The slow march toward 162 games determining your team's seeding in the 30-team, single-elimination World Tournament, aka MORE ROUNDS IN PLAYOFF BASEBALL

Byes to be determined by coin flips, obv.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5814877

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Baseball management is more likely to consider expanded playoffs for 2012 than for next year.

After discussing upcoming collective bargaining Tuesday with major league general managers, MLB executive vice president Rob Manfred said adding wild-card teams for 2011 would be "a difficult trick to pull off" because it would have to be a modification of the current labor contract, which runs through next season.

Manfred said the proposal would have to be made by the owners' labor policy committee, then endorsed by owners and agreed to by the players' association.

"In the middle of a contract, we can't act unilaterally," said Manfred, baseball's chief labor negotiator.

Chicago Cubs general manager Jim Hendry favors additional wild cards. He credited commissioner Bud Selig with pushing through the initial wild-card playoffs, which began in 1995.

"It turns out the commissioner was right on," he said.

Hendry thinks a majority of GMs would back more playoffs.

"It's all about postseason baseball. That's what fans like," Arizona Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers said.

Detroit Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said the sentiment of the group isn't that clear cut.

"There was definitely a split on the topic when it came up. It's not per se that everybody's for it," he said.

GMs were to discuss bargaining some more Wednesday, and owners gather Thursday for the final day of meetings.

Last month, union head Michael Weiner said players were open to considering additional playoffs as part of collective bargaining, and Selig said the concept intrigued him. Baseball would have to gauge the interest of its television partners before deciding whether to add more postseason games.

Baseball doubled its playoff teams to four in 1969 and again to eight for 1995, a year later than intended because of a players' strike. If there were additional wild-card teams, baseball would have to decide the length of the new round.

"I think best-of-one would be a little short, but I don't see how you go more than best-of-three given the need for travel and all the other playoffs that have to take place," New York Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said. "But somebody may be able to figure it out on a best-of-five basis."

The only expansion I've heard about that wouldn't disgust me automatically is a one-game playoff between 2 wild-card teams. And I'm far from sold on that.

"It's all about postseason baseball. That's what fans like."

Baseball fans also like a regular season that meams more than jackshit.

I'm fine with a one- or three-game playoff between two wild card teams, but no more than that.

I could get 100% behind this if they eliminate travel days and not extend the postseason farther into November. Want another round? Play tired, and use your #4 and #5 starters.

would totes awes if they made it like the NBA

In what way? I don't follow NBA anymore.

every playoff round in the nba is 7 games, so its less of a small sample size, 'team that gets hot goes to the world series' situation and more of a 'best team actually wins' scenario. but the playoffs last like 2 months.

nba has 16 teams in the playoffs, sometimes including teams with losing records. it would not be awesome

just kidding there.

i really dont want additional wild cards or weird one/two game mini-playoffs. just kill unnecessary travel days and make the ALDS/NLDS best of 4.

the problem with the one-game playoff between two wild card teams is it creates weird situations where the worse of the two teams has a big advantage going into the one-game playoff because the better of the two was in the division title race through the last day of the season and used all their good pitchers whereas the worse team had a big lead over the next best team and could rest up

this could be solved by having a 3-4 day gap between end of season and the 1-game playoff but that kinda defeats the purpose of making the playoff only 1 game long

the difference with the NBA is that good teams beat mediocre/bad teams a lot more often than in baseball. a .500 team in the NBA will beat the best team ~25% of the time, whereas a .500 team in the MLB will beat the best team ~40% of the time. that's a pretty big difference that compounds itself over a 7-game series. if MLB expanded to the 16 team playoffs, even with all 7-game series you'd be much more likely to see subpar teams make it to the world series than in other sports.

so yeah if you think it would have been cool for the world series this year to have been Blue Jays vs Marlins or something then sure, but i think most people want a format which preserves a higher level of competition, especially since the MLB season is so long precisely for this reason, to weed out the mediocre teams from the good ones

xpost yeah, this was exactly what would have happened this year with the Red Sox as the 5th team -- they could have basically coasted for the last month while waiting to play the loser of Yanks/Rays division title race.

