The New Playoff Format Would Disincentivize Competition
This Monday, against the backdrop of the Mookie Betts trade, MLB dropped a bombshell. As Joel Sherman reported, the league is seriously considering expanding the playoff field starting in 2022. The new proposal, a 14-team field with an extra round and a bye, would radically alter the shape of the playoffs, so let’s walk through it and consider the ramifications.
The format would be significantly more complicated than the current one. The best team in each league would receive a bye, while the other six teams would face off in a best-of-three first round. That doesn’t necessarily sound groundbreaking, but there’s some fancy stuff going on behind the scenes. The division winner with the second-best record would get to pick which of the three worst Wild Card teams they’d like to play. The remaining division winner would pick another of those three, and the best Wild Card team would play the remaining team in the group.
The first round would be three games, all played at one park. From there, it would be business as usual: a five-game divisional round with four teams per league, two seven-game championship series, and the World Series.
The league told Sherman what they’re looking for with this new format. They want to drum up interest in baseball among borderline viewers while selling networks more playoff games. The league also hopes that more teams in the playoffs would drive attendance boosts during the regular season. Sherman discussed playoff expansion as a way to counteract tanking, though it’s unclear whether this was a league talking point.
We’ll come back to the effect on viewership, but I’m more interested in the competitive ramifications. For the best team in each league, there will be small positive change. They’ll play worse teams on average, and those teams will be less rested. But for the most part, it’s business as usual; home field advantage and three playoff rounds.
On the other hand, it becomes far less valuable to win your division without winning the league overall. You’ll get to choose your opponent, but that’s not particularly valuable. The spread between the fifth-best and seventh-best teams in the league will rarely be very wide. And instead of advancing to the divisional round, you’ll play a three-game series that could eliminate you from the playoffs.
Those eliminations would happen more often than you think. In a scenario where the home team projects to win a game at a neutral site 57% of the time, that increases their odds of winning the series to roughly 66%. Not a coin flip, but also not a gimme.
Meanwhile, it’s no great shakes to be that seventh team. It’s better than not making the playoffs, obviously, but a one-in-three chance of winning a first-round series, with the reward being a trip to play a five-game series against another better team? It’s hardly a compelling package.
That’s not to say it’s meaningless. I built a generic playoff field, with a spread of true talent winning percentages, and then simulated a million playoffs in the current system, taking into account home field advantage:
| Seed | Win% | Win WC | Win DS | Win CS | Win WS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.625 | – | 63.1% | 39.2% | 22.6% |
| 2 | 0.590 | – | 58.0% | 27.2% | 13.6% |
| 3 | 0.555 | – | 42.0% | 16.5% | 6.5% |
| 4 | 0.575 | 56.5% | 22.0% | 10.7% | 4.8% |
| 5 | 0.550 | 43.5% | 15.0% | 6.5% | 2.5% |
| 6 | 0.525 | – | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 7 | 0.510 | – | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
In the current system, the best team has the best shot, and the division winners all do well, even though the worst division winner isn’t as good of a team as the first Wild Card. Next, here’s the new format, or at least my best guess at it, as the seeding and re-seeding hasn’t been explained:
| Seed | Win% | Win WC | Win DS | Win CS | Win WS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.625 | – | 63.0% | 41.3% | 24.3% |
| 2 | 0.590 | 67.7% | 40.7% | 19.0% | 9.5% |
| 3 | 0.555 | 63.4% | 30.3% | 11.9% | 4.9% |
| 4 | 0.575 | 59.8% | 23.2% | 12.1% | 5.6% |
| 5 | 0.550 | 40.2% | 13.8% | 6.5% | 2.6% |
| 6 | 0.525 | 36.6% | 15.4% | 5.1% | 1.8% |
| 7 | 0.510 | 32.3% | 13.6% | 4.1% | 1.3% |
These extra teams are largely for show. The sixth and seventh teams combine to win the World Series 3.1% of the time. This is only one league, of course, but that comes out to around 6% total World Series odds for the scrub teams. Not only that, but imagine the plight of a team on the bubble of qualifying for these new playoffs.
Should you go all-out to secure the seventh seed? You have only a 32% chance of playing a home game in the playoffs, nevermind reaching the championship series or World Series. And what if you improve your team by a further 2 1/2 wins, which would make you the sixth seed in this scenario? You’re still only at about one-in-three odds to host a playoff game and still less than 2% to win the World Series.
The sixth team is in a similar bind. If they get worse by 2 1/2 wins, it hardly matters: their chances of hosting a playoff game fall from 36.6% to 32.3%. On the other hand, gaining four wins to become the fifth seed isn’t all that useful. Your odds of hosting a playoff game are still only 40%, and your World Series odds are under 3%.
There are problems at the top end as well. Being the second-best team in the league is far less rewarding in the new system. Your playoff journey ends in the Wild Card round a full third of the time, which does a number on overall World Series odds.
In our current system, going from a .550 true talent team to a .590 true talent team is great. The .550 team will either be the worst division winner or a Wild Card. Splitting the difference between those two, that gives the team a 4.5% chance of winning the World Series. Upgrade by 6 1/2 wins to be a .590 winning percentage team, and your odds rise to 13.6%, a 9% gain.
Add those same 6 1/2 wins in the proposed system, and you move from roughly a 3.8% chance of winning to a 9.5% chance. The same 6 1/2 win upgrade is worth less than 6% of a World Series title rather than 9%. Baseball isn’t short of owners looking for excuses not to upgrade their team, and this structure heavily disincentivizes marginal improvements.
Consider this year’s AL: the Yankees signed Gerrit Cole to try to pass the Astros. They were going after the top overall seed, to be sure. But there’s a valuable fallback. Being the best team in the league is great, but adding talent and being the second-best team in the league still gives you a good chance at reaching the World Series.
In the new system, being second-best is just okay. If there’s a clear best team, the cold financial calculus of dollars and championship probability will tell whichever team is second-best to avoid spending too much to chase. It might tell them to downgrade! Unless you can make yourself a clear favorite, you’re spending without a commensurate upgrade in your odds.
