Quote:
Originally Posted by The Wolf
Nonsense. There was a four team division in the MLB until 2012.
I love the idea of eight divisions of four teams each. No more bleeping wild cards. Win your division or go home.
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Baseball will never, ever do away with a playoff team. They are more likely to expand to 16 playoff teams out of 32, then to dial back to eight out of 32.
What they could do, though, is to to have 12 playoff teams, give the two top records a bye, and then have 2 of 3 series in the first round. Then, 3 of 5 second round, 4 of 7 LCS and 4 of 7 WS. All first and second round games would be at the higher seed's home park, to cut travel days and to balance out the disadvantage to better teams that a short series naturally confers.
The main fly in that ointment is the lengthening of the playoff rounds, and of the season. So to do that, they could negotiate with the players union to cut the season from 26 to 25 weeks by accepting scheduling day night doubleheaders, in exchange for more generous contributions to pension funds.