How Would You Fix the Playoffs?

Metaphysicist said:
First time long time.

Expand to 32 teams. Four division winners and four wildcards per league. Each division winner places a wild card. Division winners get a 1-0 advantage. Winning your division matters. Loser mid teams still get a "shot," which MLB seems obsessed with giving them for some reason. If they overcome the handicap, no one can complain that they haven't earned it.

Will hang up and listen to your response off the air. I assume we all agree this is the perfect solution.
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I don't hate this. Makes winning your division huge.
 
With each passing year under this format, the playoffs is losing value in my opinion. It used to be a way of crowning the best team at the end of the season. Now it seems like a random tournament that has no correlation to the regular season and certainly does not favor the top teams. At least makes me appreciate the regular season success the Braves have had a bit more.
 
striker42 said:
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id...red-preaches-patience-postseason?platform=amp

I honestly believe that Manfred doesn't like baseball, much less understand it.
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Oh please...

What is Manfred supposed to say? "Damn, the Braves, Orioles and Dodgers got lit up in the LDS. Better change the format again after just a couple of seasons! And let's announce it during ongoing playoffs!!!"

What he says in the linked article is perfectly reasonable. He is aware of the issue, but will wait until the offseason to discuss possible changes. You can't change the format around until you get the results you want to see. It would take several years of consistent underperformance by the top seeds to mess with it in a big way. Maybe they get rid of the Friday off-day, but that's it, IMO.
 
But if you step back and take a look at it, there were at least signs that the top four teams might be headed for early exits. A mixture of injuries, some overperformance, and their weaknesses or "not quite strong" points were bound to get exploited. The Dodgers were clearly not the same team they've been. Offense was not scary after Betts and Freeman. Starting pitching was a mess, bullpen wasn't anything to get too excited about. Orioles had some starting pitching issues and haven't been there before. Rays can never put it together in the postseason.
 
I would be willing to believe that the layoff hurt our hitters timing, which is what Ender was pointing out on twitter.

But even putting that aside, the expanded wildcard--when compared to the previous single wild card version of the playoffs--is a structural disadvantage to the top seeds. Previously you played the non-division winner with the best record, regardless of how they are playing. Now, you take the two best teams, and pick the hotter one. That is bad design if you goal is to have any reward for winning your division.
 
The bye week layoff is obviously a real issue, because in response to last year, we scheduled two practice games while the playoffs were going on. I'm not sure there's any way for the hitters to stay sharp, doubly so with how long it had been since we played a meaningful game.

I think they need to tighten up the timeframe at minimum.

As an alternative to reseeding, I think the top seed should get to choose which wild card round matchup they're paired with. So if we didn't want the chance of playing the top wild card, we could have chosen the winner of Brewers - Dbags.

Make the wild card round games 160-162 (stats count for regular season) and have the bye teams and non playoff teams play games as normal. This might not be possible logistically, but it gets the extra round out of the way with no interruption.
 
drewdat said:
As an alternative to reseeding, I think the top seed should get to choose which wild card round matchup they're paired with. So if we didn't want the chance of playing the top wild card, we could have chosen the winner of Brewers - Dbags.
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I can't even imagine the toxicity when you pick a team and lose to them.
 
Metaphysicist said:
First time long time.

Expand to 32 teams. Four division winners and four wildcards per league. Each division winner places a wild card. Division winners get a 1-0 advantage. Winning your division matters. Loser mid teams still get a "shot," which MLB seems obsessed with giving them for some reason. If they overcome the handicap, no one can complain that they haven't earned it.

Will hang up and listen to your response off the air. I assume we all agree this is the perfect solution.
Click to expand...

Outside of the 1-0 advantage for division winners, I endorse your solution. Expand to 32 teams. Four four-team divisions per league.
 
If I could have anything I’d have a balanced schedule in each league with no divisions and the winner of each league play. I’d make the World Series a bit longer with fewer off days maybe best of 11 or 13. I’d take the game back to its roots.
 
I'd like to have less teams in, but that ship has sailed.

The sport does not do well in small samples. I'd want all division winners to get 7 game series.
I'd like to have less off days to make it more like the regular season. To challenge your depth.

If they keep the current 5 game series, all the games should be played at the home of the division winners. Philly will say it's b/c they are afraid of Philly. It's just trying to reward success over 162 vs over 5.
 
WC #7 vs div #4 and WC -#6 vs WC #5 = 3 game series Monday thru Wednesday.

Start 7-game Division round on Thursday.
 
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