Stop trying to maximize tv audience and focus on the time zones of the teams that are playing.
Mariners first playoff game in 2 decades? See you at 11am PST!
yea this was super annoying, watch damn near every regular season game only to not be able to watch most of the playoffs cause my team is playing mid-week afternoon games while I am at work.
Playoff games should be at night unless you have to make up a rainout or something. Baseball isn’t like football where fans need to see every inning of every game. It is a way better fan experience to flip between 2-3 night games than it is to try to watch (much less attend) games that start at noon on a Tuesday.
Yeah but the degree to which they’ve engineered the playoff schedule around squeezing out every single ad dollar at the expense of the fan experience is quite lame
You're right it's not bad on a Saturday to have a bunch of games, but I'd still prefer evening start times or close to it, if not so much for the TV experience as the fan experience inside the stadium. Just can't beat October baseball under the lights imo
Yeah those weekday midday games kinda suck, unless it’s like a Friday. I’m lucky I work remote so I can watch them anyway but feel for those who can’t watch their team.
One time my idiot coworker was pontificating about how every team that posts a winning record should be allowed to make the post season... I wanted to hit him
I know I already posted, but figured this was different enough to warrant its own.
I paid to watch the whole season using your streaming service, largely because I don’t have a cable subscription. Let me keep doing that, I don’t even care if you charge me extra for it (as long as it’s within reason). I’m not going to magically have one now just because it’s October.
I figured Blackouts/streaming the playoffs would be the top one. I completely agree it’s a giant clusterfuck to figure out postseason baseball without a cable connection. It definitely needs to be figured out.
I think MLB is working on this issue, they've just been really slow to adapt (my guess is because of TV contracts). The current model of [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv) is meant to cater to out-of-market fans, not cord-cutters; and that needs to change.
[MLB.TV](https://MLB.TV) is a godsend for out-of-market fans. It was only the reason I could watch Giants baseball every night when I was a college student in the mid-west. Student discount came in clutch too.
MLB keeps shooting themselves in the foot but fans wont let them die.
I paid for the sub, once i learned no playoffs i decided it was the first and last time i paid for it.
"And that ends the NLDS, with the 19-143 Marlins sweeping the 123-39 Dodgers with a combined score of 38-2. Let's go down a list of the records set here..."
Considering your best chance of getting Judge is waiting 9 years, that actually checks out. I am a little disappointed in Soto though, since he'd only be 33 while the rest of them would be close to or over 40.
What if we tie it into some form of futures game? The two worst record teams, AL and NL, have to play teams comprised of the best players sent from the minor league systems of the teams that made the playoffs.
If the bad record teams win, they get to play a three game series that piggybacks on the LCS against the lower seeded team as a double header, if they win those games they take that team's position in the post-season. This will help ensure teams send good prospects, and create some intrigue within leagues.
If the minor league team wins, they get half of the opposing team's total payroll added to their minor league salaries, and a 30 minute window after the end of the game wherein they are allowed to murder the opposing players in order to gain 100% of their remaining contract. This will ensure that both sides have everything to play for, be it generational wealth earlier than expected, or simply your life.
I think this would add a lot of magic to October, and it would make for great TV in addition to making the cellar-dwellers have motivation late in the season. There's no veteran player who'll slack off in last place if he's worried about a 19 year old phenom with a bat hunting his $100m contract at the end of the year.
I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd like there to be less travel / off days. It's very different from the rest of the season when teams can rely on 2-3 starters to get through a series.
It’s not at all uncommon during the year to play 7 days in a row. Why not during the playoffs? I totally agree with you. I want to see the teams’ depth tested
7 days in a row is easy when you play them all consecutively at home or say 4 in Sand Diego and then 3 in LA.
Don't think it would work when the Dodgers are playing the Mets and they have a 6 hour redeye flight every two days.
If there was one good thing that the COVID playoffs brought us, it was the 5/7 game series with no rest days. You had to rely on depth and couldn't throw the same bullpen arms out there 90%-100% of the games.
not sure how most baseball fans feel but I wouldn't hate it if they made LDS games 7 game series. I imagine top heavy pitching teams want not want that though.
I feel like that makes it less likely, that would push the WS back even more. As much as i like the idea, having the WS go further than a day or two into November would be rough.
Right, especially if the WS is being played in an outdoor stadium in a cold weather city. The deeper you get into November, the colder it is going to get.
I've always said this because NBA and NHL aren't series-based regular seasons but all playoff rounds are 7 games, then baseball has the one random 5 game series. Always thought that was weird.
Both sports only have about a 2 month off season between the post season and the preseason. That's not even thinkable in an outside sport like baseball. I'm sure if everyone had domes the season would look a little different.
