More playoff options will probably come sooner than expected... Selig expecting playoff expansion..?

[mrdrewblue]

See:
Bud Selig expecting playoffs to expand to 10 teams for 2012 - MLB - SI.com

What does everyone think about this?
In real life?
For OOTP?


Personally, IMO I hate the idea of baseball expanding the playoffs and losing some value to the regular season play.
But for OOTP, i love it lol

[mgom27]

Real Life yes need it. This game already allows it.

[mrdrewblue]

Originally Posted by mgom27

Real Life yes need it. This game already allows it.

edit: This will make OOTP handle playoffs with teams not in multiples of 4... I know that the playoffs in the game can be more than 8.

[Chicagofan76]

IRL i am gonna hate seeing a World Series in December, but it means offseason will be shorter......i would like to see them go back to 154 games if it works with 30 teams....as far as OOTP goes I hardly ever play a current MLB setup so for me it doesnt matter.

[cephasjames]

IMO, if they want 2 wildcard teams then expand the league by 2 teams and make it like the NFL (8 divisions of 4) then have the 2 wildcard and 4 division winners from each league. With five teams each then three teams sit for a few days. With six teams each only two teams sit for a few days.

[The Wolf]

As with everything Bud comes up with, this is another really bad idea.

"I know! I know! Let's make the regular season completely irrelevant!"

Way not to go, Bud. The entire nation lost out when you decided not to stick to selling cars

[bailey]

I think the idea is OK if only because ties for the division will have to played off to see who gets the first round bye.

[Chicagofan76]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

As with everything Bud comes up with, this is another really bad idea.

"I know! I know! Let's make the regular season completely irrelevant!"

Way not to go, Bud. The entire nation lost out when you decided not to stick to selling cars

Bud has improved the game during his tenure, atleast from a fans stand point.

and the regular season wont be irrelevant when we let in 16 of 30 teams then its a different story. I will agree on this i dont like having 5 from AL with a 3 division format. NYY,BOS, and lets say TOR will be 3 of the playoff teams the next 15 yrs.

[mm7607]

IRL I dont like it. Its only a ploy to generate more money for the already ridiculously rich. Why not get more like the NHL, lets make it 16 teams in the playoffs, home run derby to decide ties and 3 innings for a SP to get the win so he dont get his little arm too tired. Can you tell by my sarcasm I HATE MLB.

This is what makes OOTP so good. You can turn the crybabies off.

[professor ape]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

"I know! I know! Let's make the regular season completely irrelevant!"

I completely disagree. I have been hoping for this change for years. The current setup makes the regular season less relevant because there is no penalty for being the wild card team. Sure, you don't get home field but neither does the division winner with the third best record.

How many times in recent years has there been a great division race in late September only to see it blown because both teams knew that they would make the playoffs? Having two wild card teams playing each other for the fourth playoff spot in each league now makes it important to try to win your division. No more coasting.

My only complaint is that it sounds like they are going to have a three game series for the wild card round. It should be a one game play-in on the day after the regular season. "Wild Card Monday" would be an exciting start to the post-season with the winning team having to use one of their best starters before traveling to play the number one seed. Also, a one game play-in would not significantly extend the length of the playoffs.

[AESP_pres]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

"I know! I know! Let's make the regular season completely irrelevant!"

I don't follow baseball as much as I did when the Expos were there, but this is sure a comment I can agree with. Those who like the idea are sure not hockey fans, so much teams are in the playoff that the season mean absolutly nothing and really weak teams can win the cup or go to the final every seasons (really who care if bad team like the Hurricanes, the Mighty Ducks, the Canadians, the Blackhawks or the Panthers make the final...). Baseball own a best playoff system than any other sports, I would even go as far as writing that it was even better when only the four division winners were in the playoff.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by mm7607

Its only a ploy to generate more money for the already ridiculously rich.

You've been posting here as long as I have and you finally posted something I agree with.

[Le Grande Orange]

First off, when one examines history one finds that the idea of expanding the playoffs has been around for a long time.

The first suggestion of expanding MLB's playoff was in 1974. At the owners' summer meeting that year, three different proposals were under consideration: (1) the top two teams in each division would qualify, with the first place team in one playing the second place team in the other; (2) two division winners and two wild card teams would qualify; (3) the leagues would be realigned into three divisions each, with three division winners and one wild card team qualifying. In the end none of the proposals passed.

