Let’s Try To Make Expanded Playoffs Not Stink
I can’t tell you with any kind of certainty when the 2022 season will start or how many games will be played. I can’t even definitively say if there will be a season at all. But one thing seems nearly inevitable: When we have baseball, it’s not going to be identical to the product we saw last year. For one, the designated hitter, used for the shortened 2020 season in the National League, appears likely to become a permanent part of both leagues, ending the doctrinal schism between the junior and senior circuits. Another likely difference? The playoff structure.
It’s no secret that the owners are highly interested in expanding the playoffs again. Over at The Athletic, Kaitlyn McGrath, David O’Brien, and Katie Woo teamed up to discuss the various goings-on here. The owners have proposed expanding the playoffs to 14 teams, with only the team with the best record in each league getting a bye and everyone else thrown into a best-of-three Wild Card series. The players, meanwhile, have proposed conceding an expanded playoff structure of 12 teams, with multiple byes for top teams.
From the standpoint of the owners’ interests, the best teams winning often isn’t necessarily the ideal outcome. The World Series championship is basically a MacGuffin. MLB doesn’t need it to actually be important, it just needs the public to believe it is. And since the public appears to believe that the best team will win a short series far more often than it actually does, the more teams you can stuff into a postseason without making it seem like chance (rather than talent) is driving the outcome, the better. Who cares if a 107-win team loses two of three games to an 83-win team? They were probably chokers anyway!
The side effect is that the more a team’s goals (reaching the playoffs, winning a championship) become tied to randomness rather than ability, the less value ability itself has, and the less teams will pay for it. The MLBPA is no doubt aware of this dynamic, as they’ve proposed expanded playoff structures that give large advantages to all division winners, not just a single team in each league. From the point of view of the players, an ideal playoff structure would increase revenues — with a payment structure that ensures they aren’t once again left out of the growing pie — while not reducing the value of stars.
So, let’s test this out. First, let’s start with the current ZiPS projected standings for 2022. It doesn’t matter that these rosters are far from complete. We’re trying to see relative changes due to differing playoff structures, so we just need a league with a fairly typical distribution of talent. We have some great teams, some good ones, some mediocre ones, some lousy ones, and the Colorado Rockies, so I think we’ve got a good mix for experimentation.
For each team, I’m first looking at their projected probability of making the playoffs and winning the World Series, based on the current rosters. Then, I’m looking at how these probabilities change if I run each million-season simulation 30 times, adding four wins to the team’s projection. We use 4 WAR as a rule of thumb for calling a player an All-Star, so call this the star dividend (SD):
| Team | Playoff% | WS Win% | Playoff% (SD) | WS Win% (SD) | Playoff Diff | WS Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 87.9% | 12.2% | 95.8% | 16.7% | 7.9% | 4.5% |
| New York Yankees | 74.3% | 8.4% | 88.4% | 12.8% | 14.1% | 4.4% |
| Houston Astros | 81.6% | 10.9% | 92.4% | 15.3% | 10.8% | 4.4% |
| Atlanta Braves | 70.3% | 7.7% | 85.6% | 11.7% | 15.3% | 4.0% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 63.8% | 6.2% | 81.4% | 10.1% | 17.6% | 3.9% |
| San Diego Padres | 70.4% | 6.9% | 85.9% | 10.8% | 15.5% | 3.9% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 61.7% | 5.9% | 79.7% | 9.7% | 18.0% | 3.8% |
| Chicago White Sox | 74.8% | 8.0% | 88.1% | 11.7% | 13.3% | 3.7% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 65.5% | 6.8% | 82.0% | 10.4% | 16.5% | 3.6% |
| New York Mets | 58.7% | 5.6% | 77.2% | 9.2% | 18.5% | 3.6% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 57.7% | 5.5% | 76.6% | 8.9% | 18.9% | 3.4% |
| Boston Red Sox | 30.5% | 2.2% | 50.3% | 4.4% | 19.8% | 2.2% |
| Oakland A’s | 24.8% | 1.8% | 43.7% | 3.9% | 18.9% | 2.1% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 24.7% | 1.8% | 43.6% | 3.8% | 18.9% | 2.0% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 23.5% | 1.7% | 42.5% | 3.6% | 19.0% | 1.9% |
| Seattle Mariners | 17.4% | 1.2% | 33.9% | 2.8% | 16.5% | 1.6% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 17.3% | 1.2% | 34.0% | 2.8% | 16.7% | 1.6% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 17.5% | 1.3% | 34.2% | 2.8% | 16.7% | 1.5% |
| San Francisco Giants | 19.7% | 1.2% | 36.9% | 2.7% | 17.2% | 1.5% |
| Miami Marlins | 15.8% | 1.0% | 31.6% | 2.5% | 15.8% | 1.5% |
| Detroit Tigers | 10.4% | 0.7% | 22.9% | 1.7% | 12.6% | 1.0% |
| Minnesota Twins | 8.8% | 0.6% | 20.5% | 1.5% | 11.7% | 0.9% |
| Chicago Cubs | 6.8% | 0.4% | 17.2% | 1.2% | 10.4% | 0.8% |
| Kansas City Royals | 6.7% | 0.4% | 16.6% | 1.2% | 9.9% | 0.8% |
| Washington Nationals | 4.3% | 0.2% | 11.8% | 0.8% | 7.5% | 0.6% |
| Texas Rangers | 3.0% | 0.2% | 9.1% | 0.6% | 6.1% | 0.4% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 1.5% | 0.1% | 5.5% | 0.3% | 4.0% | 0.2% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 0.3% | 0.0% | 1.8% | 0.1% | 1.5% | 0.1% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| Colorado Rockies | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.0% | 0.6% | 0.0% |
Not surprisingly, the best teams in baseball get the most significant championship boost from the star dividend. The best teams are already likely to make the playoffs, and adding four additional wins allows them to vanquish their division rivals more often. The teams with the largest jumps in playoff percentage, meanwhile, are generally around .500 or a little above, like the Red Sox, Phillies, Athletics, and Angels.
In the current playoff structure, the star dividend for an average team is 13.0 percentage points of playoff probability and 2.1 percentage points of championship probability, while the average World Series champ ended up with 94.1 wins.