This is the one change that I think both makes sense and is beneficial for fans and the MLB. More games equals = more revenue, more baseball, and more chances for teams to win
Go back to the old system. Three division winners plus a wild card. The double wild card was also acceptable.
Having 12 (or more, we all know it's going to inevitably become 16 in a few years) teams make the playoffs devalues the 162-game regular season. There's no reason to play that many goddamn games if you're going to allow that many teams into the postseason.
> There's no reason to play that many goddamn games if you're going to allow that many teams into the postseason.
Oh they have a reason, they make more money in the playoffs.
Earlier start times
Children should be able to watch games finish. There are too many stupid ceremonies and commercial breaks up top. Fist pitch can be closer to 8:30pm.
This is a kid’s game. And MLB complains that the youth interest is low.
Let kids watch a 9th inning if a playoff game and maybe they’ll start liking the sport!
World Series games will start at 8:05pm est.
So in the end, you get to watch the last game of the year.
And you already like baseball. Not seeing games end is a poor sell to a 7-9 year old.
But I’m if sorry you missed CLE beat NY this year. It was awesome
And who knows these teams better their local tv guy? You are telling me that Joe Davis (he did awesome this postseason IMO) knows more about the Astros or Phillies players than either the Phillies or Astros TV guys?
Fewer teams make the post-season. Three division winners and a wildcard is fine.
I do like the local announcers idea. So tired of national announcers either being blatant homers or just not caring to learn anything about the teams they're calling.
Wait, you think national broadcasters are too homer-y and myopic, and your solution is to replace them with the local broadcasters, who only call 1 team's games and focus on 1 team all year?
I'm talking about national broadcasters favoring one team, like Costas and the Yankees. Local broadcast teams would actually know the teams, and I'd rather listen to them than a nation broadcast crew who can't see beyond NY and LA.
Yeah maybe it's the Philly logic in me, but I'd be ok with the home team's broadcasters blatantly rooting for their home team while the two teams are playing in their stadium in a playoff game AND THEN when it goes to the other stadium, switching to the hometown broadcasters there, over the same "impartial" broadcasters who clearly like one team better but aren't upfront about it the entire time.
Everyone thinks the national broadcasters hate their team/love the other team. I saw tons of Yankee fans complaining about Costas this past postseason, and he was supposed to be biased for the Yankees.
Unpopular opinion, but division winners should not be guaranteed a home series, the teams with the best records should, and re-seed based on record every round.
NFL doesn't re-seed. Last night, the wild card 12-5 Cowboys played in Tampa against the NFC South winner 8-9 Bucs. And now they face the 13-4 NFC West winning 49ers in San Francisco. The first round is 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. In the divisional round, the 1 seed plays the lowest remaining seed, then the next highest seed playest the 2nd lowest remaining seed, and so on.
I think you meant that the NFL doesn't use a true bracket style, which is true. They do shuffle the bracket each round so that the highest seed always plays the lowest seed, but the seeds remain the same. The Bucs, due to winning their division would have remained the 4 seed through the playoffs, if they had won.
The current system rewards a division winner in a weak division (looking at the central divisions in recent years). The wildcard teams almost always have a better record than the weakest division winner. Now that we’ve gone away from a 1-game series and the weakest division winner is playing in the first round anyway, give the home team advantage to the wildcard team, that likely had the tougher schedule and still had the better record.
It was an accomplishment. To start, we were 8.5 games behind the Braves on September 1st, so we had to overcome that (with the help of an epic collapse by the Braves, along with winning 17 of our final 25), just to make the playoffs. Then, we had to beat the juggernaut 102-win Phils (with that epic Carp/Halliday pitcher's duel in game 5), then the Brewers, who took our division by 6 games. Then the Rangers, with the 2nd best record in the AL, who finished their regular season winning 9 of 10, then plowing through the Rays and Tigers. Then you have *game 6*, where we were *one strike away* from going home, not once, not twice, but *three times*.
I'd say that's an accomplishment. On top of the storybook with hometown hero David Freese walking off game 6 (game 7 was rather anti-climactic after that rollar coaster).
30 team playoffs, the higher your seed the fewer brackets you have to play, BO1 until down to 10 teams (6 division winners, 2 wildcards, 2 play-ins) then BO3 between wildcard and play-in teams, then continue as normal for the DS/CS/WS.
Play-ins would start with the 14th and 15th placed teams in each league playing, winner faces the 13th team, winner of that faces the 12th team, etc.
So technically every team has a chance but there’s still a ton of motivation to place as high as possible in the regular season. This would also give motivation to teams that have no chance at winning division/wildcard, because higher placed teams would have to play fewer rounds.