When you expand the playoff field significantly and make the first round more random, you’re flattening everyone’s incentives. The last two teams to sneak into the playoffs are tremendously unlikely to remain standing at the end, but baseball being what it is, they stand a decent shot of knocking off a division winner before succumbing to gravity.
I won’t claim to know teams’ exact reactions to these rules. Perhaps there are teams who would compete for a three-game playoff stint, even at an opponent’s park. If you’re projected to go 80-82, maybe it’s worth trying to go 83-79 and bank that sweet playoff berth, with its attendant banners and commemorative T-shirts.
Perhaps there are teams out there who would still try to win 95 games, even knowing how little value the wins from 85 to 95 have, simply because they enjoy building a good baseball team. The recent state of baseball would tell you that’s unlikely, but I won’t rule it out.
There’s no question that this new structure would lower incentives for already-good teams to improve themselves. Thus, the only question that remains is the effect on viewership and playoff chases. The effect on playoff chases is likely to be minimal; instead of races for the second Wild Card spot, we’ll have races for the fourth Wild Card spot.
That will tend to add more teams to the mix, but there’s a big countervailing effect. The race for division titles will be hugely deadened. This past year, the Cardinals, Brewers, and Cubs came into the last week of the year with the NL Central up for grabs. It was a huge prize; win the division, and you could face the Braves in the NLDS. Second prize was far worse — a date with Max Scherzer in DC. Third prize is you’re fired. Or, well, you miss the playoffs.
Under the new system, all three teams would be likely to make the playoffs (I know the Cubs completely collapsed and would have missed the playoffs, but that’s not the point). Meanwhile, winning your division is a marginal upgrade if your talent level doesn’t change. The stakes will be lower in every division race, and even the stakes at the seventh-place bubble won’t be huge due to the sheer unlikeliness of winning from such a talent level and home field disadvantage.
That’s not to say that there are no benefits. More fans would get to see their team in the playoffs, and even if the math gives them a 1% chance at hoisting a trophy, it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. Every playoff game feels meaningful, regardless of whether one of the teams is overmatched in the tournament as a whole.
Baseball is a regional game, and the new model would make for more regions in the playoffs. It would be brief interest, to be sure; due to the logistical difficulty of squeezing these games in without cutting back on regular season games, they would likely be played on consecutive weekdays, with many of the games happening during working hours.
But all the same, it would probably add to the total amount of excitement around October. In 2019, the Diamondbacks and Mets would have qualified in the NL, and the Indians and Red Sox in the AL. It might offend my sensibilities that the Indians and Red Sox are openly sacrificing wins to enrich their owners, but the Diamondbacks are fun, and fans in Arizona would welcome a chance to watch their team in the postseason.
In 2018, the Mariners and Rays would have made the AL field. Seattle fans have been waiting a generation for a playoff game, and this system would provide it. In the NL, the 88-win Cardinals and one of the 82-win Pirates, Diamondbacks, or Nationals would make the playoffs (there’s no tiebreaker system written down yet).
Is the added regional excitement worth the negative economic incentives around competing? I think not; teams are already doing things like trading Mookie Betts away from a team that would have been a Wild Card favorite in the current format. Relax the entry criteria for the playoffs while making winning the division less valuable, and you’d likely see more of those types of trades.
You’d see a lot more offseasons like this year’s NL Central; the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals all went sideways. In the new setup, why not go sideways? If you can’t slug it out with the Dodgers for the best record in the league (and let’s be real, you can’t), you might as well pocket your savings, trade for top Red Sox prospect Financial Flexibility, and see if you can sneak into the playoffs with your current squad.
Maybe you’d see more offseasons like the White Sox or Reds had, teams looking to break into the picture. But I imagine you wouldn’t see all that many; owners are mathematically motivated, and spending to improve your team to a level where you’re 1% likely to win the World Series doesn’t sound very exciting unless there are huge monetary incentives to make the playoffs. Maybe there are — we don’t know all the details of the proposal yet. But most likely, this would just be another way for teams to rationalize not trying to get better.
I’m down on the system as a whole, as you can certainly see. I like the idea that more fans would get a chance to experience the playoffs. I like the idea that there would be more baseball. But I worry that the effect on competition would be too chilling, and given the current state of the game, I don’t think it’s an idle fear. Good-but-not-great teams are already endangered, as Boston and Cleveland have shown us in recent years. Why further disincentivize getting better when the league is already doing it quite efficiently on its own?
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Another thing worth noting is that would affect the Trade Deadline even more, since many teams that are on the bubble are hesitant to trade even with the CURRENT system.
I agree with this article…but the main reason I’m commenting is because I will always love a Glengarry Glen Ross shoutout.
I missed it. Where was the GGR reference?
Third prize is you’re fired.
I think that making the 162 game regular season less important is a recipe for disaster. Fans are already asked to pay more and more money (relative to inflation) to see baseball, and now those expensive games probably won’t make that much of a difference, as half the damn league will qualify for the post-season.
It’s a terrible idea and one which will, in the long run, harm the game.
MLB: So, fans, what do you want?
FANS: Cheaper ticket prices and an end to your idiotic streaming blackout rules!
MLB: A pitch clock and more teams in the postseason? Got it!
FANS: [facepalm]
MLB hasn’t been concerned with fans or baseball in quite some time.
It’s concerned with “borderline” fans, whose motivations are very different from those like members of this distinguished website. It’s all about attracting more viewers.
I think implementing the new rules with out expanding the number of teams in the playoffs would actually improve the current system. I.e. the current wild cards play a best of 3 series all at the better team’s park. After that series concludes the team with the best record selects which team of the two division winner and remaining wild card they want to play with the other two teams playing each other.
Good analysis. I agree that incentives (or disincentives) are the main problem here. More baseball doesn’t equal better baseball. It cheapens the definition of what it means to be a playoff team. We don’t need to see more mediocre teams contending for a championship.
