MLB and MLBPA discuss complicated postseason expansion

16 team MLB postseason format under consideration; a decision must be made soon.

As if the 2020 MLB season wasn’t unpredictable enough, get ready for one more potential twist Thursday. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman is reporting that league and union officials are discussing the possibility of expanding the 2020 postseason from 10 to 16 teams.

There are several problems, the first of which obviously, is the clock. The first pitch of the first game will be thrown Thursday night, and fairness, not to mention the game’s rules, require that rules for the season be in place before the season begins.

More from Call to the Pen

• Philadelphia Phillies, ready for a stretch run, bomb St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies: The 4 players on the franchise’s Mount Rushmore
• Boston Red Sox fans should be upset over Mookie Betts’ comment
• Analyzing the Boston Red Sox trade for Dave Henderson and Spike Owen
• 2023 MLB postseason likely to have a strange look without Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals

That gives the league and union only a matter of hours to agree on details of how such a playoff expansion would work.

But several other questions would also have to be addressed:

• Would teams be chosen purely based on record or would there be a requirement that a certain number of teams from each division be included?
• How long would each postseason round be?
• Would division champions receive byes or some other form of advantage?
• Finally and most importantly, would a 16-team playoff system extend games beyond Oct. 31?

That was a specific point of contention between the league and union during the often-heated negotiations over rules for the season last month.

The possibilities are many. The decision could be made to simply add one round, possibly a single game, with all 16 teams playing. But that would subject division winners to the possibility of being eliminated from postseason consideration in one game.

In a season as strange as 2020, that would in a way probably fit right in.

Assuming first-round byes are involved, the question would be how many byes would be given? There is no simple formula for reducing 16 teams to eight – the perfect number for a divisional round of playoffs – that involves giving division winners a bye.

For example, were a plan devised to send all wild cards into matchups against other wild cards, the result would be five wild card winners – moving forward against six divisional champions.