In typical fashion, the Major League Baseball postseason has produced unpredictable thrills and excitement. It remains the best postseason in all of professional sports.
This year, after MLB decided to expand the playoff field, there’s been even more of it. That’s led to some shocking results, especially on the National League side. No one expected the tournament’s lowest seed, the Philadelphia Phillies, to emerge as the NL Pennant winners. In fact, under the old format, Philly wouldn’t have even made the field.
Some argue this isn’t right, that a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers – who won 111 games in the regular season – didn’t get a fair shake under the new format. LA was eliminated in a best of five second-round series. But the unfair argument dismisses the fact that LA had a first round bye, and the Dodgers were able to set up their pitching rotation exactly the way they wanted too for their anticipated match up against the New York Mets. That was a match up that never happened of course, as the Mets and their vaunted pitching rotation also got ousted early. That’s the way the 2022 NL playoffs went.
There was a time, prior to the 1969 season, when having the best record in the league – as the Dodgers did – was a ticket directly to the World Series. But then MLB added league playoffs. First one round, then two, then three…then the wild card came into being in 2012 and was expanded this year. More playoffs and (almost) everyone loves it.
The only people (beside Dodger fans) who are against the current playoff format are players who want to get paid for every game they participate in. But the TV people love it. The everyday fans love it. And the owners love the additional revenue and attention.
So what’s the downside? More is better, right?
What the unpredictable NL playoffs did was reward the teams that were playing the best when it counted the most. The way all championships should be decided.
This is how the NHL operates. In hockey, even if you’re the President’s Trophy winner, you have to win 16 more games – just like everyone else – in the postseason to claim the championship. So asking MLB teams to win some additional playoff games (under the current format, the max number of wins needed is 13 if you don’t get a bye) isn’t asking too much.
But how do we make everyone happy?
The solution appears to be obvious to most – even those in LA.
How about going back to the 154-game regular season (which MLB utilized through the 1961 season) while making every playoff round a best of seven?
All teams would lose eight regular season games, but playoff teams will add that and more.
MLB owners would have to sign off on having four fewer home games each, which equates roughly to a $4 mil net loss for each owner. Would the additional TV revenue be enough to cover it? The expanded playoff would also have to generate enough extra cash to make sure ALL the players, including those who don’t participate in the postseason, aren’t going to be asked to take any semblance of a pay reduction.
It’s hard to understand why anyone would be against this kind of thing. Obviously, it will have to be collectively bargained, but if everyone’s getting paid, and fans are getting more playoff games, who won’t like it?
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