MLB Playoff Re-format

9 games has been tried. It didn't work. ... 11 is just dumb. Game 7 is recognized throughout North American sports as the ideal for-all-the-marbles end of a series.

It's not the World Series where we're seeing a lot of "great" teams lose in an upsets; they're getting bounced earlier than that.

I like this one. The bye week has proven to be such a huge advantage that I don't mind if only the No. 1 seed gets it.

If you're going to drop the playoff teams to 4 per conference, then you can't take away the 12 extra games in the season -- that doesn't make any sense. If you limit the playoff spots, you need to give more chances for teams to earn said spots.

Season is too long, though. I wouldn't mind dropping to a 70-game season if you *add* playoff spots, though.

Then make it more of a NCAA-style bracket-buster tournament with a couple do-or-die games for the lower seeds. Add a couple rounds, make everything but the conference finals and NBA finals to be elimination games. That would be fun.

Or hell, do it right. Cut the season to 65 games, reseed the entire league, and play one big May Madness tournament. Best teams get byes to the second or third rounds, the worst teams have to play their way in, and the season rides on every game.

 

Boring actual research I did when employed. A Team with the Cardinals' record beating a team with the Mets' record is actually quite rare in post-season history. From the 1903 Series on, teams that had regular season records 10 or more games better than a post-season opponent have won their series well over 80 percent of the time. Most of those "upsets" hinged on the fact the underdog had a starting pitcher who altered the odds. This time, that was Jeff Suppan, and oh, yeah, we all knew he'd do it.
Mets fans' should consider this very tough loss a cosmic balance to 1973, when YOUR 82-79 team beat the 99-63 Big Red Machine in the NLCS.

 

That an the previous mentioned 2-2-1-1-1 format. I also think that best league record should have a greater benefit than a 1 game home field advantage. perhaps 3-2-2

 

An 11-game series is silly. Fans would get bored seeing the same two teams play that many times. And for what? To eliminate upsets? Why would we want to do that?

 

The one thing I've never understood about the new MLB schedule. With interleague play, somebody always seems to be getting screwed by having to play tough opponents, while others get much easier IL games.

There's also little rhyme or reason now as to which divisions will play against each other from year to year.

Why not bust out NFL-style scheduling, having 1st-place teams play other 1st-place teams, and so on. Sure, it will need a little work, but why not?

 

And they did that after Seaver pitched one of the best games of his life in the opener and still lost.

 

Why do you need 14 teams in the NFL playoffs...12 is already too many...
Why would you want to alter anything about MLB playoffs, except maybe best-of-7 first round, which has been discussed..

9-game series? 11-game series? What the fuck are you drinking?

 

Personally, I like the baseball season just the way it is.
Sure, sometimes "better" teams get bounced when they shouldn't (though I'm not sure I'd say that happened anywhere this year). But ultimately, the best regular season teams make the playoffs and the best playoff teams tend to win them. And they are indeed two different ballgames. One's a marathon, the other's a sprint. One's reliant on hitting, the other on pitching. To win both, you need balance, stamina and clutch-i-ness, or whatever you want to call it. Seems to me that system rewards a good team. But it doesn't reward the buy-a-bunch-of-sluggers-and-write-your-ticket-to-the-Series approach taken by the Yankees lately.
The bigger problem, to me, is the imbalance between the leagues. I'd pick any of the 4 AL teams to beat any of the 4 NL teams in the Series. But I'm not sure what you do about that.

 

I'd be in favor of anything that keeps the Cardinals and the White Sox the fuck out of the postseason.

 

Agreed. There should NEVER be more than six teams from any league/conference in the playoffs.

 

I understand your frustration with the playoff format. I too think the first round should be 7 games. I do not think mlb should make it harder on wild cards however because sometime (most times actually) the wild card team has a better record then a divison winner.

 

It doesn't diminish home-field advantage, like two-three-two does.