Now, let’s look at another recent season, the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign. Under that season’s playoff structure, we had a 16-team playoff format and no byes. The owners haven’t even proposed this one publicly, but it’s a notable contrast to the current system:
| Team | Playoff% | WS Win% | Playoff% (SD) | WS Win% (SD) | Playoff Diff | WS Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 98.1% | 8.6% | 99.7% | 10.5% | 1.6% | 1.9% |
| New York Yankees | 91.7% | 7.0% | 97.5% | 8.9% | 5.8% | 1.9% |
| Houston Astros | 94.2% | 7.6% | 98.4% | 9.4% | 4.2% | 1.8% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 86.7% | 6.1% | 94.9% | 7.9% | 8.2% | 1.8% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 85.2% | 5.9% | 94.3% | 7.7% | 9.1% | 1.8% |
| Atlanta Braves | 91.3% | 6.5% | 97.2% | 8.2% | 5.9% | 1.7% |
| San Diego Padres | 92.9% | 6.6% | 97.9% | 8.3% | 5.0% | 1.7% |
| New York Mets | 85.7% | 5.5% | 94.6% | 7.2% | 8.9% | 1.7% |
| Boston Red Sox | 60.4% | 3.4% | 78.9% | 5.1% | 18.5% | 1.7% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 89.4% | 5.8% | 96.4% | 7.5% | 7.0% | 1.7% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 85.9% | 5.3% | 94.6% | 6.9% | 8.7% | 1.6% |
| Oakland A’s | 53.1% | 2.8% | 72.7% | 4.4% | 19.6% | 1.6% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 53.2% | 2.8% | 72.7% | 4.4% | 19.5% | 1.6% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 56.0% | 2.8% | 75.1% | 4.4% | 19.1% | 1.6% |
| Seattle Mariners | 42.3% | 2.1% | 62.6% | 3.6% | 20.3% | 1.5% |
| San Francisco Giants | 51.7% | 2.5% | 71.4% | 4.0% | 19.7% | 1.5% |
| Miami Marlins | 43.8% | 2.1% | 64.5% | 3.5% | 20.7% | 1.4% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 46.8% | 2.2% | 67.3% | 3.6% | 20.5% | 1.4% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 45.8% | 2.0% | 66.3% | 3.4% | 20.5% | 1.4% |
| Detroit Tigers | 31.9% | 1.3% | 51.7% | 2.5% | 19.8% | 1.2% |
| Minnesota Twins | 28.9% | 1.2% | 48.2% | 2.3% | 19.3% | 1.1% |
| Chicago Cubs | 25.8% | 1.1% | 44.9% | 2.1% | 19.1% | 1.0% |
| Kansas City Royals | 23.6% | 1.0% | 41.8% | 1.9% | 18.2% | 0.9% |
| Washington Nationals | 18.0% | 0.8% | 35.0% | 1.7% | 17.0% | 0.9% |
| Texas Rangers | 11.9% | 0.5% | 26.0% | 1.3% | 14.1% | 0.8% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 9.6% | 0.4% | 22.0% | 1.0% | 12.4% | 0.6% |
| Chicago White Sox | 90.6% | 5.9% | 92.6% | 6.3% | 2.0% | 0.4% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 3.4% | 0.1% | 9.9% | 0.4% | 6.5% | 0.3% |
| Colorado Rockies | 1.6% | 0.1% | 5.8% | 0.2% | 4.2% | 0.1% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 0.6% | 0.0% | 2.6% | 0.1% | 2.0% | 0.1% |
The value of the star dividend toward winning a World Series drops by more than 40%, from 2.1 percentage points to 1.3. To keep the value of that star constant in the simulations in terms of championship value, that star would have to be worth 6.2 wins rather than the four wins I’ve been using. It’s just like when your favorite cookie brand reduces the number of cookies in a package from 64 to 56; you get less of a boost to your team with a better player. Nor does an overall playoff boost compensate for the loss in World Series benefit. The star dividend for playoff appearances also drops, from 13.0 to 12.6 percentage points. With more teams bunched as you get closer to .500, randomness plays a more prominent role.
The seasonal wins of the average World Series champion also drops by nearly three wins, from 94.1 to 91.4 wins. In other words, the typical team getting drenched in champagne in late October is about three wins worse under this scenario.
Given that the owners really want a larger playoff field and the players have quite a few other things they would like concessions on, I expect an expansion to 14 teams is the most likely. Here’s how the numbers shake out for the owners’ 14-team, one-bye playoff format:
| Team | Playoff% | WS Win% | Playoff% (SD) | WS Win% (SD) | Playoff Diff | WS Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 95.8% | 10.6% | 98.9% | 13.8% | 3.1% | 3.2% |
| Houston Astros | 91.6% | 8.9% | 97.4% | 12.0% | 5.8% | 3.1% |
| New York Yankees | 89.2% | 8.0% | 96.5% | 11.0% | 7.3% | 3.0% |
| San Diego Padres | 87.0% | 7.0% | 95.5% | 9.8% | 8.5% | 2.8% |
| Atlanta Braves | 86.4% | 6.9% | 95.0% | 9.6% | 8.6% | 2.7% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 83.0% | 6.5% | 93.3% | 9.2% | 10.3% | 2.7% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 81.4% | 6.2% | 92.5% | 8.9% | 11.1% | 2.7% |
| Chicago White Sox | 82.8% | 6.1% | 90.4% | 8.7% | 7.6% | 2.6% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 81.6% | 5.9% | 92.6% | 8.5% | 11.1% | 2.6% |
| New York Mets | 78.8% | 5.5% | 91.0% | 8.0% | 12.2% | 2.5% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 76.5% | 5.1% | 89.7% | 7.5% | 13.2% | 2.4% |
| Boston Red Sox | 54.7% | 3.2% | 74.7% | 5.2% | 20.0% | 2.0% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 45.6% | 2.5% | 66.3% | 4.3% | 20.7% | 1.8% |
| Oakland A’s | 45.7% | 2.5% | 66.4% | 4.3% | 20.7% | 1.8% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 45.7% | 2.4% | 66.5% | 4.1% | 20.8% | 1.7% |
| San Francisco Giants | 40.7% | 2.1% | 61.7% | 3.7% | 21.0% | 1.6% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 34.8% | 1.7% | 55.9% | 3.2% | 21.1% | 1.5% |
| Seattle Mariners | 35.4% | 1.8% | 56.1% | 3.3% | 20.7% | 1.5% |
| Miami Marlins | 34.2% | 1.7% | 55.0% | 3.1% | 20.8% | 1.4% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 30.4% | 1.5% | 51.1% | 2.9% | 20.7% | 1.4% |
| Detroit Tigers | 19.6% | 0.9% | 37.4% | 1.9% | 17.8% | 1.0% |
| Chicago Cubs | 17.4% | 0.8% | 34.3% | 1.7% | 16.9% | 0.9% |
| Minnesota Twins | 17.4% | 0.8% | 34.4% | 1.7% | 17.0% | 0.9% |
| Kansas City Royals | 13.8% | 0.6% | 29.0% | 1.4% | 15.2% | 0.8% |
| Washington Nationals | 12.7% | 0.5% | 27.2% | 1.3% | 14.5% | 0.8% |
| Texas Rangers | 8.9% | 0.4% | 21.3% | 1.0% | 12.4% | 0.6% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 6.0% | 0.2% | 15.8% | 0.7% | 9.8% | 0.5% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 1.6% | 0.1% | 6.0% | 0.2% | 4.4% | 0.1% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 0.4% | 0.0% | 2.1% | 0.1% | 1.7% | 0.1% |
| Colorado Rockies | 0.8% | 0.0% | 3.5% | 0.1% | 2.7% | 0.1% |
The star dividend recovers somewhat here, and the average team gets a 13.3 percentage-point boost for the playoffs from our theoretical star (most likely Freddie Freeman or Carlos Correa), more than in the dreadful (at least for me) 16-team scenario. The average champion adds a win and change back, averaging 92.7 wins during the season.
