 ), at least one 83 -win( or worse) unit ought to have been obligated the playoffs in 18 of the last 22 times. Why should a mid-8 0s winning crew try harder, when they can in most times relatively coast and take their chances as a barely-over-. 500 force? Why should a 93 -win team spend money to stay ahead of the backpack?

Even with concerns over irrigating down the make, some sort of expansion feels inevitable. Among the major North American professional plays conferences, MLB currently sends the smallest percentage of its teams to the postseason. This alteration would only vault MLB( 46.7 percent) above the National Football League( 37.5 percentage) and National Women’s Soccer League( 44.4 percent ), and still leave baseball with under 50 percent of the review team determining the playoffs.

The expanded wild card round makes more playoff games to televise, which should draw more money into the sport formerly the brand-new video contracts come around. The only question is whether the gain is enough to offset further debasing the regular season. I expect MLB to realise the choice it usually does, which is take the short-term revenue and figure out the long-term accomplishes later.