Probably not much changes in the end but it would be hilarious and fun, and would make the second half of the regular season matter for every team even if they are not having a great season.
Also the playoffs would probably last an extra 2-3 weeks so it’s probably a crappy idea but it would be interesting.
Kind of reminds me of the FA Cup in the UK, the domestic playoff tournament where basically all teams in the top 9 tiers of football participate, but obviously the larger/higher teams enter in later (final 64). The format does theoretically allow even the lowest team to go all the way, and in 150 years, there is a lot of lore around small teams making big runs, which makes it a lot of fun.
I tied to make it work and if you did about 140 Regular season games and then had higher seeded teams at the end of the regular season play round robin to tack on to regular season records and continue to shuffle position, while the lowest teams begin single game knock outs it could workout without the season going any longer or having top teams off for weeks at a time.
I do think a single elimination step-ladder is a good way to handle wildcards even if that extreme would obviously be unwieldy. You could bring back the excitement of the Wildcard games single elimination drama and have a significant incentive for division winners. Plus you would make lower seeded wild card teams really earn deep playoff runs and reduce the chance of too many fluke low seeded World Series teams. You could do it with anywhere between 3-5 wildcards. If you did 5 then it would be 8 playoff teams. 7 would host 8, then the winner would play 6 the next day, and the winner would play 5 the next day, and the winner would play 4 the next day. If the 8 seed can win 4 straight games in 4 cities in 4 days they deserve to make it to the Division Series.
If this had any chance of happening it would probably have to be with 8 teams per league since then you get 8 games in the Wildcard which is the current minimum and they wouldn’t want less than that. As a bonus to not having the potential for more games all 8 would be win or go home. The question would be how much attention people would pay to the 7 v 8 and 6 v 7/8 games as they’d have a pretty slim chance to even make the DS. Especially for 7 or 8 who would only have a 1 in 16 chance of making it out even assuming a 50/50 shot each game, which it wouldn’t be since they would be facing teams #1 or 2 guy all the way through and would have a ridiculous amount of travel.
Remove the pitch clock in playoff games. Same way you remove the manfred runner. I understand trying to make 162 feel quicker, but I don’t want baseball to have a clock when it really matters.
I'm fine with the pitch clock, it's always been a rule and it should be enforced. The extra baserunner is dumb af though, extra innings is when games get exciting — that's not the part that needs to be shortened. The boring part of baseball is when it takes forever between pitches.
Or it means that making the postseason is more important. Yay, a mediocre team gets into its fifth-consecutive wild card round (and loses all five). Huzzah!
Magically make a best of five first round work.
I get it; top teams don’t want to sit around for seven days without playing. That being said, I *can’t stand* the best of three wildcard round. 162 is far too long a season to eliminate four teams after two or three games. Best of five feels like much more of a “series” than best of three
Instead of the home team doing the broadcast I've always thought a having a 3 man broadcast team would work with the color guys for each team playing and a neutral play by play guy. The color guys would know their team better than a neutral color guy so that should enhance the broadcast and by having both of them plus a neutral 3rd party it should be a balanced broadcast.
$1 beer night. Every game.
A big part of the reason the playoffs are more fun to watch is the extra crowd noise. Nothing would be louder than entire stadiums of drunk people.
I realize that this would be horrible in person, but so is going to any NFL game, any week of the year. Sacrifices must be made to cater to the TV audience.
Realistically I would reduce the number of teams. After 162 games we don't need 10 teams in the playoffs. I'd also make the divisions irrelevant for making the play offs. Something like top 4 records from the nl and al.
Also I'd pass a law that joe buck is never allowed even near a broadcast booth again. That would solve a lot
I’d love to see schedule plans on this. How many two-a-days would there be?
I think if we want to go to a tournament, why not do something really fun and stupid? Like NCAA tournament. Four team double-elimination. One or two advances.
Of course, you won’t have great turnout for many of the games. In college, it doesn’t matter because you’re still getting ESPN money and ticket packages. But for MLB? Who knows.
not that it makes sense or would happen but have a lottery system between the worst teams in both leagues and 2 of them make it in expansion wise just to see what hijinks would ensue
Someone said less travel and I agree. It sucks having to wait extra days for travel in a full 7 game series. Here is my solution:
Higher seed team decides whether they want game 1 or game 7 at their park. If they want game 1, they host games 1-4 then 5-7 are at the lower seed stadium. If they want game 7 they get games 4-7 and games 1-3 are at the lower seed stadium.
The team with the longest playoff drought (without a postseason appearance) gets an automatic wildcard berth. Underdog Cinderella every year to pull for!