I can just see MLB still insisting on trying to play these games each in their own time slot (and on networks not everyone gets), despite six series going on at once. “Tune in at 8am eastern, 5am pacific, as the Diamondbacks take on the Braves, on FS2.”
Yeah this is my biggest fear. They already can’t schedule playoff games when most people will be able to watch them (there should never, ever be a playoff game going on during a weekday), but they somehow think they’ll be able to fit all of these games in without the tournament extending to the middle of November?
Totally disagree with this. Day baseball is awesome. And even better in the playoffs.
Great, but most people cannot watch it (at least without potential ramifications and distractions)
Heck MLB why don’t you just put 14 teams from each league in the playoffs??? Top two teams get a bye, the other 12 play against each other to advance to the next round.
To quote Kevin from the office: Honestly, where does it end with you people?
At some point we won’t need a regular season, because the playoffs will be its own regular season.
I strongly agree with all of this. This significantly lowers the bar for a team to try and go all out. Teams are willing to go all out to secure a division title, but to be the #1 team in the league? Probably not. This whole “pick your opponent” thing doesn’t really move the needle that much, and it’s confusing to boot. I think the point of this is to try to incentivize teams to try to improve the number of teams who think they have a shot at a wild card, to encourage them not go give up. That…might happen? But I’m trying to think of a single team that would have changed directions this offseason, and I’m not thinking of any.
On top of this, there’s a real shot this totally screws up the playoffs and the regular season. This is pretty similar to what they try and do in the NBA, and what it means is that the regular season is anticlimactic and the playoffs are so long it’s hard to pay attention through the whole thing. Nobody cares whether you’re the sixth seed or the seventh seed, or the third seed or the fourth seed, and the lower seeds pretty much always get wiped out anyway. It’s depressing.
Basketball is a little different in that there aren’t a lot of upsets in the playoffs. So no reason to pay attention before the conference finals.
But overall I agree that this isn’t going to fix the problem that MLB is trying to solve.
Plus there are only 1/2 the games during the NBA regular season… and even then, it’s kinda silly.
A similar format for MLB would absolutely suck that much more…
The NBA has the best of both worlds. They have extremely long playoffs but always get the best teams in the conference finals and Finals. The NBA went to the current 16 team playoff format in 1984. Since then only one team lower than the #3 seed has won the NBA title (1995 Houston Rockets, #6 seed). And that Rocket team was an anomaly since they were the defending NBA champions. The #1 and # 2 seeds have won the vast majority of the NBA titles since 1984 (31 of 36 NBA titles).
This jives with my memory of the NBA playoffs, and IMO it’s a waste of everyone’s time and lacks suspense.
This is an argument against a longer NBA postseason, surely? (replying to AdamC)
The other side of the coin is that the best players in the NBA consistently win titles and so when they are judged on that accomplishment it’s reasonably fair, as stars have a disproportionate impact on game outcomes and the playoffs reliably advance the best teams.
The playoffs are basically for player attrition and fatigue:. The Warriors win at least one more title, maybe two, without the injuries in 16 and 19.
So it depends what you want from your postseason
I don’t follow all the logic around incentives for home field. You cite is as the reason why bubble level teams can’t compete but also why the top end teams won’t try hard to win. Those two point seems to counter each other.
The way I see it there are two large issues with the current format. 1) The 1 game wild card is stupid and 2) Some divisions (AL East) are overweight large market teams.
It means a large revenue team often ends up in a 1 game playoff. This is bad for business, attendance, and the overall fan base. Not to mention if you are fan of the Rays, Blue Jays, or Orioles you might feel like you are playing for the Wild Card at best every year. I’m a White Sox fan so the current system is great for me. We’re the largest market team in the AL Central even though we aren’t even the biggest team in the city. But I think its horrible for the game that the Yankees and Red Sox both can’t be guaranteed 3 home games if they finish 1 and 2 in the AL.
Any system that addresses those two issues is a good one in my view. I know it lowers the prestige of winning the division which is a long ingrained mindset, but I think its long overdue.
Why is everyone so worried about the Yankees and Red Sox getting their “due” playoff time? And how does this help the Rays, Jays, O’s? They’ll still be playing for the Wild Card.
His point is that having the 2 best teams in the AL consistently in the same division is pretty odd. It means one of them is frequently stuck in the WC and it is definitely the case that having Boston, NY, LA and Chicago teams in the postseason is good for MLB monetarilyso youd expect them to want to maximize that.
It has nothing to do with what they deserve.
BTW, in case you’re wondering, you only have to go back to 2018 to find a potential 3 way tie for the 7th playoff spot.
Pirates were 82-79 and the Nats and Diamondbacks were 82-80. So the Pirates would have had to play game 162. Lose and we have a 3 way tie that needs to be settled before the expanded playoffs even begin.
that would have been really interesting….
entering the final weekend-
Arizona 81-78 @ SD
Nats 81-78 @ Colorado
Pirates 80-78 @ Cincy
heck go to the start of the final week- for 1 spot
Arizona 79-77
Pit 78-76
Phi 78-77 1/2 game back
Was 78-78 1 game back
Would have made thigns really interesting.
Possibly they’d use some NFL-style tiebreaker for WC ties. Sure, that’s kind of a bummer, but delaying the playoffs so the 8th and 9th seeds can battle it out would be even worse.
The current format already disincentivizes competition.
Teams look at the prospect of a 1g WC and say “meh, if we arent close to winning 95 games and winning our division then lets tank for 5 years and start all over until we can”… and that leaves us with good/solid clubs (82-85 win teams) deciding to go backwards instead of forwards. The new system would correct that.
Huh? You mean no wild card teams ever have a real shot at the World Series w/ current format?!?!?!
Thats not what I said at all. I said thats what teams think/how they operate. Take Jerry Dipoto’s comments heading into the offseason after an 89 win season in 2018, for example. Or put words in my mouth. Whatever you’d prefer.