But let’s try and do better while preserving the 14-team framework.
Over at Baseball Prospectus, Russell Carleton tried his hand at developing a reasonable 14-team playoff system. Using ZiPS and a whole lot of season-simming, I went with a slightly different approach, trying to get the value of adding a star as close to the current system as possible while still keeping the eventual champion as strong overall.
One of the problems when designing playoff systems in baseball is the sport is missing a powerful tool to separate teams into “difficulty tiers” in the form of home-field advantage. Playing at home isn’t as big of a deal in baseball as it is in other sports, as we’ve seen in the decade since the Wild Card game was introduced. Getting to the playoffs via the Wild Card just wasn’t much of a penalty prior to 2012, so MLB only could divide the league into two real tiers: in the playoffs and out of the playoffs. The introduction of a second Wild Card team, and the one-game, winner-take-all Wild Card game, gave MLB another tier between division winners and playoff missers.
What I propose is to make the worst teams have to work for it a bit more. The top division winner still gets a bye, but the two other division winners in each league play Wild Card teams numbers three and four in what I’ve dubbed the Knockout Round. To knock off the division winners, the bottom two Wild Cards have to sweep a three-game series; the remaining two Wild Cards play a normal three-game series against each other. What this does is create more places where additional wins have a meaningful impact on your chances of winning it all; being the best in the league instead of merely winning the division is still better, and winning the division remains preferable to a Wild Card appearance. And the Wild Card teams themselves have real motivation to try to be one of the top two Wild Card teams rather than the bottom two; having a 50/50 shot of getting to the Divisional Series is better than the one-in-10 or so that the other Wild Cards would have:
| Team | Playoff% | WS Win% | Playoff% (SD) | WS Win% (SD) | Playoff Diff | WS Diff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York Yankees | 89.2% | 7.5% | 96.5% | 12.2% | 7.3% | 4.8% |
| San Diego Padres | 87.0% | 6.3% | 95.5% | 10.3% | 8.5% | 4.0% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 83.0% | 5.7% | 93.3% | 9.7% | 10.3% | 4.0% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 81.4% | 5.4% | 92.5% | 9.3% | 11.1% | 3.9% |
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 95.8% | 11.1% | 98.9% | 14.9% | 3.1% | 3.9% |
| Atlanta Braves | 86.4% | 7.5% | 95.0% | 10.9% | 8.6% | 3.4% |
| New York Mets | 78.8% | 5.5% | 91.0% | 8.6% | 12.2% | 3.0% |
| St. Louis Cardinals | 81.6% | 6.8% | 92.6% | 9.6% | 11.1% | 2.7% |
| Boston Red Sox | 54.7% | 2.4% | 74.7% | 5.1% | 20.0% | 2.7% |
| Milwaukee Brewers | 76.5% | 5.6% | 89.7% | 7.9% | 13.2% | 2.3% |
| Chicago White Sox | 82.8% | 8.4% | 90.4% | 10.7% | 7.6% | 2.3% |
| Los Angeles Angels | 45.6% | 2.1% | 66.3% | 4.2% | 20.7% | 2.1% |
| Oakland A’s | 45.7% | 2.1% | 66.4% | 4.2% | 20.7% | 2.1% |
| San Francisco Giants | 40.7% | 1.5% | 61.7% | 3.6% | 21.0% | 2.1% |
| Philadelphia Phillies | 45.7% | 2.0% | 66.5% | 4.0% | 20.8% | 2.1% |
| Seattle Mariners | 35.4% | 1.5% | 56.1% | 3.2% | 20.7% | 1.8% |
| Miami Marlins | 34.2% | 1.3% | 55.0% | 3.1% | 20.8% | 1.7% |
| Cincinnati Reds | 34.8% | 1.5% | 55.9% | 3.2% | 21.1% | 1.7% |
| Houston Astros | 91.6% | 10.6% | 97.4% | 12.0% | 5.8% | 1.4% |
| Cleveland Guardians | 30.4% | 1.5% | 51.1% | 2.9% | 20.7% | 1.4% |
| Chicago Cubs | 17.4% | 0.6% | 34.3% | 1.7% | 16.9% | 1.1% |
| Detroit Tigers | 19.6% | 0.9% | 37.4% | 1.9% | 17.8% | 1.0% |
| Minnesota Twins | 17.4% | 0.8% | 34.4% | 1.7% | 17.0% | 0.9% |
| Washington Nationals | 12.7% | 0.4% | 27.2% | 1.3% | 14.5% | 0.9% |
| Kansas City Royals | 13.8% | 0.6% | 29.0% | 1.4% | 15.2% | 0.8% |
| Texas Rangers | 8.9% | 0.3% | 21.3% | 1.0% | 12.4% | 0.7% |
| Arizona Diamondbacks | 6.0% | 0.2% | 15.8% | 0.7% | 9.8% | 0.7% |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | 1.6% | 0.0% | 6.0% | 0.2% | 4.4% | 0.2% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 0.4% | 0.0% | 2.1% | 0.1% | 1.7% | 0.1% |
| Colorado Rockies | 0.8% | 0.0% | 3.5% | 0.1% | 2.7% | 0.1% |
The star dividend for playoff probability in this format stands at 13.3 percentage points, with a two percentage point boost for championships. Both are close to the 13.0 and 2.1 projected under the old format. The regular-season record of the typical World Series victor gets up to 93.7, less than a half-win below our original target.
