Bud Selig said on Thursday in his annual meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors that he expects the MLB playoffs to be expanded to 10 teams starting in 2012.
Let me first start off by saying I love the expanding the playoffs in the MLB idea.
I have been lobbying for it for a long time. I believe that just by simply adding more teams to the playoffs, it will help get the lesser teams in the playoffs, making it easier for more teams to consistently get in and energize their fan bases. It would be awesome to see someone other than the Red Sox, Yankees, Phillies, Cardinals and Twins in it nearly every year.
However, there have always been a couple issues I have had when trying to figure out how to make it work.
1. How awkward would a bye week be in the playoffs?
Can you imagine a team sitting out the entire first round for a span of nearly a week? That can’t bode well for a baseball team. It makes it far easier for the hitters to get out of their rhythm. It’s not like basketball and football where you can just turn it on either. There’s a different skill set involved to baseball that just does not allow you to “turn it back on.”
One way to remedy the situation is to make the first round a best of three games series in the first round. It would not take very long, and they can do a series in a matter of five days at the max, maybe even have the whole series at the home team and get it done in three days.
2. How many teams should be put in?
In order to avoid the first round byes for any team, you have to put in 16 teams, but that’s absurd, so I’m not going to even get into that one.
The option that Selig suggested is 10 teams, but I do not quite agree. Getting 10 teams into the playoffs would only have one team from each league getting a first round bye, pretty much ensuring a full best-of-five game series. Wouldn’t that work to the disadvantage of the bye team going by my theory from earlier?
The best option would probably be 12 teams in the playoffs. That way the top four teams get a bye, and they can go with the three game format. To me, that is the best case scenario.
I’m very interested in seeing how this plays out. However, if you’re against it, I am guessing you are a fan of one of the perennial powerhouses and that is fine. For smaller market fans though, this should make it much more exciting every season for teams like those that are generally on the outside looking in. Bottom line, it serves to energize the fan bases and will bring attendance up.
Mr. Selig, you are getting warmer...
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