When it comes to baseball, I’m not much of a traditionalist. Our good friend, N in Seattle, most certainly is. So I’ve been curious to hear his thoughts on the proposed playoff expansion. I might be wrong, but I’m betting he hates it even more than Tim Lincecum. That said, I think I have a proposal that he’ll hate even more than that, but it would be a much more exciting playoff format than anything I’ve heard proposed before.
The two main complaints that I’ve seen about expanding the playoffs by two teams is that it will extend the season even more, and it will give the division winners too much time to rest up while the wild cards battle it out. This idea solves both of those problems AND it adds two more teams to the mix. Here’s how it works:
Six teams in each league make the playoffs. The three division winners and the three teams with the next best records are all seeded by record (so if a team wins a division with a terrible record, like the Seahawks did this year in the NFL, they’ll still make the playoffs, but as the 6 seed). They then play 9 games in 11 days, 3 each against a different playoff team:
Seed 1 plays: 4, 5, @6
Seed 2 plays: @5, 6, 3
Seed 3 plays: 6, 4, @2
Seed 4 plays: @1, @3, 5
Seed 5 plays: 2, @1, @4
Seed 6 plays: @3, @2, 1
The higher seeded team in each match-up plays at home. After the 9 games, the two teams with the best record will move on to play in the LCS and the rest of the playoffs will continue as it always has. If there’s a tie in the standings at the end of 9 games, the tie-breaker should probably be run differential, which could make for some interesting strategies in some late games.
I’m now ducking…
UPDATE: I’m putting way too much thought into this, but I’ve updated the original schedule so that even the 1 and 2 seed will have to play some road playoff games and the 5 and 6 seed get home games. The top three seeds would get 6 home, 3 away. Wild cards get 3 home, 6 away. Still waiting for that call from Bud Selig…
We already have a round robin tournament in MLB, it’s called the regular season..
Selig’s plan would add an extra wild card in each league. The two would then play each other in a, as yet to be determined, 1 or 3 game series, for the right to enter the real playoffs versus the division winners.
Unfortunately, this has the possibility of giving the wild card with the best record the shaft. As they could lose all that they worked for during an 162 game schedule, in as little as 1 game, versus an inferior opponent.
Tim Lincecum is right. The playoffs are fine just the way they are..
I say invite every team to a 1 game single elimination playoff with rank decided in the regular season. It would be a lot more random, of course, than currently, or than Selig’s or Lee’s proposal. But it seems to work OK for college basketball. Nobody thinks they consistently chose the best team as their champions, but they are the most fun way to decide, and I say that as someone who prefers professional to college sports by a long shot.
The system is fine as it is.
This whole charade is driven by a.)the drive for “revenue enhancement”; and b.)the perception that watching the Yankees win the Series every year is somehow “unfair”.
Personally, I feel the old system was best: Two leagues. One pennant winner in each league. One World Series in October, before the snow flies.
Plus, this system demonstrated admirably that those who got the gelt call the game, a valuable sociological lesson that goes overlooked in our modern “everybody gets to play” paradigm.
But then I’m old, too.
I have a belief that the World Series was timed to take the voters mind’s off of the election season that occur at the same time.
Basically it is a plot to keep the people in power there and us in the masses stupid.
A sinister plot!
Fuck baseball, bring back gladiators! That’ll keep people’s minds off elections. The power elite like elections in which only 3 people vote.
Personally, I think gladiators is a good way to recycle politicians. We don’t need a term limits law. Just divvy congress into two equal sides, give ’em each a sword, and that way you get 50% new people every election.
I dont get the opposition to this playoff expansion. It adds more importance to winning a division by forcing wildcards to play in an extra round and at the same time it allows more teams to be interested in the playoff race later into the season. Its a win-win. I actually heard the first calls for this back like 5-6 years ago. Im glad it finally looks like its actually going to happen.
I must ponder Lee’s proposal. I kind of like it. Still, I don’t believe it will get our beloved M’s into the playoffs anytime soon.
@9 Seattle Mariners 2748 World Series Champions!!!! They Finally will win!!!!
lol.
This is all a terrible idea. Short series in baseball are poor evaluators of team quality, top to bottom. The only expansion I’m in favor of is expanding the first round to seven games so a team with two great starters followed by garbage can’t easily beat a team that is better overall.
# 7: Maybe that’s why Haley Barbour decided to drop out of the Presidential race? The prospect of him trying to fight as a gladiator would have been too much for his heart to handle, he’d die of a heart attack just walking onto the stadium floor.
BeerNotWar @11, FTW.
The DH, interleague play, and the (single) wildcard have already sullied the great game more than enough. Given that the Division Series isn’t going away, it would be enhanced by making it slightly more of a real discriminator of which is the better team. That is, a best-of-seven in the LDS instead of the current best-of-five.
That’s still nowhere close to the full regular season as a comparative test, but it is a wee bit better.