Personally, I’d go even further and give the lower-seeded teams a one-win disadvantage in Divisional Series matchups as well. But I’ve already proposed one rather significant change from baseball’s playoff tradition with the Knockout Round; another might get us into the realm of implausibility. I think something along these lines would be an effective means of increasing the number of teams in the playoffs without making individual players less valuable or greatly diminishing the value of a championship in addition to the regular season. If we’re doomed to a future where 80-82 teams get a final shot at rendering the previous six months irrelevant with a hot week, we should at least make them work for it.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Bringing it up here instead of a thread since it’s related to several comments.
One issue is that one-game randomness in baseball is not at all like in the NFL or NBA. Eight seeds work in the NBA because the eight seed is almost always dead. There’s an important Lopez/Baumer/Matthews look at randomness in sport.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.05976
To match the NBA’s record of better team advances to 80%, the NFL would have to play best-of-11 series, the NHL a best-of-51 series, and MLB a best of *75* series. The NFL’s a lot closer to the NBA here than MLB.
And yes, if you think that NFL fans just think of the playoffs a fun exhibition and not prime evidence of the inherent superiority of their favorite team that just won the Super Bowl, I’d recommend hanging out with more NFL fans!
Also, the NBA’s playoff system is terrible, sucks all life out of the experience, and should not be emulated by any sports league anywhere.
FOH with that nonsense. The NBA has the single-best Playoff format of the three major sports. And it’s not even remotely close.
A best of 75 series would be fun! We could have baseball all year round!
We could have each team play 162 games and call it the playoffs.
I was reading about old cricket tournaments some weeks back. It basically read: you could not do this in your society as currently constructed.
Also, the Yankees are winning the best of 75 series like 26-12 right…?
The problems originate within a labor aristocracy signing pro management contracts, lacking a commitment to equality of compensation and to organizing the unorganized, to greed, etc. MLB and the MLBPA have effed up the sport to such degree that teams trying to compete are smeared for tanking! Those who write this kind of criticism, that teams tank for money, are carrying water for the owners. A bit of topical sarcasm:
Achtung, Mäuse! Weniger für dich, mehr für mich!
This is why we can’t order Chinese from Hop Sing’s anymore…
I prefer the current playoff structure, but it is clearly one of the primary reasons why the tank and rebuild model exists. In the first chat with the current playoff structure, there are 18 teams with playoff odds below 25% and a 19th team (the Red Sox) sitting just above 30%. That is precisely why the free agent market has become rough for anyone who isn’t a superstar.
If you need to be a ~93 win true talent team to have a legitimate shot at a World Series (which is roughly true in the current model), then there is little incentive for a .500 or worse team to bother spending money in free agency. The only free agents most bottom half teams even sign are bounce back candidates they want to flip at the deadline.
Expanded playoffs are inevitable because the MLBPA wants them also. They’re in the exact same category as the universal DH – both sides want them, but neither side wants to admit it, because they want to use it as leverage in the negotiation.
Wait, what? The players don’t get paid their “regular” salaries during the playoffs, and I’m pretty sure the math shows they make a lot less. There’s a real asymmetry going on here, and the MLBPA and MLB know it.
The whole “tanking” thing in MLB is seriously overblown anyway. The Cubs and Astros did the closest thing we’ve ever seen to a tank job 10 years ago and haven’t done so since. Many of the cheapest teams like Cleveland, Tampa Bay, D-Backs, and Oakland never totally tear down, and until the Brewers, Pirates, Royals, and Orioles completely collapsed and they had little choice, they didn’t either.
If anything, many of these teams aggressively maximize(d) the space between being at least watchable and cutting costs by focusing nearly exclusively on players with less than six years of team control. Heck, in the case of the Rays, they focus heavily on players who haven’t even hit arbitration yet. This is why increasing minimum salaries and moving arbitration earlier is (correctly) such a focus for the MLBPA.
Cubs are sort of tanking now.
They just signed Marcus Stroman, so no, I don’t think that’s what is happening. I think they’re gunning for .500.
I cleverly hedged
I think the tank already happened. It occurred when payroll went from $194 million in 2019 to $140 million in 2021.
If you want to know what *real* tanking looks like, look at the NHL’s Arizona Coyotes, who practically put up an “Everything Must Go” sign on the front lawn last summer and haven’t taken it down.
. . . And if you want to know what cosmic irony looks like, consider this: they’re still likely to finish better than the Montreal Canadiens, who were in the Stanley Cup finals last year.
Right, tanking is not just cutting costs. Tanking is Mark Madsen jacking 3s in the final game of the season. We haven’t really seen much like that in MLB.
If I wanted to tank in MLB, here’s what I would do: I’d sign a million stars of yesteryear–Matt Kemp, Albert Pujols, Ian Desmond…and then I’d play them. Every day.
I wish someone would do that!
Let’s do this. Can’t be anyone who has officially retired, but since players often don’t announce their retirement for a while I think that won’t limit us too much.
C: Matt Wieters
1B: Albert Pujols
2B: Jason Kipnis
SS: Jose Iglesias
3B: Todd Frazier
LF: Matt Kemp
CF: Adam Jones
RF: Adam Eaton
DH: Khris Davis
Backup position players: Ian Desmond, Jordy Mercer, Kurt Suzuki
SP: Jake Arrieta, Matt Harvey, Rick Porcello, Anibal Sanchez, Bartolo Colon
RP: Andrew Miller, AJ Ramos, Sergio Romo, Greg Holland, Archie Bradley, Sean Doolittle, Alex Colome, Brad Hand
Also considered: Asdrubal Cabrera, Dee Strange-Gordon, Matt Carpenter, Jeff Samardzija, Julio Teheran, Ervin Santana, Wilson Ramos.
Part of me wants to put Ian Desmond at shortstop but realistically hasn’t played shortstop in something like 4 years…he’s a 4th outfielder, even on this team. I still think there’s a better option at shortstop than Iglesias, since he might still be a competent baseball player, but I can’t think of anyone.
I’d slot Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, or Chris Archer in somewhere for sure but I don’t think they’d make it out of spring training health-wise.
this team rocks.
also the nationals have rostered like a third of them in the last 3 years
I think if we really wanted to tank and make it consistent, we’d try and find a way to reassemble all the stars of 2011. Wieters and Kemp combined for something like 14 fWAR that year. But in order to do that and still find players that were active, we’d probably need to get some guys currently under contract for other teams. If Evan Longoria and Robinson Cano and Elvis Andrus would get themselves released, then we could sign them too.