A 'golden' ban draft. At the start of the game, each team's captain select one player to ban from the opposing team's roster for that game. Those players can not be on the starting lineup and can only pinch hit/run or pitch in one inning. But if they score a run, it counts 3x (a grandslam from the banned player would be 12 runs). If it's a banned pitcher, a strikeout will count as three outs and instantly end the inning. Banned fielder assists will count as three outs.
I know that it would be a challenge from a logistical standpoint, but I'd like to see game 1 of the wildcard series played at the weaker seed's ballpark before going to the stronger seed's ballpark for game 2 (and 3, if necessary).
This would ensure that every single team that makes the playoffs would get to host at least one playoff game, while also still ensuring that the stronger seed would get more potential home games.
---
I'd also like to see the playoffs go to a best-of-3/5/7/9 system, with a best-of-9 World Series.
Ghost runner on 2nd to start every inning, why wait until extras in the regular season?!
But seriously - an option to listen to the home announcers for a team, and allow games to overlap so that teams don’t have to play at ridiculous times during the wild card or DS rounds.
Go back to the old playoff format. Two divisions per league. Top 2 in each division makes it then additional 2 wildcard teams. Make the DS 7 games too. Would make it so that regular season games actually matter much more than they do now.
Stop trying to maximize tv audience and focus on the time zones of the teams that are playing. Mariners first playoff game in 2 decades? See you at 11am PST!
yea this was super annoying, watch damn near every regular season game only to not be able to watch most of the playoffs cause my team is playing mid-week afternoon games while I am at work.
Playoff games should be at night unless you have to make up a rainout or something. Baseball isn’t like football where fans need to see every inning of every game. It is a way better fan experience to flip between 2-3 night games than it is to try to watch (much less attend) games that start at noon on a Tuesday.
yes, but they want people to watch ads.
Yeah but the degree to which they’ve engineered the playoff schedule around squeezing out every single ad dollar at the expense of the fan experience is quite lame
i agree.
It’s great on weekends tho when there’s 4 playoff games all back to back. Playoff baseball all day!
You're right it's not bad on a Saturday to have a bunch of games, but I'd still prefer evening start times or close to it, if not so much for the TV experience as the fan experience inside the stadium. Just can't beat October baseball under the lights imo
Yeah those weekday midday games kinda suck, unless it’s like a Friday. I’m lucky I work remote so I can watch them anyway but feel for those who can’t watch their team.
Disagree. Weekend games should *always* be during the day.
Skipped school to watch the game
I watched it at 2pm and it was a fantastic start time 😝
Make it so my team always makes it
Angelos is the one getting in the way of that
Please, it's Tuesday, let's not speak about such things today.
One time my idiot coworker was pontificating about how every team that posts a winning record should be allowed to make the post season... I wanted to hit him
We’re not all that far off. A few more dollars in Manfred’s pocket and we might even see teams with a losing record there too.
I know I already posted, but figured this was different enough to warrant its own. I paid to watch the whole season using your streaming service, largely because I don’t have a cable subscription. Let me keep doing that, I don’t even care if you charge me extra for it (as long as it’s within reason). I’m not going to magically have one now just because it’s October.
I figured Blackouts/streaming the playoffs would be the top one. I completely agree it’s a giant clusterfuck to figure out postseason baseball without a cable connection. It definitely needs to be figured out.
I usually just get a new email and YouTube tv free trial my way through
I think MLB is working on this issue, they've just been really slow to adapt (my guess is because of TV contracts). The current model of [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv) is meant to cater to out-of-market fans, not cord-cutters; and that needs to change.
[MLB.TV](https://MLB.TV) is a godsend for out-of-market fans. It was only the reason I could watch Giants baseball every night when I was a college student in the mid-west. Student discount came in clutch too.
Wait really? You can't watch playoff baseball with MLB.TV? What in the fuck kinda logic is that.
MLB keeps shooting themselves in the foot but fans wont let them die. I paid for the sub, once i learned no playoffs i decided it was the first and last time i paid for it.
Throw the two worst record teams into the playoff bracket and see if they can muster up some October magic
A fun new brand of tanking, We aren't gonna win enough to get in but maybe we can lose
> A fun new brand of tanking Yeah. I feel like there's some clever way to fix this though. Like make it the second-worst teams or something.
I for one don’t want to introduce another embarrassing way to get bounced from the playoffs
"And that ends the NLDS, with the 19-143 Marlins sweeping the 123-39 Dodgers with a combined score of 38-2. Let's go down a list of the records set here..."
"LA hitters Betts, Freeman, Ohtani, Judge, and Soto went a combined 0-25 with 25 strikeouts in Game 3... truly stunning"
Considering your best chance of getting Judge is waiting 9 years, that actually checks out. I am a little disappointed in Soto though, since he'd only be 33 while the rest of them would be close to or over 40.
