Almost gagged when I heard it.
As I understand it there will be 14 playoff teams (out of 30), 7 in each league. Idiotic.
If I read this right the top 2 seeds in each league get a bye (not the greatest thing in baseball)…the second seeds get to “choose” their opponent out of the bottom 3. (reality show stupid).
They’re also talking about adding the DH to the NL which I oppose.
Slowly and methodically ruining the sport.
JT
I actually find the idea intriguing though I think you can do the same thing with only 12 teams and 4 getting the bye.
I’m a little confused on the “pick ‘em” deal I thought whoever got the bye also got to pick their opponent. I agree the rest period is problematic but there is an advantage in getting to rest your arms after a long season.
In many ways it’s a callback to the old timey days where only the best team in the standings from each league went to the World Series as it gives those teams a HUGE advantage in the playoffs and makes the regular season mean even more.
As for the DH, I’m a purist but I also have accepted that it’s going to happen sooner or later. It hasn’t ruined the AL and won’t ruin the NL either.
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Baseball will either have to accept that it’s will be increasingly antiquated in a world that’s moving faster and faster, or it will have to eventually adapt.
If the complaint is that the game is too long, maybe we should just say that the game ends at 3 hours - end of story, whether we’ve played 9 innings or 5.
Does the top seed also get to choose which technology it uses to steal signs?
I was thinking that too but I’m worried about managers using “stalling” tactics when they have a big lead and making the game actually move slower.
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If they don’t cut the number of regular season games, I don’t think they should make the playoffs last longer. I love baseball, but I don’t think it should go into November.
If they play the Nationals, the technology may not be enough.
I forget where, but there’s a great article on how the Nats were prepared for Houston’s cheating. Players from all over MLB were talking, texting with Nats players to tip them off. The Nats were super-prepared for it. So prepared that they actually won all four of their games in Houston.
They’ve said this about baseball for sixty years.
Anyway, I don’t see what problem the new playoff format is supposed to solve. If you want more playoffs, just go all the way to 16 teams. Expand, too.
More baseball is a good thing. I’m ok with the playoffs expanding as long as I can watch the games. I didn’t watch the AL half of the playoffs last year since I think they were on ESPN or some other channel I don’t watch. My only concern with this plan is that it will turn into college bowl season where I can only watch 3 games and not the championship.
I really hate the DH and I see no reason not to drop it from the AL rather than add it to the NL. There are plenty of runs in the NL so I find it hard to believe they are looking to increase scoring and if anything having the pitcher bat speeds up the game slightly. I can buy fixes to speed up the game like the pitch clock but a lot of this is just making changes for the fun of it.
Scoring will likely decline in 2020; the balls will be back to normal. Since a huge percentage of scoring now is home runs - hitters are othgerwise not actually doing especially well - scoring might be very low. Last year the average NL team hit 220 homers, an incredibly high number without any historical precedent, but the league only batted .251, which is, historically speaking, unusually low. In almost every element of the offensive game OTHER than hitting home runs, today’s MLB hitters are losing the battle to the pitchers. It is fact that the baseball was different (the stitches weren’t raised as much, making the ball fly further) ad so the change that allegedly happened during the playoffs, and which is expected to happen this year, could see pitching really dominate, to the point there will be calls to cut down in strikeouts, which are totally out of control now.
My position on the DH is that I’d would rather that the enormously valuable currency of MLB at bats go to professional hitters, men who dream of getting that chance, rather than guys flailing away and looking scarcely better than some of the people in the stands would. Anyway, the NL will adopt the DH within ten years, and that will be that.
Here’s the actual proposal, which isn’t any less stupid than has already been portrayed:
So the plan is, add teams to the playoffs, add games to the wild-card round, and finish the World Series by Thanksgiving, maybe?
I realize there was a lot of complaining about the one-game wild-card play-in system when it was introduced “one-game playoffs aren’t real baseball, you have to play a series, grumble grumble”), but my god, you can’t beat the drama. It gave division winners a real benefit, as even the winner of the wild-card game is going to have their pitching staff strained going into the divisional round. For those complaining about the unfairness of the wild-card game, my answer is, “win your division and you won’t have to worry about it.”
Anyway, this proposal is bad is so many ways, so much worse than the current playoff setup. At least this is only a proposal and probably has very little chance of being included in the next CBA.
Now, about this three-batter minimum bull crap that IS going into effect this season …
The only thing I really dislike about it is that it pushes the season into November. Other than that I think it’s kind of cool. The season length problem could be solved by shaving a few games off the regular season, but that’ll never happen.
If I were King of Baseball I’d expand to 40 teams, totally realign into two conferences of four five-team divisions, reduce the regular season and have 16 playoff teams.
I agree, watching pitchers go to the plate and either embarrass themselves or not even try and take the strikeout is awful baseball. I can’t see how anyone in their right mind doesn’t want a DH. But that’s just my opinion.
I’m probably wrong about this regarding the home runs, and would like to hear why this hypothesis is not correct. What I heard was that batters are purposely trying for home runs and that they don’t care if they strike out more often if that means a greater proportion of their hits are home runs. In the long run this supposedly leads to more runs scored. Sure, a juiced ball will add to that, but the underlying explanation is that batters are purposely swinging away, even with two strikes.
Because the good pitchers realize that they can help their team by actually taking hitting seriously. The Dodgers’ pitchers focus on driving the pitch count as high as possible to knock out the opposing starter as early as possibl3 and then occasionally magic happens. That may have been the most talked about Dodger home run this season (or get it out of the ocean) and by adding the DH all you get is overweight old sluggers who can’t play baseball any more swinging away.
There were more primary DHs under the age of 25 than there were over the age of 30 last year. The idea that the DH is still the refuge of the unathletic old timer is as misguided as believing that the double shift is some Gordian Knot that Alexander himself couldn’t decipher.
I kicked my fanhood in the trash when Mookie was traded.
Didn’t take MLB long to implement ideas that would make me retch…if i still cared.
I don’t like expanded playoffs because they devalue the regular season. I want meaningful baseball in June, July, and August, when the weather is nice (in Chicago) and I can actually go to a game. I don’t want the only meaningful games crammed into late October and November, when the weather sucks and I’d rather stay inside and watch football and basketball.
I think the idea that the higher seed gets home field advantage for every game is significant, and counteracts the dilution of the regular season extremely well. Despite the anomaly that was last year’s World Series, playing around home is a major advantage that I see teams playing for.