I also realize I missed out on signing Andrew McCutchen. If I wanted to assemble 2011’s best possible team at positions they currently play, my ideal team would be something like:
Wieters, Miguel Cabrera at first, Robinson Cano at second, Elvis Andrus at short, Evan Longoria at third (who would be the best player on this time by a lot), Justin Upton and McCutchen in the corners, Kemp at DH (that was where he played in 2020, almost exclusively), and Jones in CF.
Pitching would be pretty fragile since I don’t think Felix Hernandez, James Shields, Cole Hamels, or David Price are going to be giving a lot of innings but Anibal Sanchez, Zack Greinke, and Madison Bumgarner might. Maybe if we could find a way to keep Hernandez and Shields around on MiLB contracts until they’r needed?
Bullpen could include Greg Holland, John Axford, Tyler Clippard, Joe Smith, Steve Cishek, and Mark Melancon.
This team would be absolutely bonkers good if they hit and pitched like 2011. Might be the best team of all time. In 2022 they would probably lose 120 games.
Maybe player salaries can be a retro-pro-rated regular season plus average post-season share. That wa. They can be properly invested in the playoffs and their actual paycheck is tied to both making the playoffs and their postseason performance.
League minimum exempt from salary reduction but still receiving playoff bonuses if their team advances above league average (not sure how you math that though).
yes, also not sure how to divy up games played/revenue versus series won…
It’s not just the pure tanking. It’s also the disincentive to spend for self-identified small market teams like the A’s and Reds. If the difference between late arb and pre arb salaries weren’t so big Matt Olson and Sonny Gray might not be trade candidates. If less popular teams kept more of their stars they might get more popular even if their chance of winning the WS actually shrunk due to playoff expansion
The tank and rebuild model does not exist. It is a cheap narrative to not try to put resources into a team.
How to make a 14 team playoff work—
Step 1: Expand the league to 34 teams
Step 2: TBD
The Underwear Gnomes would be proud.
14 team playoff would make a substantial impact on my fanhood and general perception of the game. if im currently in the top 1% of psychos that spends tons of time following baseball, i’d probably drop into the 25-50 percentile as a result of that change. i’d almost prefer the old, pre wildcard era format to 14 teams.
Ok but they might think that growing the 25% is more profitable than catering to the existing 2%.
definitely, i just think it would be really sad, and not a version of baseball i’d be as interested in fanatically watching. thinking of that ridiculous first series of the 2020 playoffs. werent the marlins below 500?
Astros
Astros were below .500 and were within one game of the world series
Agree with you. One of the reasons I don’t follow hockey or basketball is almost every team gets in. I only watch during playoffs. I’d watch a little more baseball than that, but not much.
I really struggle to see why there is so much hand wringing over this. The NFL is the most popular sport in the country and has a 14 team playoff with single game elimination. The N of 1 approach is wildly popular and people embrace the upset. It is the same way every spring in college basketball. Everyone knows that the “best” team may not win and that is part of what makes it so addictive to follow.
I get the issue with the marginal win value that is raised, but do we really think teams are going to implement such a high risk strategy to only be “good enough”? It makes sense in theory that teams would only need to be 85 wins good, but it is near impossible to guarantee that type of result in reality.
Small sample size, but the average margin of victory in the first week of the NFL playoffs was about 17 points. Recency bias is telling people this year’s NFL playoffs have been great, but that first week was a waste of time.
I despise football and know as little about it as possible, but I’ve heard that a single NFL game is a better gauge of two team’s respective qualities than a single baseball game and maybe even than three or five baseball games.
Football teams can’t play games back to back or even every other day. An N of 1 is unavoidable.
An N of 1 approach in baseball would lead to some pretty wacky roster and pitching decisions that would result in something not entirely resembling real baseball
They also have 32 teams, which helps mitigate it somewhat (not enough, IMO, but a little bit). In that 10% space between 40% and 50% of the league making the playoffs, the quality of the teams who make the playoffs drops by quite a bit.
You could say the same about the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and it’s the most popular weekend. It rivals baseball Opening Day for skipping work
re: the NCAA tournament – what March Madness does really well is that it gives us the first weekend to see some Cinderella teams pull off monumental upsets (Richmond! Loyola! George Mason! Coppin State! FGCU!) and then the second weekend gets down to the “serious business” of the stronger teams generally doing their thing. So you get the best of both worlds – upsets from the “out of nowhere” lovable underdogs, and then almost always one of the “best” 5-8 teams winning the entire tournament.
I don’t know exactly how you port that to baseball, but I think that’s why March Madness is almost universally loved – it caters to both crowds, the upset-minded and the folks that want to see one of the best teams win it all.
Loyola isn’t an underdog. The Missouri Valley always produces “upsets” (Wichita State prior to Loyola), it’s a good conference that gets disrespected every year.
I’m not bitter
That’s fair – they are not akin to a Coppin State or FGCU at this point anymore, they have been consistently very good for several years running. By the same token they are not exactly UK or Duke.
You’re right, the MVC is definitely a cut above the MAAC or MEAC.
I agree that potential Cinderella stories add to fan interest. Nobody would watch the playoffs at all if the expectation was for the best regular season team to always win. Just hand out the trophy to the regular season champ in that case.
However, there is a balance where nobody wants to see a regular season dog fluke their way into a title. Even in March Madness, it’s still only 64 teams out of hundreds of programs that get into the tournament. You still have to have had a stellar season in a weak conference or be very competitive in an elite conference to get in.
14 teams in MLB is probably a little too much dilution unless, as Dan points out, there is some element of play in games or knock out rounds etc to make the mountain a bit taller for the regular season laggards.
The Braves were hardly the best team in MLB in 2021. Their winning the WS didn’t have any whiff of lack of credibility. Maximizing the number of teams who attempt 85 wins is likely a better path forward for baseball popularity than maximizing the number the teams who attempt 93 wins
The Braves were a universal top 5 team in the pre-season and stayed competitive even before the outfield was remade and took off following the loss of their best player (Acuna) for the entire year. Of course they wouldn’t lack any credibility – they already almost took the Dodgers out previously. A bunch of 85ish win teams getting in does not make for good baseball.
I just love that this simulation suggests that resigning Freddie Freeman would give the Braves the second-strongest profile in MLB. Can someone send this along to Anthopoulos?
Pretty sure Anthopoulos knows this already. Since Freeman rejected their 5-year, $135 million offer, I think the plan has been to pay market rate for Freddie Freeman, that is, they’ll match any contract he’s actually offered.