Ummm… if good/solid clubs (that can win 82-85) are really just gonna tank and rebuild, which is what you suggested, then that is exactly what you’re suggesting.
You pointed to the Mariners, but they were in an exceptional situation for a team that finished w/ 89 wins. That’s just not a common thing.
Mariners launch rebuild after 89 wins in 2018.
““We don’t want to be a perpetual competitor for the second Wild Card.” – Jerry Dipoto
Indians selling at the deadline in 2019 while in a WC spot
Rangers selling at deadline in 2019 while 1.5 gb of WC spot
“Teams are being very clinical about their chances to win, and the chance to put themselves in a one-game, wild-card playoff, despite it being the postseason, might not be a reward worth the risk of giving up some young guys in certain situations.” – Rick Hahn
“If you do that, you’re putting a lot of your future on playing one game…It doesn’t make sense [to go all in to play one game]… Who’s going to make a big trade [or spend in FA] for a chance to play one game?” – NL GM
That took me 5 mins. Try doing some of your own homework sometime.
Teams choosing to sell at the deadline is not the same as “let’s tank for 5 years and start all over”. Your exact words.
Every trade deadline there will be teams needing to decide whether they’re buyers or sellers (or just stand pat) for the rest of that season. That doesn’t at all mean what you said.
None of those other teams have actually done what you said.
The current system incentivizes teams to not be competitive and go for it unless they have a stranglehold on their division (which consists of like what – 4 of the 30 MLB teams?). I’ve given you plenty of examples. You don’t have to have the same viewpoint as I do but I think the current system needs some shakeup to get other teams in a competitive mindset rather than going the rebuild route, regardless of whether the proposed system is the perfect solution or not. You’re more than welcome to disagree but you’ve really added nothing of value to this discussion.
Ummm… I’d say the Nationals and their fans would beg to differ — and the rest of MLB got to see that. And of course, they were not the only WC team to go to the World Series in the last decade — and the previous decade before also had its fair share of WC teams going to the WS.
You’ve given exactly 1 example of a team that went into rebuild mode. The rest didn’t do what you claimed.
Look. I’m not suggesting the current format is perfect as is, but it’s actually not a substantial reason for teams to choose to tank and rebuild (for multiple years).
The Nationals were also a team more than good enough to win their division and not some limp 85 win true talent muddle.
Teams that added to their talent pool for 2020 without a division stranglehold: Rays, Twins, White Sox, Braves, Phillies, Reds, Diamondbacks, Padres.
I agree with the general point I think you’re trying to make — the wild card isn’t a strong incentive for teams — but you’re creating a dichotomy (‘go for it’ versus ‘rebuild’) that simply doesn’t exist.
The Indians didn’t sell at the 2019 deadline. They traded from a surplus (starting pitching/Bauer) to try and improve the team and make the playoffs.
“Since the (NFL) Wild Card System began in 1970, only ten wild card teams have advanced all the way to the Super Bowl. Of those, six won the Super Bowl. Only four of those wild card teams — New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants, and Green Bay Packers — won three games on the road to make it to the Super Bowl. ”
https://www.profootballhof.com/news/history-of-the-wild-card/
Has not hurt the NFL product that Wild Card teams are “largely for show.”
Leagues are not going to accept new TV deals at status quo or decline very easily. If they need to offer more product and/or more drama to get a higher number… they will.
You cant compare MLB to the other 3 major sports because those 3 all have salary caps/floors. Thats why 8 seeds can win it all, thats way the St Louis Blues who were in dead last at the halfway point, can win the stanley cup. Until MLB gets its head out of its ass and realizes this sport needs a salary cap, and a post season that reflects the regular season, its never going to work like it does in other sports. Teams that are built around depth in the regular season have an entire postseason system that works against them so large market teams can ride their 2-3 horses.
I’ll accept a salary cap when the owners accept a profit cap.
The Astros will be on the downswing by then, but in the American League this seems like it sure would be a disadvantage to the AL East with the unbalanced schedules. Seems like the division winners need to be on at least fairly equal footing or the schedules need more balancing. Just another reason that this is crazy.
This proposal kind of reminds me a bit of the piece the other day that argued that we needed to scrap divisions because competitive imbalance makes it unfair for teams who play in the NL West (and the AL East) who aren’t one of the five richest franchises in baseball. All of this is an attempt to paper over the fact that there are major competitive imbalance issues without offering any sort of solution to it. I get that it’s hard to figure out an appropriate solution, but these don’t really change the underlying problem nor does it really remedy it.
Certain FG Writers: “I know how to fix competitive balance. Let’s get rid of the competitive balance tax and the draft, that will show those billionaire owners”
Where’s the lie? Do you think the CBT really benefits anything other than the pockets of the billionaires who own the “small market” teams? And do you think the draft is for the benefit of the players?
One under-mentioned aspect of the current divisional system is that in-division games mean more down the stretch and this it is also very easy to schedule these important games to ramp up the stakes in September. If you emphasize record instead, there’s no equivalent way to build that into the schedule at the beginning of the season.
One other thing to note: This proposal would have huge effects on roster construction. You’re essentially telling teams that the regular season isn’t as important, and teams that get in as wild cards are going to want a puncher’s chance to beat the team seeded higher than them, so teams are going to load up on players that will give them a bigger advantage in the playoffs than the regular season. So I suspect teams are going to be working overtime to lock down elite starters and relievers, even more so than now, and the market for fifth starters might collapse entirely (teams were already sort of moving that way).
maybe they want to disincentivize? that way you have less teams trying to become behemoths like the astros or yankees, and in turn more teams hovering around average. teams that sucks like the marlins have a moderate excuse to become decent, cus who knows, they may randomly jump into the playoffs! essentially decrease team win% variance, give more teams a chance to randomly make the playoffs, and increase league parity that way.
