Tom Tango comes out in favor of more teams in the playoffs at The Book Blog. One of the reasons he gives comes from hockey, where playoff games, in his opinion, are better than regular season games (I agree).
We’re used to this in the NHL, seeing 16 teams. And if you followed the NHL playoffs this past week, you would realize that: WHO CARES! This is FANTASTIC hockey. This has been great. The action is non-stop, never a dull moment (a far cry from the regular season). And this is round #1 with 16 teams. Why in the world would I say: “You know what, give me LESS exciting hockey.”
Just maybe, the duller regular season games are a result of the expanded hockey playoffs. If you are playing anywhere over .500 in the NHL, there is no reason to push yourself as a team. It’s a grueling sport, just play to get into the playoffs and then let low number of games and hard play carry you to the cup. If the NHL cut the number of teams going to the playoffs to four, I bet you would see many more playoff like games in the regular season. Those wins really count now. Winning 16 of 30 isn’t good enough any more. Even if the NHL went to eight playoff teams, my guess is that regular season play would improve.
Note that regular season baseball games are just as good as playoff baseball games. Sure not every game is a gem, but fans get upset when a good team starts 0-6. In hockey, it would not be a big deal, since they just need to climb back to .500 to make the playoffs. Accumulating 90 wins in MLB isn’t that easy after an 0-6 start, so those teams have to play full out for the rest of the season.
So in fact, if more games that are exciting is what you crave from your sport, fewer playoff teams may be the way to go.
I do not like the expanded playoffs. It devalues each regular season game.
If you have 3 divisions, then you do need a wild card team or else sit the best team for a series (which I believe hurts them with keeping their skills sharp, could be wrong on that.) I also don’t mind having a WC race if divisions get sewn up early, plus there are teams like the 1980 Orioles who won 100 games, second only to the 103 win Yankees. Seems unfair to keep another excellent team out of the playoffs.
But Selig’s proposal to add a second WC team, ugh. Too much.
Adding one slot per league is not going to devalue the regular season as much as if more than half of the teams make it in. Hockey has too many playoff teams while baseball has too few.
My two cents would be to shorten the season back to 154 games, reduce interleague to a home and away per season, and increase division play to make up the slack. Then adding the extra slot makes sense as the divisions actually mean something.
What would be even more optimal would be eliminating the divisions all together and just take the 6 best teams in each league… but, Baseball doesn’t change that much that quickly.
Regular season is already devalued by having 8 teams in the playoffs to determine which 2 play the World Series. Two more teams won’t hurt much more.
Can not compare baseball to hockey or football, as the latter two are physical sports where the playoff intensity improves the quality of play. In baseball, many team actually play worse because hitters press.
Also, the other sports only have 1 QB or Goalie that plays every game. A baseball team during the regular season has 5 quarterbacks that play every 5 games. In the playoffs that whittles down to 4 games.
So a 5 game series in baseball is like 1 game in hockey. It’s just a roll of the dice who makes the playoffs. Adding more teams makes it a bit more more difficult for the best teams to make the World series, but not that much so.
Shortening the regular season won’t happen because it is a revenue negative move. Expanding the playoffs makes sense for MLB since it increases revenue.
In fact, expanding the playoffs means that teams can build a team that can win 90 games instead of 95 and perennial winners like the Red Sox and Yankees can save money on FA. More teams will be within reach of 90 W and spend more on FA that will compensate for that. This will improve competitive balance, and make the regular season more meaningful.