In the summer of 1993, an MLB owner's committee recommended expanded playoffs for 1994. It was to have the top two teams in each division qualifying, though the exact matchup method was undetermined (i.e. either first versus second in the same division, or first in one division versus second in the other division). It was the Players Association which was reluctant about the idea, and any change needed to be negotiated with them. They didn't want to see too many non-division winners in the playoffs, so the three division format was more acceptable to them.

Which is what was adopted in the end. On Sept. 9, 1993, MLB voted 27-1 in favour of realigning into three divisions in each league. To make such a change palatable to the hesitant clubs, it was agreed a balanced schedule would be used. Thus clubs would keep the same number of dates against opponents as they had during the 1993 season.

The idea of splitting each league into three divisions also has a long history. Walter O'Malley first made the suggestion way back in 1971. The proposal to split each league into three divisions was under serious consideration at the 1978 winter meetings. If adopted, it would have gone into effect for the 1980 season. The traditionalists carried the day, however, and nothing came of the proposal.

Originally Posted by Chicagofan76

IRL i am gonna hate seeing a World Series in December, but it means offseason will be shorter...

Won't happen. The four extra days added to the post-season back in 2007 will, by all indications, be eliminated in the 2011 post-season. That, combined with the changes to the opening and closing dates of the regular season, will ensure the World Series will end before October does.

The trick is fitting in a "wild card elimination" round into that time frame. The simplest is a one-game playoff. But the players and some owners feel a best-of-three series is more appropriate. A three-game series means potentially three more days to the post-season. It would mean the division winners would have at least four days off, which is perhaps too long of a layoff.

The easiest and, IMO, more interesting, way of doing it would be to have games #2 and #3 of the best-of-three series played as a day-night doubleheader. So if the series is tied 1-1 after the day game, the two clubs would play again that night. Such a schedule keeps the series as short as possible in terms of days; division winners need only have three days off (one day to play any tiebreaking playoff games plus two days for the best-of-three wild card elimination series). And it would make things a lot harder for any wild card team advancing to the Division Series (which is the entire point of adding a second wild card qualifier).

Squeezing in two days into the post-season schedule for such a wild card elimination series is quite doable. Especially if an off day is dropped from the Division Series and/or the regular season is trimmed by a day or two. (Under the CBA, the regular season, excluding any overseas openers, must be between 179 and 183 days long. The 2011 schedule is 182 days long.)

[The Wolf]

Doubleheaders are so 1950.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by mm7607

Its only a ploy to generate more money for the already ridiculously rich.

It is professional baseball. It is a business. The entire point for everyone involved is, ultimately, to make some money.

It has been that way ever since players were first paid to play way back in the 1860s. To think of it as anything else other than a business is to romanticize it.

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Doubleheaders are so 1950.

Not when they're separate admissions. Then they're two separate games for all intents and purposes. MLB only hates the traditional two-for-one doubleheader.

[The Wolf]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

It is professional baseball. It is a business. The entire point for everyone involved is, ultimately, to make some money. It has been that way ever since players were first paid to play way back in the 1860s. To think of it as anything else other than a business is to romanticize it.

Really? I can remember George Brett once saying "I could have played another year, but I would have been playing for the money, and baseball deserves better than that." Was he a romantic?

[Russ]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

Really? I can remember George Brett once saying "I could have played another year, but I would have been playing for the money, and baseball deserves better than that." Was he a romantic?

No, he just decided he was rich enough.

[The Wolf]

Cynic.

[Chicagofan76]

LGO I know baseball wont be in December, why do people take stuff so literally on here?

[thbroman]

Originally Posted by The Wolf

As with everything Bud comes up with, this is another really bad idea.

"I know! I know! Let's make the regular season completely irrelevant!"

Way not to go, Bud. The entire nation lost out when you decided not to stick to selling cars

Well, as someone who works at a university (U of Wisconsin) where Bud just endowed a chair in the History Department, I can't agree that every one of Bud's ideas is a bad one, but I have to say that this one surely belongs on the "bad" side of the scale, for sure.