I’m a die-hard fan and I agree with most of your points, but there are definitely a few things I like about the proposed system:
1. It makes the battle for the #1 seed interesting. Imagine seeing the Astros and Yankees fighting for the 1 seed in September – those September games between the best teams would all of a sudden have a lot of meaning.
2. Similarly, the advantage for the #1 seed would be so strong it would be somewhat reminiscent of the old days when each league just sent the winner to the WS. You would have a real winner in each league even before considering the playoffs, which is cool.
3. The drama of choosing your opponents – imagine the Yankees choosing the Red Sox. That would be hilarious. I agree it probably doesn’t matter in terms of ultimately who wins, but it definitely makes for some good prime time viewing.
4. As you mentioned, it keeps more teams in the race longer during the year, which helps with the general malaise that can overtake about half the league by July/August.
Overall, I’m on the fence.
If being top seed were to be that important a balanced schedule is a must.
1. The #1 seed is already an interesting battle when it’s close because it gives home field advantage to the teams most likely to face each other in the LCS. Is it really such a compelling battle that it needs more attention than this?
Manfred and his MLB staff should speak with NASCAR before going down this path. NASCAR messed around with their format of determining a season champion by instituting a playoff (The Chase). This, along with their incessant rule changes (stage racing), has dropped attendance by 50% at most tracks. Does baseball really want to emulate NASCAR? It will cheapen the regular season in my opinion.
Even better, there’s no weird dynamic in MLB like there was in NASCAR where one team broke the sport and their most popular team by some distance didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of making the playoffs. Jimmie Johnson (was) wrecking racing and no one was even particularly close in terms of the point system. NASCAR’s most popular driver- DEJ- wasn’t actually competitive as a driver to the point where one year they considered opening up a spot in the playoffs to a fan vote.
This would be analogous to the Dodgers winning the world series 6 years in a row while the Yankees failed to make the playoffs despite MLB giving them a 15 game head start in the division. We’re not remotely there yet. NASCAR’s rule changes and continual tweaking of the formula legitimately killed some tracks, MLB should DEFINITELY take caution from their example.
Yes this is almost like NASCAR to a tee. I don’t watch it, I’ve never watched it, but it’s decline in recent years has been something I’ve paid a lot of attention to. It seems like NASCAR spent so long abandoning their core market to try and chase a market that didn’t care about racing in the first place. NASCAR is a good example of how to nearly kill a brand, and I don’t want this to happen to baseball. Whether it’s this asinine playoff format, ghost runners on second base in extras, or that rumored “send up whoever you want to start the bottom of the ninth” rule that came out a while back, these types of gimmicks won’t draw in someone who has never watched baseball before, it’ll just push hardcore viewers out who feel like they are no longer the priority
Yeah the NASCAR analogy is good because they tried to address their end-of-season audience erosion by guessing at what the casual viewers wanted and completely destroyed what their bread-and-butter fans liked about the sport. They guessed wrong, and alienated their core fans.
MLB would learn way more about what the casual fan wants by having an ex-player sitting with a fan watching a telecast and taking note of the questions they ask. The questions are usually about the rules. And I think one of the biggest rules in baseball that most other sports don’t have have is about substitution and no re-entry. It’s one of those things fans like us take for granted that you never even hear explained on a telecast that novices don’t understand. My niece used to make fun of players coming out because of a bruise or twisted ankle – it was years before I figured out she assumed the player could come back in the game later like in the other sports. Having Jessica Mendoza explain how to throw a cutter is NOT what the novice fan is interested in.
I couldn’t disagree more. You actually want to hear the same basic rule explanations over and over 162 times a year? There will always be some onus on a new viewer of any sport to educate themselves to a minimum level by asking someone or doing a quick google search.
I watched an India vs Pakistan cricket match once with some friends, and they did their best to explain it to me, but I certainly didn’t expect the broadcast to pander to my ignorance. Your niece can use this as an opportunity to learn to ask better questions.
Just sort by market size and assign playoff spots and seeding based on that, like the NBA (Knicks not included)
I’d like to know what teams’ objections are to dropping divisions entirely, if not just simplifying the structure (two divisions in a league?). Add more teams in the bigger divisions if you must. That seems simpler and easier to implement, and also probably simplifies scheduling.
I understand the rivalry objection, but those are pretty few and far between (yankees sox, Giants dodgers, and….. you got me- Astros Rangers count?). Frankly, scheduling and series should go longer to account for the ridiculous amounts of travel these guys have to put up with (and could result in fewer charter flights, which are a huge cost).
You kidding? Rivalries are often what drive sports. You put teams in divisions, have them play each other, and give a trophy and a playoff spot to the winner. It’s fantastic. I think the only teams that don’t have multiple rivals within the division are relatively recent expansion teams (Rockies, Rays, Marlins, Rays), and I may be wrong about them.
The Rays have had some intense series with both the Red Sox and the Yanks over the years. There’s definitely some bad blood between the franchises.
Oh man, I forgot about the Red Sox-Rays rivalry. That thing was bonkers. Probably still is.
I’m a Braves fan and couldn’t tell you who their rivals are. Braves fans spend most of their time hating other braves fans because of college ties. There’s nothing I’d really consider a rivalry in the East. (ESPECIALLY compared to the rivalries college football engenders)
The Braves rivals are the other teams in the NL East; maybe excluding the Phillies.
Part of that was because somehow they were in the NL West forever, which made no sense at all. But I would guess the Mets and Nationals, just based on what I’ve read/seen. The Nationals because they’ve been good at similar times, and the Mets ever since John Rocker.
One big objection from the teams and broadcasters would be more games outside teams’ timezone. East coast teams in particular don’t want more 10 pm start times.
Your last comment is an example of east coast bias. You think the west coast teams like 4pm start times? There are seven AL teams in the Eastern Time Zone (the five East Division teams plus Detroit and Cleveland) and only three in the Pacific Time Zone. The effect of an equal schedule would be far more pronounced to the west coast teams.
