MLB expands playoff format from 8 teams to 10

[Deberg_1990]

Did this get missed here at CP? Apologize if its a repost.......Thoughts?




http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slu...pandedplayoffs



NEW YORK (AP)—With less than a month to go before opening day, baseball at last decided who’s in and who’s out come October.

Now, even a third-place team can win the World Series.

Major League Baseball made it official Friday, expanding the playoff format to 10 teams by adding a wild-card club to each league.

“I hope we get that extra spot,” said new Houston Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow, whose team is coming off a 56-106 finish that was the worst in the majors. “I think it’s great any time you have more markets involved.”

Who knows, maybe a rookie such as Bryce Harper will get that shot this year.

“Cool,” the 19-year-old Washington sensation said after a game against college kids. “It’s great. Hopefully, we’re that playoff team.”

Boston and Atlanta sure could’ve used this setup last year. They went through awful collapses in September that eventually cost them playoff spots on the final day of the season.

“I think the more, the merrier,” new Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine said. “I think for the fans, the players, the energy at the end of the season, I don’t mind. What would it be, a third of the teams? I think it’ll be good.”

This is the first switch in MLB’s postseason format since the 1995 season, when wild cards were first added. The move creates a new one-game, wild-card round in the AL and NL between the teams with the best records who are not division winners.

“It’s a good thing for baseball. That seems to be what the people want,” Detroit manager Jim Leyland said.

“There are a lot of mixed emotions but as long as the playoffs don’t get watered down, it’s fine, but that won’t happen in baseball,” he said.

The additions mean 10 of the 30 MLB teams will get into the playoffs. That’s still fewer than in the other pro leagues—12 of 32 make it in the NFL, and 16 of 30 advance in the NBA and NHL.

The long-expected decision was announced less than an hour before Seattle and Oakland started the exhibition season. On March 28, the Mariners and Athletics will play the big league opener in Tokyo.

“This change increases the rewards of a division championship and allows two additional markets to experience playoff baseball each year,” Commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement.

Also, a tweak: For the 2012 postseason, the five-game division series will begin with two home games for lower seeds, followed by home games for the higher seed. After that, it will return to the 2-2-1 format previously used.

MLB said that with schedules already drawn for this season, the postseason had to be compressed to fit in the extra games. Hence, fewer off-days for travel.

“I don’t think it really changes the way you look at this season. You really have to fight to win your division,” New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “It is kind of strange to start on the road. That doesn’t quite seem right, but it’s a one-year thing. I understand why they’re doing it.”

If the World Series goes to Game 7 this year—as it did last season, when the wild-card St. Louis Cardinals won the championship—it would be played Nov. 1.

“I like the extra playoff spot. I like the one-game playoff because it really gives the advantages to the division winner,” Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said this week.

As in, it’ll be real dicey for the wild-card contenders to immediately jump into a winner-take-all game, then quickly turn around to start the division series.

Starting this year, too, there’s no restriction on teams from the same division meeting in that best-of-five division series.

Baseball players’ union head Michael Weiner said there had been internal discussions way back about possibly having six playoff teams from each league. He said that once bargaining began with owners on a new labor deal, it was clear MLB only wanted five.

“The players were in favor of expanding the playoffs,” Weiner said.

In particular, he said, the players wanted to put more emphasis on winning a division, especially when MLB goes to a pair of 15-team leagues next year with three divisions each. The Astros are switching from the NL to the AL to make that possible.

A portion of the money generated by the one-game playoffs will go in the players’ pool that is split among the postseason participants.

In 1999, Valentine and the New York Mets won a one-game tiebreaker for the NL wild-card spot.

“I didn’t think that entering the playoffs in ’99 when I had to play a one-game playoff against Cincinnati that the next round was cheapened,” he said. “It seems to be similar to that. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but it seems.”

[DaKCMan AP]

If 5 teams is what they want I'd rather see a best-of-three series where the 4th seed team would get all 3 games of the series at home in 3 consecutive days.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by whoman69

I don't know what's silly about it. Baseball sees their large market teams getting beat in the playoffs by wild cards who are in smaller markets. They're also seeing the wild card team win a fair share of the time. Since 2000 there has only been three seasons where a wild card didn't make the World Series. 2002 had both teams come from the wild card. If you have teams like the Phillies and the Yankees who can outspend their competition each year to get a divsional crown, anything baseball can do to make sure those teams beat the smaller market WC helps out the networks.

Explain to me the advantage that this gives large market teams over small market teams.

Yeah sure, this may help a large-market team make the playoffs and win a WS that it otherwise may not have. Then again, it provides the exact same opportunity to a small market team. Last year it would've put the Braves and the Red Sox in; one a large market team and the other a mid-market team.

The argument that this is just driven by a need to let more big-market teams in simply does not make sense; there's just no logic or reason to it.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by whoman69

I don't know what's silly about it. Baseball sees their large market teams getting beat in the playoffs by wild cards who are in smaller markets. They're also seeing the wild card team win a fair share of the time. Since 2000 there has only been three seasons where a wild card didn't make the World Series. 2002 had both teams come from the wild card. If you have teams like the Phillies and the Yankees who can outspend their competition each year to get a divsional crown, anything baseball can do to make sure those teams beat the smaller market WC helps out the networks.

Well, first the Wild Card *SHOULD* have a tremendously harder road. Give them a shot? Sure, but they need a handicap. Same thing as the NFL, they basically have 2 play-in games instead of one, with the unfortunate drawback of forcing 2 division champs to play-in, since they have 2 wild cards.

Second, at least in the AL, this change is far more likely to screw a large market than not. Unless the AL East has their rare down year, the 1st AL Wild card often goes to the Yankees or Red Sox. Now they get yanked off from standing on the same tier as the division champs, and get told "hey, you, here's the 2nd-place AL Central team. You must beat them first in a wild high-drama do-or-die elimination game, have fun"

[tk13]

Not a huge fan of the one game playoff idea. Especially after a 162 game season, it all comes down to one game. Although if it gets the Royals deep in the playoffs eventually, I reserve the right to change my opinion.

[Psyko Tek]

WHYYYYYY
ISN'T BASEBALL SEASON LONG ENOUGH?

why does the NFL and march madness rule

one and done
limited season

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Psyko Tek

WHYYYYYY
ISN'T BASEBALL SEASON LONG ENOUGH?

why does the NFL and march madness rule

one and done
limited season

Baseball can't do that. The game is so crazily random, much more so than football and college basketball, that if you win 40% of your games, you are a really bad, awful, terrible team but if you win 60% of your games, you are one of the best in the league. If every round was one and done, the playoffs in baseball would lose almost all meaning, it would be a stupid crapshoot coinflip to see who wins the championship. (For similar reasons, baseball's seasons need to be very, very long.) You don't have to go to every flippin' game, just read the box score every morning, watch a few here and there, and go to 4 or 5 games if you want, and you are still a decent fan.

Wild Card teams, since they failed to win their division, do not deserve the same consideration. Let them fight a knockout round for our amusement.

[Spott]

The Royals still won't make it.

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Expanded postseason is lame as hell.

[alnorth]

Originally Posted by Spott

The Royals still won't make it.

This year? Its possible, but yeah, probably not. The Royals offense is going to rock, but we don't have the pitching to beat Detroit. Between the AL East juggernaut, and Rangers/Angels, the Wild Cards look dicey too.

2013-14 is when things should start to get more interesting.

[McWickedson]

Atlanta is nowhere near a mid-market.