The real problem is that, until we get a balanced schedule, how do we really know which team is better?
You’d also have to get rid of the trade deadline. 1/3 of the season is essentially competed with several teams having either unloaded talent or stocked up.
Comparing the NFL playoffs to the MLB playoffs is like saying you like Apples and Oranges so you must also like Pizza. The NFL is a single game league to begin with (with more teams to boot). Should we also cut down from 162 games to like, 20?
The NCAA comparison is equally ridiculous. The 64 teams entering that tournament come from a pool of over 350 schools, all have won their conferences or performed at a high level in the regular season (and the rare times a bad team has made it they have been resoundingly bounced in the first round: https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/bracketiq/2021-02-15/march-madness-history-teams-worst-records-make-ncaa-tournament) and no seed lower than 8th has ever won the title. To even be that 8th seed Villanova played in a conference with two top 5 teams and another top 15 team.
4 WC teams play a two round mini-tournament of 3-game series to crown a single wild card “champ”. NO DAYS OFF between WC games, and only a single day off between WC series. That WC winner faces the league leader in the division series (5 or 7 games), while division champs 2&3 face off. The League series and WS run as usual.
That gets you 14 teams, while placing a huge premium on winning your division and providing an additional substantial advantage to the team with the best record. Whichever WC team emerges will have played between 4 and 6 straight must-win games and probably has their pitching staff in absolute tatters.
I like this idea quite a bit. I seem to recall I’ve seen something like this in soccer before. If you just replaced the current wild-card system with this, you’d more or less get it.
Alternately, you could even all the wild card teams play each other in a brutal 4-way round robin tournament with doubleheaders and zero days off, with the top 3 advancing with teams dropping out once they’ve clinched a spot. By the time they’re done with that, the entire pitching staff is going to be gassed and be miserable, and with increasing misery as teams have to stay in it longer.
So many pitchers would just get hurt.
This only helps if anyone cares about the WC tournament which nobody outside those cities might.
That makes sense in terms of restoring some value to the regular season but would require a full week to be set aside while the WC games play out. A full week for the weather to worsen and for the other teams to remain idle.
Climate change: “You called?”
I’d be concerned that the division winners would fall out of rhythm sitting around for a week, partying or practicing, and they would surely resent the time off where they can’t really relax rather than during the proper offseason
Have them play double round robin for seeding while the WC is going on.
I like this idea. You could also use the College World Series regional format. 4 teams, double elimination.
If the public prefers more randomness the owners will provide it and the MLBPA is powerless to stop it. I’m not convinced that more, not fewer, teams won’t vye for Carlos Correa. It’s not just about maximizing your chances of winning the WS. It’s about building a brand. Making the playoffs or DS consistently might be more important like making the Sweet 16 consistently might be more important than actually winning the NCAA tournament a four times per decade instead of once. If winning the tournament was paramount you’d have 7 teams trying all out and Mississippi St and Belmont and Loyola wouldn’t bother. Catering to the public in all 30 cities is the best way to increase interest in the sport and make expansion more economically feasible. College football may be more pure in ensuring that the best team wins but it’s not as successful at making more teams try.
“Making the playoffs or DS consistently might be more important like making the Sweet 16 consistently might be more important than actually winning the NCAA tournament a four times per decade instead of once.”
Perhaps, though to look at your college football analogy, this would be the argument that making and winning a bowl game consistently is more important national championships. I don’t think you have particularly good evidence about “making more teams try,” as it seems like most college football teams try to win. Or are you implicitly claiming that it’s only “trying” if you’re in the top 4 in football versus all the top ~32 / best in your conference in basketball are “trying?”
I’m saying that having the same 4 teams consistently in CFP is worse for overall popularity than adding more teams. SEC football popularity has grown a lot more than any other G5 conference which could be remedied by adding more teams.
“SEC football popularity has grown a lot more than any other G5 conference which could be remedied by adding more teams.”
Adding more teams to…the SEC? Other power five conferences? Neither of those will do anything to topple the near-complete SEC hegemony, unless it’s just a “let’s throw every top-15 program in the SEC, we’ll FORCE them to lose like three games!”
I don’t think getting more teams chasing Correa is the MLBPA’s goal though. The stars do get paid.
Its building the market for the more marginal FAs and reducing the spread between them and the minimum salary youngsters they’re seemingly focused on.
Whatever the outcome it won’t be because the public demanded it.
All American sports have been marching towards a point of maximal playoffs for years now. It is baseball’s misfortune to be the most unsuited to a playoff format. The NFL has in built limitations to the number of contests that can be played, which necessitates high stakes winner take all games. The NBA is competitively stacked towards the favorites due to the outsized importance of star players, which means that even if every team makes it in you still need the best players to win a title. Baseball has neither of these characteristics and would be best suited to a Premier League format where all teams play a balanced schedule and the winner of the league is the team with the best record at the end. This used to be what “winning the pennant” signified, but now no one cares who finishes with the best record in each league because that team can just be bounced by an 86-76 team in the divisional round. I’m not deluded enough to think that the MLB would ever go back to a single World Series playoff, but I think chasing after an expanded field will make both the regular season and the playoffs worse and satisfy no one but the owners and the sports books.
If we get to 32 teams and 4 8- team divisions (with a balanced schedule), winning the division might have more cachet.
You could have a much better balanced schedule with 30 teams if they wanted it. 26 weeks minus half a week for the Allstar game is 51 series 3 or 4 game series.
Play 3 and 4 at home and the same away against everyone else in your division, that’s 16 series and 56 games.
Play a 3 and 3 series against everyone else in your league. That’s 20 series and 60 games.
Play a 2 and 2 home and home against a traditional rival in the other league, count this as a single 4 game series (basically how it works now). 1 series, 4 games.
Play a 3 game series with each other team in the other league, 7 home, 7 away, that’s 14 series and 42 games.
Total: 51 series and 162 games. The only unbalanced aspect within the division is that you play one extra game with your traditional other league rival.
The big downside of a balanced schedule is teams have to play more games outside their own time zone. That impacts ratings which impacts revenues.
Putting this another way, soccer became the most popular sport in the world by doing everything to make the most people participate as long as they physically could. I’m not convinced that having 20 super clubs as they now do will be as beneficial going forward, particularly in Germany where it’s basically one super club one the biggest market in Europe
“Putting this another way, soccer became the most popular sport in the world by doing everything to make the most people participate as long as they physically could.”