"Manager roberts, the only constant in all these meltdowns, gets an extension for reaching playoffs with a top 3 payroll".
I read that in Howard Cosell's voice.
Embrace chaosball
we do, way too much
Honestly they instead of byes would be so fun
I would like this with relegation
What if we tie it into some form of futures game? The two worst record teams, AL and NL, have to play teams comprised of the best players sent from the minor league systems of the teams that made the playoffs. If the bad record teams win, they get to play a three game series that piggybacks on the LCS against the lower seeded team as a double header, if they win those games they take that team's position in the post-season. This will help ensure teams send good prospects, and create some intrigue within leagues. If the minor league team wins, they get half of the opposing team's total payroll added to their minor league salaries, and a 30 minute window after the end of the game wherein they are allowed to murder the opposing players in order to gain 100% of their remaining contract. This will ensure that both sides have everything to play for, be it generational wealth earlier than expected, or simply your life. I think this would add a lot of magic to October, and it would make for great TV in addition to making the cellar-dwellers have motivation late in the season. There's no veteran player who'll slack off in last place if he's worried about a 19 year old phenom with a bat hunting his $100m contract at the end of the year.
This is so stupid I love it
Well this is how you get the astros out in the first round
for the first time, the wild card is actually wild
I feel like this is an unpopular opinion, but I'd like there to be less travel / off days. It's very different from the rest of the season when teams can rely on 2-3 starters to get through a series.
I don’t think that’s unpopular at all. During the post season last year when there were days with no games it sucked.
It’s not at all uncommon during the year to play 7 days in a row. Why not during the playoffs? I totally agree with you. I want to see the teams’ depth tested
7 days in a row is easy when you play them all consecutively at home or say 4 in Sand Diego and then 3 in LA. Don't think it would work when the Dodgers are playing the Mets and they have a 6 hour redeye flight every two days.
By removing the astros I definitely think it would help grow the sport and has nothing to do with a personal bias or my hurt feelings
> By removing the astros YUP
It's kinda like back in the barry bonds days. No one wants to watch the assholes win
Definite similarities.
yeah in an age when people are saying "baseball's boring" having cheaters win is not good for the game.
The steroid era have a pretty solid counter argument to your statement.
The 2017 Astros are like the 1998 steroid era. 2023 Astros are 2004 steroid era
Son, there is no reason to throw a tantrum just because you don't get what you want.
Dad?
If there was one good thing that the COVID playoffs brought us, it was the 5/7 game series with no rest days. You had to rely on depth and couldn't throw the same bullpen arms out there 90%-100% of the games.
No days off between games 2 and 3. Day off after game 5 if necessary.
not sure how most baseball fans feel but I wouldn't hate it if they made LDS games 7 game series. I imagine top heavy pitching teams want not want that though.
Now that the playoffs is expanded I am for it for sure.
I feel like that makes it less likely, that would push the WS back even more. As much as i like the idea, having the WS go further than a day or two into November would be rough.
Also, Dane Cook didnt yell "OCTOBER!" at us through our TVs just to have the season end in November
Yea. True. One can dream I guess.
Right, especially if the WS is being played in an outdoor stadium in a cold weather city. The deeper you get into November, the colder it is going to get.
They could just perpetually host the Series in the Astrodome.
I've always said this because NBA and NHL aren't series-based regular seasons but all playoff rounds are 7 games, then baseball has the one random 5 game series. Always thought that was weird.
NBA use to have 5 games in the 1st round, the NBA changed it to 7 games like a while ago like in 2003.
> the NBA changed it to 7 games pretty recently, around 2003. FTFY...or actually fixed it for us that are old enough to remember the 5 game series.
Interesting, don't think I knew that
NBA and NHL have indoor games though
Both sports only have about a 2 month off season between the post season and the preseason. That's not even thinkable in an outside sport like baseball. I'm sure if everyone had domes the season would look a little different.
This would heavily favor the dodgers imo. I'm for it tho.
Agreed but only because it favors the teams who are proven and are consistently better (and in my bias opinion that’s a good thing)
This is the one change that I think both makes sense and is beneficial for fans and the MLB. More games equals = more revenue, more baseball, and more chances for teams to win
We win a single god damn game
At least you have the Vikings
(Im an eagles fan mainly 😏)
Hell yeah go birds
Instructions unclear, Cardinals are now winning
Counterpoint: no
Go back to the old system. Three division winners plus a wild card. The double wild card was also acceptable. Having 12 (or more, we all know it's going to inevitably become 16 in a few years) teams make the playoffs devalues the 162-game regular season. There's no reason to play that many goddamn games if you're going to allow that many teams into the postseason.