I think some of this is based on trying to give the #1 seed a far greater advantage than they currently enjoy. I mean in the 8 years of Wild Cards now- the Wild Card teams are 7-9 in the LDS. With the Giants and Nats winning the World Series.
Baseball’s such a random game on a day-to-day basis that the 15th seed could beat the #1 seed in a short series. No playoff system, save for those from pre-1994, will adequately reward the teams that ace the 162-game test.
I get what you’re saying. But to give the 1 seed the chance to possibly face the #7 and #6 teams to make the World Series- I think they would like that….
I agree, and this is the point I occasionally bring up (to deafening silence). How about have a league and a knockout tournament running simultaneously, like in soccer? Have the semi-finals and final after the end of the regular season, but have both be equally important. There’s a reason to care about the league, and the World Series will still be the most important.
I have to disagree with this article. I think getting to the playoffs is a way to incentivize spending to get there. Sick of all these teams racing to the bottom for draft picks. That isn’t the point of sports. If you make the playoffs you have a shot. Look at the Nationals last year!
This is thought provoking. I have been listening to MLB Network radio most of the day. To a man each had the OPPOSITE reaction and opinion of you. To wit–they think more teams will try to improve/win and that the result will be fewer tanking teams. “Ben from St. Louis…you’re on Inside Pitch!”
Oddly enough, the only people (only a slight exaggeration) that I’ve seen who like this are national media reporters. Almost like they have an agenda or something
You think anyone on MLBN is going to go against the company??
I’m stealing this from twitter but I think it sums it all up perfectly:
“imagine the drama of the Rangers winning four of their last nine to finish 82-80 and win the seventh seed by two games over a sub-.500 White Sox team”
If this doesn’t win over casual fans, nothing will!
And then the Rangers get hot in October/November and yell “We’re No. 1!” despite finishing 3rd in a 5-team division.
Are you not entertained though?! They got to gloat to the team that chose to face them! This is the drama I’ve wanted in all my years of watching baseball!
I mean that is exactly what happens in NBA with Pistons finishing 41-41 to secure playoffs over 39-43 Hornets and people do enjoy the drama so there is that.
who enjoys that drama? the fans in that market, but are “casual basketball fans” tuning in to see whether the Pistons pass the Hornets for the 8th seed?
To me 8 teams was the sweet spot. 3 division winners and one wild card. I don’t like this play-in wild card game. The play-in games from back in the day used to feel so special, these teams played 162 games and it wasn’t enough to settle things because they had the same record. It was just rare enough to seem like a massive deal when they happened, and now that’s not there with these wild card games, because you get at least 2 every year. If you want to add some extra games, I say change it back to just 4 teams per league and make the DS’s 7-game series’.
Reward the teams putting less resources into competing. Sounds about right.
I just watched BASEketball the other day. They thought they were making a comedy!
I think incentivizing teams to try and improve from 81 wins to 85 wins is a good one. Sports as a whole has been plagued by the realization that if you not a legit championship contender it’s a better idea to tank, pocket the money, and sell your fan base on the future your building. More teams trying to win games instead of lose them is better.
BUT, you don’t want to disincentivize being really good, like what the Dodgers and Yankees are doing. Look at how boring the NBA regular season has become, the best teams are playing for nothing, and the teams that are actually on the bubble no one cares about. Baseball’s lack of intriguing stars for marginal fans makes it even more important that teams with the best teams are the ones playing the important games.
A new system should attempt to do both, incentive ok teams to get a little better and have a shot at the playoffs so their fans are interested in all their games (and owners can profit off the increased interest and short playoff run), while keeping the competition among the already really good teams to be great.
I think increasing it beyond 6 in each league is unworkable keeping the above goals in mind, at least with 30 teams.
If we are going to change the format I think the best system would be to give a bye to the 1 and 2 seed in each league. I like the idea of the spectacle of those teams picking their next round opponent on live TV, and it may add some extra incentive for the 1 seed, so keep that. Let 3-6 play the 3 game wild card round.
I think this system would really push good teams to get great (to avoid the 3 seed and the wild card round), and increase the odds mediocre teams would do what the Red’s and Dback’s did this offseason and try and contend for the 5 and 6 seed, now having a greater chance at advancing in the postseason, and being guaranteed at least one more postseason game worth of revenue.
You know uber pool is just a really inefficient public bus with smaller seats, right?
Don’t talk to me on the bus either
Fair
This era was a bit past my time (millennial), but I feel the exact opposite of expanding the playoff. Looking through history, the 4-division era where only the champs got in is my favorite format….it doesn’t cheapen the playoffs. I understand some years someone gets screwed (I recall the Giants winning like 103 games in the early 90s and finishing 2nd)….at the end of the day, there will never be a perfect system since every year is different. I would just rather have too few teams and make it mean something rather than let B-grade teams have a shot at the title.
Don’t get me wrong, it would never happen. I know how these leagues work….they want $$ first. It’s the same reason we have a million useless bowl games. No one really cares about 6th place except the teams involved. I personally want the best teams to win every year, save the ridiculous Cinderella stories for March Madness.
I think this is overly critical. This article makes a big deal of how prioritizing division wins is good for competitiveness, and I agree, but is there any way to add more teams to the playoffs without somewhat blunting division winner advantage? And if there isn’t, how much more can you incentivize winning the division than we do now? If this is the hill you’re going to die on, can you really do anything to improve competitiveness?
And the Mookie Betts example is instructive, I think. Right now there are only 5 teams that make the playoffs from the AL. The Yankees are locks which means the Sox have to count on a wild card win. That means the Sox have to beat out the all but one of the Rays, Indians, White Sox, Angels, A’s, and Texans. And given their questions, it’s not entirely unreasonable for them to believe they aren’t confident they can do it this year. But if it was opened up to 7 teams, now it’s looking a lot more plausible that even in a not great year, they still have a chance to reach the postseason.