Hmm? You could equally say that soccer became the most popular sport in the world by domestic leagues concentrating on the regular season as much as possible and treating any sort of playoffs or tournaments as an afterthought. Or you could say that in English soccer, the situation is such that you have the crusty old-timers complaining that people don’t respect the magic of the knockout tournament as much as they used to.
Yes and lower divisions mattered. I would add that EPL surpassed the other 4 “major leagues” by globalizing its appeal unlike Germany. Italy was once considered the best league
You could also argue that it became the most popular sport in the world because it was invented and popularised by the foremost colonial powers of the time, who were in a unique position to spread it to South America and Africa in particular, and at the same time requires very little equipment to play at a grassroots level no matter where you are.
It’s very hard to pin the popularity of any sport on such a large scale on anything to do with the quality of the sport or its organisation. But also, yes, the American model of competition is deeply unusual compared to the basic single league or single cup model of basically every other sporting competition.
I think expansion is inevitable as well, although I hope the players realize it’s one of the few things that generate serious hunger in the owners and don’t give away the farm for nothing. I like the idea of having the “worst” teams have to sweep–it does create some end-of-season drama and brings a little more equity in it. We will never be able to rid ourselves of the Cinderella possibility–some low-ranked team squeezes in and then just gets crazy-hot, but maybe that, if applied more broadly, could help.
Best two lines by Dan by far: “The World Series championship is basically a MacGuffin. MLB doesn’t need it to actually be important, it just needs the public to believe it is.” We should all chew on those two.
It’s not just MLB playoff expansion that yields more revenue. It’s adding more customers on earth. Getting more fans, more kids playing leads to more customers. More customers mean more money. Bigger brands will be worth more than they are in a smaller overall market. If the endgame is getting every American and Canadian to love baseball and be an MLB customer, as an intermediate step to world domination, this is one way of getting there. The best teams will likely still win the most because their brand will be the most valuable and they’ll get the best talent. But most customers and participants won’t be candidates for that level. They’ll still be MLB customers though
Do players have input into expansion?
I don’t think so, but it is worth noting that the last round of expansion came right after a strike put a huge hole in the owners’ pockets. If ownership is overleveraged, you could see pressure to raise some short term cash. I think the jury is out on whether that is true. But it would be hilarious if the result of locking out the players was to screw themselves, and had to give the world more major league baseball as a result.
Expansion would make expanded playoffs way easier to manage. If you have 36 teams, you add one team to each division, have a 14 (or even 16) team playoff, then you’ve got a real bit of drama without running a serious risk of sub-500 teams making it. And like Ivan Grushenko said, it would capture quite a bit more of the sports market.
The problem is that the owners do not care about market share. They are fundamentally rentiers, with MLB games and playoffs as the property and ticket holders and TV money as the rent they collect. They want to sit on their ownership stakes and find more ways to squeeze more money out of the existing markets, rather than take a chance on growing the sport. After all, if they expand more, then that means the existing TV money will get split over more owners; revenue sharing will get distributed over more teams; etc etc.
But as for me, give me a team in Portland (or Vancouver, or both), Montreal, Raleigh, Austin, and Nashville. Make the playoffs 16 teams. Run promotions where kids get to run around the ballpark for free to get them bugging their parents to buy tickets to games. I’d love to see more of an entrepreneurial spirit than the attitude of “let’s keep going back to this well until it’s totally dry.”
Change Raleigh to Charlotte and I’m in.
Yeah, maybe? Charlotte’s got a bigger metro area but they’ve also got a ton of teams. Raleigh’s metro area is about the same size of Milwaukee, but it’s growing 20 times faster and there are no pro sports teams to compete with (unless you count the Hurricanes, which a lot of people don’t know even exist!). Also a lot richer than Milwaukee too, although Charlotte also has a fair amount of money.
The big problem with putting it anywhere in North Carolina is the same as in anyplace in the southeast–it’s really humid in the summer, but it’s hard to be inside a dome since it’s sunny all the time, and retractable roofs add $300M to any project.
As the current layout of (30) teams exist today, I am vehemently against expanding the playoffs beyond 10 teams.
However, I would be more amenable to more teams in the playoffs based on 2 constraints:
1.) Shorter season- does not need to be drastic. I think 145/154 games is reasonable.
2.) 2 expansion markets. Personally I would love to see teams in Durham and Portland, but obviously this isn’t up to me.
If you have more teams competing for more spots, it wouldn’t feel like like wider playoff pool is any cheaper. Plus, if you spread out the talent even more, then an above-average player makes that much more impact on a league-average team.
Agree with much of this. Not to derail the discussion, but since you brought up expansion targets, I think the best markets by far would be San Antonio/Austin and Nashville. Certainly San Antonio is a much bigger and baseball-crazy market than Portland, and Nashville has demonstrated strong support for their professional teams.
I wasn’t in on Austin, but then I saw the results from the census. So, yeah, that would be a great spot to put a team. Here’s my list, roughly in order.
-Austin or San Antonio
-Vancouver or Portland
-Montreal
-Nashville
-Raleigh
I would love to see way, way more teams. Although it isn’t like they’re going to go to 34 or 36 teams anytime soon.
Look up growth rate, income, corporate HQs, and age demographics, Austin is by far better than San Antonio from an addressable market perspective.
Their greater metro areas are also much closer than the misleading city proper population (2.2M in Austin vs 2.5M in SA).
Add some new expansion teams somewhere before expanding the playoffs. It just feels wrong to me if MLB expands to 12-, 14-, or even 16-team playoffs with only 30 teams competing in general. NFL and NBA have big playoff tournaments but it kind of works because they have 32 teams vying for a spot every season. NHL also has had a long playoff, but they also recently added 2 more teams to Vegas and Seattle to try and make it a little bit more competitive in the regular season.
In addition to the reasons you laid out, I think going from 10 to 14 playoff teams is much too big a jump. Go to 12, expand to 32. (American League Expos, National League Carolina…Reapers? Better crowdsource that). Move to four divisions of eight teams apiece. The schedule becomes 154 games, and the team plays 14 against teams in their division, 7 against the other division in their league. Divisions look like this:
Clemente Division: Mets, Phils, Braves, Marlins, Nats, Reapers, Reds, Bucs.
Robinson Division: Brewers, Cubs, Cards, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Padres, Giants.
Ruth Division: Yanks, Red Sox, Rays, Expos, Blue Jays, Orioles, Tigers, Guardians.
O’Neil Division: Royals, Twins, White Sox, Astros, Rangers, Angels, A’s, Mariners.
