If MLB can figure out how to play baseball this season, few will care what 2020 playoffs look like. But messing with 2021 format is dangerous for the game.
If fans get any kind of MLB season in 2020, they will consider it a win- whatever it looks like.
Play a shortened season with regular playoffs. Go full March Madness and hold a massive tournament. Pick the best eight teams from last year and send them to a bubble in Omaha.
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Do what you want MLB, MLBPA. Ideally, hold enough games to make fantasy baseball drafts worthwhile. Just give us back our spectacle, our distraction.
But please don’t do it at the expense of every other MLB postseason in the future.
The most recent offer on the table between MLB and the MLBPA, the one where the only thing likely to change is the number of regular-season games, includes a provision calling for a 16-team postseason format.
For the next two seasons.
Again, do what you want with 2020 guys. If this little tiff of yours has proven anything, it’s that this is entirely about money. And there is some serious cheddar in broadcasting playoff games, with that new billion-dollar rights deal underscoring the point. If that extra TV money this season is what it takes to get owners willing to put their teams on the field again, fine.
However, changes to any season beyond this one scare me considerably. The 2020 campaign is a write off in many ways, but adjusting 2021 feels much more likely to stick after the fact. Maybe leagues switch back from a universal DH- that actually doesn’t matter much financially at all television wise. Expecting owners to give up all that new potential broadcasting revenue though? That’s laughable in the extreme.
I’m sure ratings and revenues will be high in 2020. Maybe even in 2021. That’s about as far as the novelty will take you, though. Even the Miami Marlins hovered around the Top 10 in attendance their first two seasons. That’s when those casual fans you’re looking to draw in will realize just how watered down the playoffs are. One of the best things MLB and the NFL have going for them over the NBA is that making the playoffs is an achievement. Half the league makes it in basketball and hockey- only the truly putrid are out of the race. At the same time though, only the top four teams have any illusions about actually competing. The Bucks are playing a team from Los Angeles in the NBA Finals no matter how many teams are in the playoffs. The first round is more annoyance than drama, barely worth the dollars and hours of fans repping teams that are playing.
Even when MLB expanded to a 10-team playoff, they were still putting fewer teams into the postseason field than any other league. Switching to 16 only serves to water down the meaning of a season built to clearly establish who the best teams are. This again makes perfect sense in a COVID-shortened mini-season, where such a change eliminates the risk of one sprained ankle knocking a clearly superior team out of the playoff mix.
But helping to “fix” baseball by vastly expanding the playoff field forevermore? That’s not a fix, just another MLB solution in need of a problem.