I think this new format would disincentivize the Mookie Betts trade because it pushes teams to be just a bit better than average instead of really really good. It means we’ll see more moves like the Reds and Mets from last year, pushing chips to the middle to keep a race competitive because there’s a chance to go all the way. Last year, the most fun division in baseball was the NL East. There were for teams over .500 and the race was exciting all year, and wild card Nats slew the evil giant in the end. We want more of that!
This article just furthers the narrative that analytics is making baseball less fun. I get the math, but are we really arguing here that more teams playing meaningful games is a net negative for the sport because the 2nd seed team doesn’t have as big a lead? I would think disincentivizing teams to build super teams would be ideal, and yet here we are talking about how making the richer is better.
I really cannot envision this resulting in teams actively trying to avoid getting the last playoff seed. Playoffs make teams money and justify ticket price hikes. Even a one and done loss in the first series is still something that teams chase. All of a sudden they would just stop doing that? I don’t believe it. Especially if teams aren’t trying to be super teams because hitting the blob in the middle seems to work just fine, wouldn’t that mean your blob could be just as good as their blob?
I just can’t see how you can argue in good faith that this won’t increase competitiveness.
You could have a 30-team playoff and argue there would be some sort of competitiveness involved. I just don’t want mediocre competition come October…adding more teams just further dilutes the pool and hurts the purpose of the regular season. I don’t want to watch an 84-win team battle it out, they don’t “deserve” to be there in my eyes.
That’s a reasonable point but it still increases competitiveness. It may not be the highest level of competition, but more teams and more playoffs games is more competition. I actually quite like things the way they are and don’t want a change to the current format, but this piece just seems contradictory to me.
So you don’t want it, and therefore agree with the article, but are continuing to argue the opposite, for some reason?
“I think this new format would disincentivize the Mookie Betts trade because it pushes teams to be just a bit better than average instead of really really good.”
Strong disagree. If the Red Sox can lower their payroll, but still have a decent-to-good chance of falling into a playoff spot, then you probably get more versions of this trade, not fewer.
“I get the math, but are we really arguing here that more teams playing meaningful games is a net negative for the sport because the 2nd seed team doesn’t have as big a lead?”
Why continue to spend and develop to improve past 90 wins when it basically means jack to actually winning a championship? It may add more meaningful games at the mid-range of teams, but it certainly decreases the number of meaningful games for, say, last season’s Twins.
“I really cannot envision this resulting in teams actively trying to avoid getting the last playoff seed.”
I agree, but what it would mean that instead of safe playoff teams trying to win their division (to avoid the Wild Card), you’d get no real strong incentive to push unless you can take the #1 seed.
More teams past 90 wins means more teams under 70 wins. If you have big winners you have to have big losers. I think baseball should be thinking about how to incentivize more 90 win teams and less 100 win teams.
Some baseball fans, that don’t really want to teams to win a lot or lose a lot, don’t seem to understand the point of sport.
The argument that increasing playoff slots increases competitiveness is hollow. What you are actually doing is redistributing the competitiveness down from the top of the league to the middle.
Nicely put!
Texans? Did the Astros change their name to try to improve their image, or are you referring to the Rangers? Or is the NFL loaning out the Texans to MLB this season?
Thanks for the analytical look. Here’s my view as a fan:
I hate it. I hate to see the regular season’s importance diminished even more. I am still offended by the 2006 Cardinals being the WS winners after finishing the season with a .516 winning percentage. Such teams don’t deserve even a one percent chance at the title.
If the best team gets a bye then the leagues must go to a balanced schedule to be fair. Otherwise strength of schedule will affect the outcome. And I find the idea of a reality TV show to pick your opponent in the first round (per Joel Sherman) to be revolting.
The day this gets implemented is the day I walk away from baseball. It difficult enough watching games as it is with the preponderance of three true outcomes. This would be the final straw.
Yes, nailed it. This is just a terrible idea.
How much damage can Manfred do to this league?? I mean, how the heck do you screw up baseball..???
I don’t really see the point. I mean, I get MLB’s goal, but if half the league makes the playoffs, then the playoffs themselves have no real value other than monetary. No one (speaking in hyperbole for you pedants) remembers or cares who the fifth seed was three years ago in other sports unless they went down to the end. It feels at some point like participation trophies, I guess.
Also, where are they going to shoehorn this extra round in, unless they go back to a 154 game schedule?
Also also, we know that with very, very few exceptions the teams that get to choose their opponent are always going to choose the weakest. So why give them an option that logic dictates will always be the same choice?
Because Manfred is obsessed with giving baseball a TV spectacle like the NFL draft.
Yeah, I get that, and I get that more playoff games mean more revenue too.
Here are a few problems as I see them:
A) There’s the platonic ideal of the very best teams at the height of their powers being the last ones standing, struggling to find and exploit the flaw of their opponent. Three or four superteams, a Cinderella story, six or seven mediocre-at-best teams, and two who found themselves backed into the playoffs isn’t exactly a compelling lead-up to that scenario. And that ideal rarely happens in this current playoff format anyway, because baseball!
B) The Cinderella story can be powerful in the right circumstances, but I keep envisioning them finally playing against a quality team in a series and ending up like the Twins v. Yankees (I realize the Twins weren’t a Cinderella team, but man did they get squashed year after year). Unless you’re a fan of train wrecks, I can’t see how that’s a good thing, other than for owner wallets.
C) With so many teams qualifying, I feel like trades would become far less prevalent, or at least the big ones that are meant to spearhead a run. If you’re a GM and you know a .500 (or less!) record is going to get your team owner at least three playoff games worth of merchandise revenue at the very least, why trade that middle reliever for a prospect who’ll never sniff the majors? Why trade your one ascendant star the year before he hits free agency, depending on the calculus of playoff game revenue versus expected value of the compensation pick?
Why not just add a 6th team, give two first round byes to the top two teams, and have 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5. 3 game series . Still gives bye to top two teams, gives us one more team in the playoffs, and 3 game series instead of 1. Then everything else the same.
To increase the interest in fans buying and renewing season tickets the odds of having a home playoff game are important. This plan doesn’t do that for the marginal playoff teams.
