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Baseball is a game, MLB is a business. The decisions regarding how the post season will operate are going to be based on what is best for business, not on what seems the most fair.
By increasing the number of divisions, by adding a wild card, and then a second wild card, MLB extends the perception of being in the race for teams which under previous systems, would have been all but eliminated by the beginning of September.
Fans turn out for games which count in the race, they tend not to flock to games where the team is just playing out the schedule. Consequently, don't be expecting MLB to be contracting the post season in any manner, nor altering qualifying standards to make it harder.
So the teams who played the best all year should sit around and get rusty while the wild card teams play a 3 of 5 ?
Not happinen
I think 3/5 to long, how about WC round starts the next day after reg season over, play 2/3 with no days off for travel, then right into Divisional round....Division winners would get just 3 days off, and as a WC winner, your reward is getting into playoffs, but going to use up a lot of your frontline pitching for WC round while Div winners get rest and they get to setup their rotation
I think 3/5 to long, how about WC round starts the next day after reg season over, play 2/3 with no days off for travel, then right into Divisional round....Division winners would get just 3 days off, and as a WC winner, your reward is getting into playoffs, but going to use up a lot of your frontline pitching for WC round while Div winners get rest and they get to setup their rotation
I think it works the way it is..if you don't want to play the WC win your division. Otherwise...you are in a crap shoot and every team goes into the season knowing that.
However, I will say i think the first round 3 of 5 should be 4 of 7. 3 of 5 is just not long enough in baseball and i think the whole format allows for teams to only use 3 starters when all year you needed 5 because of days off...its bs.
One radical thought is 3 game series for WC teams. Play double header 1 day and if necessary play 3rd game next day. All at one stadium. You get in a 3 game series and it only takes two days.
But with this setup you can potentially burn through your bullpen and starting pitching. But it would be more satisfying than just have a 1 game playoff.
It's not perfect but I think it's the best it's ever been. I'd be more focused on increasing the 5 game series to 7 before I worried about the 1 game playoff.
5 game series is short and the team with the best record can get eliminated in that 5 game series very easily if they lose the first 2 games (even at home). But the new system actually protects that from happening to an extent because that wild card team will likely use one of there top 2 pitchers in that 1 game playoff which means he won't go again till game 3 at the earliest. So while he may still get 2 starts in the divisional game one would be on short rest.
Some other options would be to shorten the season to 154 games and increase the WC to 3 game series then divisional to 7 game series. But then you'd still have issues with the team winning the division having there top pitcher go 10+ days without pitching in some cases. That can be just as bad as pitching on short rest.
Reason I mention about shortening the season because baseball needs to be over in October and increasing that 1 game WC to 3 games would flirt with November. But I doubt they ever shorten to 154 game season. That's 4 less home games and too much $$$. Especially considering baseball contracts are guaranteed.
It's not perfect but I think it's the best it's ever been. I'd be more focused on increasing the 5 game series to 7 before I worried about the 1 game playoff.
5 game series is short and the team with the best record can get eliminated in that 5 game series very easily if they lose the first 2 games (even at home). But the new system actually protects that from happening to an extent because that wild card team will likely use one of there top 2 pitchers in that 1 game playoff which means he won't go again till game 3 at the earliest. So while he may still get 2 starts in the divisional game one would be on short rest.
Some other options would be to shorten the season to 154 games and increase the WC to 3 game series then divisional to 7 game series. But then you'd still have issues with the team winning the division having there top pitcher go 10+ days without pitching in some cases. That can be just as bad as pitching on short rest.
Reason I mention about shortening the season because baseball needs to be over in October and increasing that 1 game WC to 3 games would flirt with November. But I doubt they ever shorten to 154 game season. That's 4 less home games and too much $$$. Especially considering baseball contracts are guaranteed.
Shortening the regular season? Never going to happen $$$$$
But in reality, baseball playoffs have the worst timing. They are competing with the NFL. And right now the NFL is king.
And the merry-go-round of networks is frustrating also. Fox, TBS, TNT, MLB Network, FS1. I have no idea what games are on and on what channel.
Shortening the regular season? Never going to happen $$$$$
But in reality, baseball playoffs have the worst timing. They are competing with the NFL. And right now the NFL is king.
And the merry-go-round of networks is frustrating also. Fox, TBS, TNT, MLB Network, FS1. I have no idea what games are on and on what channel.
Yea I said the $$$$ thing
It would be interesting to see how much coverage baseball would get if they only played on Saturdays. Having so many games is great if you're a huge fan but at the same time 1 single game means a lot less than what an NFL game means. In baseball you can start the season 10 games under .500 through May and still have plenty of time to recover.
In the NFL any team who starts 0-2 statistically is at a huge deficit.
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