So using the 12 team playoff system, the two division winners get a bye and the remaining six teams play a three game series at the higher seeds ballpark. With the 2021 standings, Tampa and Houston would have gotten byes as the top two seeds in the AL, and the matchups would have been Boston at New York and Toronto at Chicago for the three game WC. The NL would have had San Francisco and Atlanta as the top two seeds, with the wild cards being Cincinnati at LA, and St Louis at Milwaukee.
I remember when you brought up an idea like this in a chat 1-2 years ago, for a 16-team playoff. It remains the only proposal for expanded playoffs that I can tolerate. The only problem is divisions IMO – I don’t think an 88-win NLE winner should have the advantage over a 106-win WC winner, or however it would play out.
If the league were to expand to 32 teams and 4 divisions of 8, with only those 4 division winners getting the guaranteed top seeds, it would probably prevent those situations for the most part. 8-team divisions would never happen again, but it’d be cool. I would actually be totally fine with a 16-team playoff if it were weighted the way you put it in that chat – 8 seed needs to sweep the 1 seed in 4 games, 7 seed needs to sweep the 2 seed in 3 games, etc.
The downside to this on the owners’ side is these additional series could end after 1 game, which would not necessarily provide them the guaranteed value they would want from TV deals.
The thing I love about baseball is that it’s a grind for six months. I find it soul crushing to see baseball devalue the very thing that makes it fundamentally different from every other sport in North America. Next thing you know they’ll be adding free baserunners at the end of the game to make sure it doesn’t run over its allotted television time slot.
I agree, but I’ll add that the really wonderful thing about that grind is if your team is in a competitive pennant (playoff, now?) race, where each day, you feel it’s a must-win because dammit, your rival won last night too. That kind of slow-burn build-up to the final series of the season where it finally really is must-win is unparalleled in other sports.
One day doubleheader at the home field of the team with the highest seed. That team has to lose both games in order to not advance. Boom, also would be a lot of drama (I think).
I have no desire for the playoffs to reward the best team, I think the current iteration can be changed a bit, but anyone who understands baseball realizes the playoffs are largely a crapshoot. And why would we want it to be any different? That is what the regular season is for, deciding which teams are the best. The playoffs are fun, nothing else.
Exactly. Expecting the lesser team to sweep a 3 game series is far too tall an order. Also, the three game idea would take too much time.
I find myself losing interest in pro sports more and more every year.
I wonder if there is something that could be done with the scheduling of rounds/games to tilt the scale towards the better teams. That was the thing I found myself really liking about the 2020 playoffs- the lack of rest days meant that teams with depth had a bit of an advantage, it seemed. That, in turn, rewarded similar roster construction to the regular season rather than something optimized for the playoffs.
Simple…play all games at the higher seeded team’s park. Home team advantage exists in MLB even if not as much as significant as it’s is in other leagues. This would also mean no need for off days for travel..
I’d have two champions….the regular season, and the second season. I have two different proposals of how to do that on my website…….but I know no one else wants to do this! But, really, think of the money….and the drama of the second season. There are two posts on the post season, and two on the draft…..enjoy.
As for Dan’s proposal, I am 100% on board with the Knockout Round.
https://mikesixel.com/the-new-second-season-for-mlb/
This is a really interesting take. You’re also proposing more post-season games overall, as well as some de facto elimination games, which the owners would also presumably like.
Get over the idea of brackets.
Pool A- the 3 div winners play double round robin for seeding (top record hosts)
Pool B – 5 wild card teams play round robin with only 1 advancing (top record hosts)
Then you do the standard bracket format.
8 teams get in, div winners are highly rewarded, any wild card winner is going to really earn it.
Also, less off days and more home games for the top seed. It’s baseball. A chartered plane ride isn’t going to throw anyone off.
For div series it’s 1 game at lower seed then 4 at higher seed.
LCS is 2 at lower then 5 at higher.
If we want to get really bananas, do away with game limits for series. A 7 gsme series starts as needing to win 4 in a row. If a team wins 2 in a row and the streak is broken, the new standard is 3 for that team (4 for the other). Now, for illustration, the other team goes on a 3 game winning streak, then broken. Both teams now have to win 2 games in order to win the series.
At the very least, I would love for this format to be applied to the world series.
If you instead implemented this in series *other* than the World Series, teams from opposing leagues could stay sharp by playing exhibition games to terrify their next round opponents.
Any expansion of the playoffs will just stink. I’m not sure you can fix it.
What about changing to two divisions per league with the division winners all getting a bye on the wild card round and then (I love the) picking their opponents from the survivors.
Once the division winners are in the fray, it’s 7 game series locked and loaded no matter what changes down the road CBA structure wise.
That way division structure becomes vitally important solidifying the value of the regular season.
Alternatively, for historical symmetry we do away with multiple divisions to start with the some future constraints in place.
You know, I think we have a good enough handle on the leagues, that incorporating [r decorporating the designated hitter shant need to involve removing divisions altogether.
Reverting to two divisions per league could be a good solution while the dust settles.
When we consider the conversation surrounding competitive play, I think it’s important to include all tiers of competition. So I’d prefer the second place division winner *not* get to choose their opponent, allowing the regular season champion the opportunity to take on a more difficult challenge in order to “set” their regular season opponent with a hard counter.
I’d even go so far as to say I’d bend on what I think is a very good 7 game series mandate for division winners, so that setting a path for the second tier division winner can be more interestingly orchestrated.
Having the “best” team get knocked out of the playoffs is almost always my preference. Seeing a team win that wasn’t expected to, that is a major part of the joy in sports. And damn it, no DH in the NL.
Thank you for the thoughtful article.
What are your thoughts regarding the impact on the regular season of the playoff scheme? I feel that an important goal is to make the regular season games more important. To me, the worst part of a random, 14- or 16-team system isn’t that an unworthy champion might be crowned. Instead, it is that regular season games will be significantly less important (less fun) if your team is very likely to make the playoffs.
Thoughts?
I really don’t like any proposed playoff system that tries to make up for the lack of a clear advantage to higher seeds and for the fear that 105-win teams will lose to 86-win teams by making the matchups themselves lopsided.
If you want to add wild card rounds and give byes to the higher seeds, then I will grudgingly accept that as the inevitable price of greed. But the proposals where Team A gets to host Team B for all the games in a series or where Team A just needs to win one game but Team B needs to sweep Team A in order to advance – they all leave me cold. What’s the next step the next step? Moving in the fences a little when Team A bats.
Once determined, the matchups themselves need to be as even and fair as possible.