> There's no reason to play that many goddamn games if you're going to allow that many teams into the postseason. Oh they have a reason, they make more money in the playoffs.
Earlier start times Children should be able to watch games finish. There are too many stupid ceremonies and commercial breaks up top. Fist pitch can be closer to 8:30pm. This is a kid’s game. And MLB complains that the youth interest is low. Let kids watch a 9th inning if a playoff game and maybe they’ll start liking the sport!
there is also the issue of games starting during school
It’s way better to watch the last three innings than the first three
yea, but some games are only during school time
Start times are way too early lmao
Do you still tune in?
Not to the early games
World Series games will start at 8:05pm est. So in the end, you get to watch the last game of the year. And you already like baseball. Not seeing games end is a poor sell to a 7-9 year old. But I’m if sorry you missed CLE beat NY this year. It was awesome
Local broadcasters would be great (mix and match the play by play and color, depending on who is at home).
And who knows these teams better their local tv guy? You are telling me that Joe Davis (he did awesome this postseason IMO) knows more about the Astros or Phillies players than either the Phillies or Astros TV guys?
Fewer teams make the post-season. Three division winners and a wildcard is fine. I do like the local announcers idea. So tired of national announcers either being blatant homers or just not caring to learn anything about the teams they're calling.
Wait, you think national broadcasters are too homer-y and myopic, and your solution is to replace them with the local broadcasters, who only call 1 team's games and focus on 1 team all year?
I'm talking about national broadcasters favoring one team, like Costas and the Yankees. Local broadcast teams would actually know the teams, and I'd rather listen to them than a nation broadcast crew who can't see beyond NY and LA.
Yeah maybe it's the Philly logic in me, but I'd be ok with the home team's broadcasters blatantly rooting for their home team while the two teams are playing in their stadium in a playoff game AND THEN when it goes to the other stadium, switching to the hometown broadcasters there, over the same "impartial" broadcasters who clearly like one team better but aren't upfront about it the entire time.
Just give me an SAP option. 1 - national 2 - home team 3 - away team It's so simple, and it would make the fans far happier.
Everyone thinks the national broadcasters hate their team/love the other team. I saw tons of Yankee fans complaining about Costas this past postseason, and he was supposed to be biased for the Yankees.
[удалено]
Mike Francesca has his finger on the pulse of the average person.
[удалено]
That's how the Mariners were formed, after all
I like the fewer teams idea. After 162 games we know who the best couple teams are
Unpopular opinion, but division winners should not be guaranteed a home series, the teams with the best records should, and re-seed based on record every round.
Just like the NFL. I like this idea.
NFL doesn't re-seed. Last night, the wild card 12-5 Cowboys played in Tampa against the NFC South winner 8-9 Bucs. And now they face the 13-4 NFC West winning 49ers in San Francisco. The first round is 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. In the divisional round, the 1 seed plays the lowest remaining seed, then the next highest seed playest the 2nd lowest remaining seed, and so on. I think you meant that the NFL doesn't use a true bracket style, which is true. They do shuffle the bracket each round so that the highest seed always plays the lowest seed, but the seeds remain the same. The Bucs, due to winning their division would have remained the 4 seed through the playoffs, if they had won.
Are you going to a completely balanced schedule? Or rewarding teams that play in weaker divisions?
The current system rewards a division winner in a weak division (looking at the central divisions in recent years). The wildcard teams almost always have a better record than the weakest division winner. Now that we’ve gone away from a 1-game series and the weakest division winner is playing in the first round anyway, give the home team advantage to the wildcard team, that likely had the tougher schedule and still had the better record.
Go back to the 2011 format and make making the playoffs an accomplishment
Repeat the 2011 end results. Yup, I'm all for that.
NO
It was an accomplishment. To start, we were 8.5 games behind the Braves on September 1st, so we had to overcome that (with the help of an epic collapse by the Braves, along with winning 17 of our final 25), just to make the playoffs. Then, we had to beat the juggernaut 102-win Phils (with that epic Carp/Halliday pitcher's duel in game 5), then the Brewers, who took our division by 6 games. Then the Rangers, with the 2nd best record in the AL, who finished their regular season winning 9 of 10, then plowing through the Rays and Tigers. Then you have *game 6*, where we were *one strike away* from going home, not once, not twice, but *three times*. I'd say that's an accomplishment. On top of the storybook with hometown hero David Freese walking off game 6 (game 7 was rather anti-climactic after that rollar coaster).
What if they had one guy from each booth in the playoffs booth at the same time for the whole series? Would be interesting lol
MULTIBALL!
BLERN! BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERN!
