Maximizing the Value of 2,500 Baseball Games in an Expanded Playoff World

True story: I sent a variety of regular season proposals to Rob Manfred and Major League Baseball as a way to solve the problem with the regular season being overly long and not driving enough interest to the casual crowd and even some of the hardcore fans due to its excessive length. The world is much faster and much more competitive than before when 152-162 games made more sense. So I gave them a variety of options on how to cut the season and drive up interest, ranging from splitting the season into two halves to creating a multi-tier system similar to European Soccer leagues that would utilize AAA and even Mexican League teams to compete against MLB franchises. So what a surprise when Manfred decided to do the exact opposite and express a desire to increase the POSTSEASON while not even mentioning the potential for the regular season to finally trim some of the fat.

Damn it Manfred.

So our current commissioner and secret-hater of Major League Baseball is once again frustrating the world with another wild idea that he believes will draw in new fans when in actuality might just make things worse. Nobody asked for the extra runner on second rule, but here it is. Nobody is really asking for the shift to be banned, but Manfred continues to flirt with the possibility. Of course then there’s the chaos surrounding Minor League Baseball and trimming the number of teams in the lower leagues. Now for his latest performance of frustrating the sports world, he wants the 16-team postseason format to continue beyond 2020.

What?

You want to keep the regular season at around 162 games and ALSO beef up the postseason to include .500 and sub-.500 teams to enter the crapshoot playoffs? Of course none of this is possible unless we want the playoffs to play into December, so I can only assume that on the other end of the bargain is cutting the games by at least a dozen games. But since its Manfred, nothing surprises me anymore. Major League Baseball is seeing how the playoffs are done in the NBA and the NHL and clearly wants to emulate the multi-month event of postseason play.

Problem: Baseball is not built to create consistent quality play with 2,500 total games. No way. At even half the games the NBA and NHL have not exactly been the beacons of quality regular season play in recent years either.

Baseball is already such a random sport, so it requires many games to figure out who is truly the better team. Most of those asking for the season to be cut isn’t even requesting anything under 100-112. My personal preference is 100, but I’m fine with 120-130. But to have so many games and battle to the top only to have to play a team that’s dancing with mediocrity and yet still be a few games away from eliminating you is going to create some intense consequences. The trade deadline dies completely, the effort level to try to win the division or earn the top seed diminishes, and the effort for the middle-of-the-pack teams to improve also becomes diminished because it would be easier/cheaper/smarter to just keep a decent roster, not seek out bringing in expensive players, and take your chances in the playoffs where the windows of opportunity would be much bigger.

All this because Manfred and ownership sees profits and doesn’t see the decline in quality that would come with expanded playoffs.

The ONLY way for a 16-team playoff to even function would involve expanding the league to 32 teams, or at the very least guarantee that the highest seeds can skip a couple rounds to avoid the crapshoot of the early rounds. But you cannot expand the playoffs and not reward the top two seeds at least. Its unfair for a 100-win team to be one game from elimination after two bad games in a wild card round against an 81-win squad that barely squeaked in. In other words, if we’re going to copy the NBA and NHL, we must also copy some of the playoff aspects of the NFL.

Here’s my proposals, for 30 teams and then for 32 teams.

Under each of these formats, the top seed is guaranteed to curtail two rounds of playoff baseball, which as we know can be and usually is complete chaos (look how fast the Dodgers were eliminated in 2019, and the Astros survived the Rays because of one inning..and cheating). And yes, baseball is all about momentum so how do we still give the advantage to the top seed when there’s a team completely on fire and tearing through the opening round(s)?

Easy, extra home games.

Another incentive to battling for the top is that on the first round you compete in guarantees you nearly-full home field advantage, with only Game 4 going to the other team, but in between three straight home games for the top seed. After a grueling regular season, its only completely fair, even if you cut from 162 to 152 or lower.

With 32 teams, the format would change a bit more but would still have room for rewarding the top seeds while providing those extra playoff games the ownership groups and Manfred are salivating over. Under my formats, the best teams are rewarded, and you’ll still get at least 25 playoff games from each league before the World Series.

If we have to go to 16 teams going to the playoffs (ugh), at the very least we have to offer incentives to continue playing for a division crown and the top seed when August and September rolls around, otherwise those final couple months before playoff chaos are going to be quite boring. Similar to how the Republicans are going to push their Supreme Court nomination through, it does no good to scream against the inevitable. Manfred and the owners are seeking their end of the financial coups as player contracts are crossing $450 million. They see the playoffs expanding as their solution to continue the money as the game-changing players become more expensive.

Playoff baseball is the absolute best thing in sports today. But we shouldn’t sacrifice the quality of the regular season and the fun of exclusivity to rake in more money. But if we’re going to follow in the footsteps of the other leagues, we have to protect the top seeds to ensure that August and September baseball remains exciting. Adding byes and expanding the home field advantages would accomplish just that.

But please, if we’re doing 16 teams, please, let’s cut the regular season down by 30 games. Please.