MLB playoff expansion

BuckW, at some point there's a law of diminishing returns in that argument, because if 10-team playoffs are better than 8 because of the added competition in the regular season, then 12 must be better than 10, and so on until you're the NHL and everybody thinks your regular season is an inferior product to the playoffs.
I repeat that I have seen no evidence of consumer demand for more playoff teams. It's purely to make more owners happy. I predict ratings for the two wild-wild card playoff games will be even lower than for the divisional series.

 

Once again, with feeling, you would have the same drama in other years for the fifth spots as you did last year for the fourth.

 

It will damn sure guarantee the Yankees and Red Sox never miss the playoffs, as one of them has done in three of the last four years.

That will make 'fans' happy.

 

And I guess, by extension, you could say "Remember that race back in the 1960s where four teams ended up within one game of first place in the National League... but now they want to go to DIVISIONS?"

It didn't happen, but you know what I mean. I don't want to see baseball go back to the one league, no-division format like the old days. lol

I'll give it a season or two to play out. I'll be glad to say "Well, I was wrong" if there still are dramatic races.

 

Bingo.

 

But it will also make sure that there are a lot of times where one of them wins the first wild card and goes home after one game.

 

Why would you think MLB has a plan? That in and of itself is laughable.

 

The meaningfulness of the regular season is being minimized in several sports. The recent Super Bowl winner was 7-7 and 60 minutes from elimination at one point. The recent World Series winner played crap baseball for almost four and a half months before turning it on and then running into an ice cold team that had been expected to win it all. The 2010 San Francisco Giants were one game over .500 on July 4. Let's not get poetic about how important the regular season is anymore, or how important it ought to be.

 

I remember MLB before division play. The American League race in 1967 was incredible.

However, baseball has never had a day like the last day of the regular season last year. Not only that, but you could follow it in real time. A wild-card race may not be as "pure", but it is a lot of fun and there is more pressure in the post-season, which is also great.