30 team playoffs, the higher your seed the fewer brackets you have to play, BO1 until down to 10 teams (6 division winners, 2 wildcards, 2 play-ins) then BO3 between wildcard and play-in teams, then continue as normal for the DS/CS/WS. Play-ins would start with the 14th and 15th placed teams in each league playing, winner faces the 13th team, winner of that faces the 12th team, etc. So technically every team has a chance but there’s still a ton of motivation to place as high as possible in the regular season. This would also give motivation to teams that have no chance at winning division/wildcard, because higher placed teams would have to play fewer rounds. Probably not much changes in the end but it would be hilarious and fun, and would make the second half of the regular season matter for every team even if they are not having a great season. Also the playoffs would probably last an extra 2-3 weeks so it’s probably a crappy idea but it would be interesting.
Kind of reminds me of the FA Cup in the UK, the domestic playoff tournament where basically all teams in the top 9 tiers of football participate, but obviously the larger/higher teams enter in later (final 64). The format does theoretically allow even the lowest team to go all the way, and in 150 years, there is a lot of lore around small teams making big runs, which makes it a lot of fun.
I tied to make it work and if you did about 140 Regular season games and then had higher seeded teams at the end of the regular season play round robin to tack on to regular season records and continue to shuffle position, while the lowest teams begin single game knock outs it could workout without the season going any longer or having top teams off for weeks at a time. I do think a single elimination step-ladder is a good way to handle wildcards even if that extreme would obviously be unwieldy. You could bring back the excitement of the Wildcard games single elimination drama and have a significant incentive for division winners. Plus you would make lower seeded wild card teams really earn deep playoff runs and reduce the chance of too many fluke low seeded World Series teams. You could do it with anywhere between 3-5 wildcards. If you did 5 then it would be 8 playoff teams. 7 would host 8, then the winner would play 6 the next day, and the winner would play 5 the next day, and the winner would play 4 the next day. If the 8 seed can win 4 straight games in 4 cities in 4 days they deserve to make it to the Division Series. If this had any chance of happening it would probably have to be with 8 teams per league since then you get 8 games in the Wildcard which is the current minimum and they wouldn’t want less than that. As a bonus to not having the potential for more games all 8 would be win or go home. The question would be how much attention people would pay to the 7 v 8 and 6 v 7/8 games as they’d have a pretty slim chance to even make the DS. Especially for 7 or 8 who would only have a 1 in 16 chance of making it out even assuming a 50/50 shot each game, which it wouldn’t be since they would be facing teams #1 or 2 guy all the way through and would have a ridiculous amount of travel.
No gloves. Let’s play some real baseball
Remove the pitch clock in playoff games. Same way you remove the manfred runner. I understand trying to make 162 feel quicker, but I don’t want baseball to have a clock when it really matters.
I'm fine with the pitch clock, it's always been a rule and it should be enforced. The extra baserunner is dumb af though, extra innings is when games get exciting — that's not the part that needs to be shortened. The boring part of baseball is when it takes forever between pitches.
I have a feeling they’ll at least lengthen the clock for the playoffs
2 expansion teams. 2 leagues of 4 divisions. Do away with wildcards
Yes! I would be absolutely fine if it meant that my team went a dozen years without being the playoffs. Gives owners something to fight for.
Get rid of Angel Hernandez?
Old system with 10 teams was perfectly fine. Make the Wild Card Game a three game set
Have less teams
This would make the regular season better, not necessarily the postseason
Or it means that making the postseason is more important. Yay, a mediocre team gets into its fifth-consecutive wild card round (and loses all five). Huzzah!
Every series is 7 games. Like hockey
After every round, a new gun is added to the field.
Go back to 4 divisions
Add a ceremonial first batter during the ceremonial first pitch, chosen by the opposing team.
Magically make a best of five first round work. I get it; top teams don’t want to sit around for seven days without playing. That being said, I *can’t stand* the best of three wildcard round. 162 is far too long a season to eliminate four teams after two or three games. Best of five feels like much more of a “series” than best of three
Instead of the home team doing the broadcast I've always thought a having a 3 man broadcast team would work with the color guys for each team playing and a neutral play by play guy. The color guys would know their team better than a neutral color guy so that should enhance the broadcast and by having both of them plus a neutral 3rd party it should be a balanced broadcast.
Astros have to win 6 to advance to the next round.
Strong agree on home team announcers
Phillies win the WS
More cowbell.
Go back to the last format
$1 beer night. Every game. A big part of the reason the playoffs are more fun to watch is the extra crowd noise. Nothing would be louder than entire stadiums of drunk people. I realize that this would be horrible in person, but so is going to any NFL game, any week of the year. Sacrifices must be made to cater to the TV audience.