I think I’ve only seen Trevor Bauer bring it up, but it is a good point: the #1 seed with the bye are going to have such a long lay off, that I would almost rather have my team playing in the first round just so they aren’t rusty after a 5 to maybe 10 day lay off
Is there any evidence that “rust” has a quantifiable effect? And that it’s large enough to outweigh the benefits of rest, especially at the end of a season? I am skeptical, but if anyone’s tried to study this I’m not aware of it.
I know the Nats bucked a huge trend last fall in winning the World Series with such a long gap.
Yeah I don’t think this is a significant concern, teams come back after the All Star break and are completely fine. The Astros had basically clinched the division by what, June/July? And they were a few innings from winning the World Series. Dodgers in 2017 too, they coasted most of the entire season and then *should* have won the WS.
Yeah, this whole charade is farcical. Baseball better pull its collective head out of its arse, and right soon.
You need expansion to 32 teams before screwing with the playoffs. and even then it should be four 8-team divisions, 4 WCs per League, with division champs getting a bye.
On the whole I don’t think more playoff teams is a bad thing, especially with the volatility of baseball; will probably make the superteams less fearsome inherently. I realize its counter to tradition and makes the regular season less important but I’m pretty sure that’s just the natural progress of sports.
As a fan of a bad team, I want my team to be good a lot more than I want them to make the playoffs. Usually, in the current system, the two go hand in hand, but in this new scenario, they often will not. I think owners would rather their teams make the playoffs than be good, so I worry that in the new scenario they will be incentivized to build a .500 team – content to make the playoffs every couple of years- and never actually build a good team. I don’t like this.
Why not do essentially the NFL system? 6 teams in the playoffs, top 2 teams get a bye, 3 plays 6 and 4 plays 5 in a best of 3. Lowest seeded team to advance plays the top team, or do a choice if you want to keep that element. I don’t really like the choice part of it, but whatever. You could do all 3 games at one site for the Wild Card round to save on travel, then do a 7 game NLDS/NLCS/WS. It would add a few days, but I think it’s worth it and gives the networks and league the extra games they want.
It benefits the top 2 teams, which I think is a good goal, if you win 106 games (cough) you should be rewarded with more than a 5 game series against superstar pitchers. This way there’s real value to fighting for a top 2 spot, it’ll add incentive for more teams to go after winning the most possible games to avoid playing in a best of 3. It also rewards teams for trying even if they’re in the same league as a super team, the MLB proposal gives a huge advantage to a 105 win Yankees team and severely punishes a 104 win Astros team, for example. And then the best of 7 in the NLDS gives more opportunity for the better team to advance.
You might have a similar problem to what Ben mentions where teams don’t think it’s worth it go fight tooth and nail for a spot in a best of 3, but I mean, it’s more worth it than being the 4th and 5th teams fighting for a one game playoff, in my opinion.
This limits the playoffs to 12 teams instead of 14, and provides real (albeit, marginal) value to being the best team. I think it also creates opportunity for more competition, because the 2 and 3 seed battle for best record would actually matter, and 4-5 would matter too for the ability to host the series.
This is one of the worst ideas in MLB in a looong time. If the objective is higher attendance and broadening viewership, don’t do this obviously dumb new format. Instead, simply enact ways to make games quicker, and start them an hour earlier. Then the more compelling late-innings drama unfolds during prime watching hours.
I can’t fathom why MLB’d even consider this new format. Making the regular season less meaningful makes attending and watching regular season games less meaningful. Duh!
With this new playoff format, the top seeds will have about a week off before their first playoff series with the bye. Have you looked into potential disadvantages for teams dealing with that kind of a delay?
I remember prior to the 2006 World Series, the Tigers had a long delay before facing the Cardinals and couldn’t get things back on track.
Great rundown of the problems of this new playoff system. A couple thoughts:
1) If MLB wants to increase the length / drama of the playoffs like the other sports leagues, then just cut the 162 game season. It’s ridiculous to make all teams play that many games if they are going to let 1/2 the teams into the playoffs. Make it 80 or 100 games tops, then do the extended playoffs. Of course this will never happen.
2) If the intent of the extended playoffs is to spur competition and dissuade tanking, it’s far simpler just to address the incentives for tanking. Make the top draft picks go to the best non-playoff teams instead of the worst teams. That small change will alter a lot of the sh*tty behavior from teams today.
I think you’ve stacked the deck in your favor with some questionable assumptions, Ben.
Most notably, I question your assumptions on how teams make decisions. Your analysis is all based on end of regular season results, based on only full season W-L record, averaged out across multiple years.
– Teams are making personnel and budget decisions before and during the season… when end of season results are a probability distribution of potential outcomes rather than a multi-season average point estimate for finishing in a given seeding position.
– You’ve made winning the WS the only metric teams aspire for… but there are binary revenue payoffs for making the playoffs and advancing that organizations can benefit from without making the WS (and, as I understand it, the payoff isn’t just direct since doing better this season also helps increase revenues next season).
– Picking your opponent isn’t just about picking based on full season W-L record, but increasing your odds of winning based on player matchups, park factors, and the opponent’s state at the end of the season rather than over the full season (two teams with the same overall record can look different at the end of the season based on in-season additions and injuries).
Viewed through the lens of teams making decisions before they know the outcomes… the new system should incentizive teams to increase their probability off being the #1 seed to get that favorable bye, to be the #2 seed to pick the most favorable matchup, the #3 seed to at least avoid the least favorable matchup, and to be among the top 7 to get some playoff revenue and have a shot (which you seem to peg at 33%) at advancing. It’s not about making a huge leap to go from a backend seed to a top seed, but about making decisions on the margins to try to compete… be it in personnel and budget decisions or not taking the last two months of the season off because you’ve already essentially secured your playoff spot or lack thereof by July.
(Will the proposed Wild Card round be played at neutral sites? What I remember reading was that the higher seed would host all three games.)