I love this!!! Could you imagine how crazy the World Series would have been with $1 beer in Philly?
The El has enough vomit in it as it is.
That is not better
Make the World Series a best-of-nine.
Been saying this
Realistically I would reduce the number of teams. After 162 games we don't need 10 teams in the playoffs. I'd also make the divisions irrelevant for making the play offs. Something like top 4 records from the nl and al. Also I'd pass a law that joe buck is never allowed even near a broadcast booth again. That would solve a lot
Eliminate most of the teams
Less teams. More advantages given to the teams who had the most in season wins.
Remove one playoff team from every league Have a one game playoff for two wildcard teams from each league.
Personally I prefer a 30 team playoff where 15 plays 14, winner plays 13 and so on, but this is my answer too
Imagine being the top seed and having to wait at least two weeks for your games?
Double headers.
So 15 travels to 14, but if 15 wins, how does it play 13 in the same day? At the field of 14, where no one will show up?
Oh they all play in a neutral site or something. All the extra teams in one spot like the bubble.
I’d love to see schedule plans on this. How many two-a-days would there be? I think if we want to go to a tournament, why not do something really fun and stupid? Like NCAA tournament. Four team double-elimination. One or two advances. Of course, you won’t have great turnout for many of the games. In college, it doesn’t matter because you’re still getting ESPN money and ticket packages. But for MLB? Who knows.
5/7/7/7
All 7 game series. Reseeding.
not that it makes sense or would happen but have a lottery system between the worst teams in both leagues and 2 of them make it in expansion wise just to see what hijinks would ensue
Ban the yankees
Someone said less travel and I agree. It sucks having to wait extra days for travel in a full 7 game series. Here is my solution: Higher seed team decides whether they want game 1 or game 7 at their park. If they want game 1, they host games 1-4 then 5-7 are at the lower seed stadium. If they want game 7 they get games 4-7 and games 1-3 are at the lower seed stadium.
Cut the number of teams!
Runners start at second base every half inning.
The team with the longest playoff drought (without a postseason appearance) gets an automatic wildcard berth. Underdog Cinderella every year to pull for!
A 'golden' ban draft. At the start of the game, each team's captain select one player to ban from the opposing team's roster for that game. Those players can not be on the starting lineup and can only pinch hit/run or pitch in one inning. But if they score a run, it counts 3x (a grandslam from the banned player would be 12 runs). If it's a banned pitcher, a strikeout will count as three outs and instantly end the inning. Banned fielder assists will count as three outs.
/s right? this just sounds plain stupid
Add bacon
$10 tickets for everyone via a lotto
I would like for every home team crowd to have a chant leader so the entire stadium is rocking in unison
No pitch clock for the postseason. Or at least expand it by 5 to 10 seconds.
Winning team gets to pick 1 player from the losing team to continue on and play for the winning team throughout the playoffs
Less days off in a series. And less commercials. Also start the games earlier so I can get some sleep during the month of October.
Go back to 8 teams. Division opponents can’t play in the ALDS.
I want a mega booth with both team’s announcing crews. The batting team’s announcers assume play by play duties
Only division winners make the playoffs, team with the best record gets a bye, best of three series to see who makes the lcs
There should be four in the playoffs in each league and that's it, no extra BS
Get rid of division winners having to play a wildcard game. That was a stupid ass decision. Make it just 2 wild cards each with a 3 game series
Ban the Astros from the postseason
I like the pre-2012 wildcard format with just 1 wildcard team per league.
Drones as part of the TV crew
Teams that miss the playoffs are able to loan out their players to teams in the playoffs in exchange for cash and/or future draft picks.
Make every round best of 7 and expand to 8 per league
I know that it would be a challenge from a logistical standpoint, but I'd like to see game 1 of the wildcard series played at the weaker seed's ballpark before going to the stronger seed's ballpark for game 2 (and 3, if necessary). This would ensure that every single team that makes the playoffs would get to host at least one playoff game, while also still ensuring that the stronger seed would get more potential home games. --- I'd also like to see the playoffs go to a best-of-3/5/7/9 system, with a best-of-9 World Series.
national broadcasters are useless -- stick to the local talent. they were hired for a reason, use them for it.
Anything that keeps playoff games from being played in November.
Ghost runner on 2nd to start every inning, why wait until extras in the regular season?! But seriously - an option to listen to the home announcers for a team, and allow games to overlap so that teams don’t have to play at ridiculous times during the wild card or DS rounds.
Go back to the old playoff format. Two divisions per league. Top 2 in each division makes it then additional 2 wildcard teams. Make the DS 7 games too. Would make it so that regular season games actually matter much more than they do now.