Otherwise, I like the idea of divisional races between great teams having some meaning again.

Another negative: the idea of near-.500 teams in different divisions fighting for the 5th playoff spot really dilutes the concept of only the best teams moving on. And with a million off days in the playoffs (the way they're structured now), an 85-win team with two (and only two) really good starters has a better than average chance of upsetting a more well-rounded 95-win team.

I think they should include a true wild card from each league - a team drawn at random plays the #1 seed (or highest seed without a bye, depending on how they do it).

it should work like this:

http://www.flipflopflyin.com/flipflopflyball/info-ifpayrollsdecided.png

I just don't see how expanding the playoffs would make it any better.

MLB wants to fix something, how about fixing the fact the AL West has only 4 teams and the NL Central has 6. That is something that makes no good sense at all.

If they want to go for the money, completely realign everything into 4 divisions so that you have the regional teams in the same division. That would setup the TV matchups on a more regular basis that they really want. Then if they went that way, you could have first round be a regional playoff in division then the top 4 come out and play each other.

It would kill off the whole AL/NL dynamic, but really, that has been fading away since they expanded the playoffs and free agency happened anyway.

well then you'd probably have to address the designated hitter issue which would be a whole mess of fun

honestly other than making the ALDS 7 games and cutting down on travel days i don't want no damn reforms

no way they blur the AL/NL lines further

The Rangers still want to get into the AL Central, I hear, but I don't see how it's feasible without a team moving to Portland or something.

they are not going to shorten the season for this, too much money at stake. throw in a double hitter once a month, free up six days. have a three game Wild Card play in. then have the Division Series also go seven games.

"throw in a double hitter [sic] once a month"

http://www.normandinart.com/DREAM_ON_F_L.jpg

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/baseball/mlb/04/21/expanded.playoffs.ap/index.html?eref=sihp

NEW YORK (AP) -- Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig expects the playoffs to expand from eight teams to 10 for the 2012 season.

― k3vin k., Thursday, April 21, 2011 4:41 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Would most clubs really want to get five days off?

I looked it up, here is the 'wild card' winner(?) for the past couple of years.
I guess it would have helped the Mets.

2010 NL- Padres AL- Red Sox
2009 NL- Marlins AL- Rangers
2008 NL- Mets AL- Twins
2007 NL- Mets AL- Tigers/Mariners (TIE) oh no 4th round of playoffs

extra wild card officially added for this year

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2012/2/1/2764353/baseball-wild-card-playoffs-expanding-bud-selig?tw_p=twt

"teams from the same division will be able to play each other in the Division Series."

BALLS! What's the fucking point of 162 games?

i like it, Baseball now has 10 teams that make the post season. Football has 12 with both Basketball and Hockey getting 16 (are you kidding me) teams into their playoffs.

my team plays in the AL east and is neither the yankees or the red sox. or the rays. this makes me happy.

I gaze w/ selfless disinterest at this wreckage.

a third-place team wins the World Series = biggest travesty yet

god, this is so stupid

For all the problems with the English Premier League (and there are many), I love love love the fact that there are...... no playoffs. The team with the best record wins. End of season.

^not maximizing their TV revenue

Well there are loads of tournaments every year, which sort of perform the same function (and rake in the TV money) - FA Cup, the Carling Cup, Europa League, Champions League... but still, "winning the league" is sort of the bedrock ultimate domestic prize and it's based strictly on your record

if the MLB is going to do this, then they need to bundle it with the removal of the absolutely ridiculous "Home Field advantage" incentive tied to the all-star game, and give WS home field to either A. the team with the better W-L record overall or B. the team with the better record against "common opponents".

Criticisms could (and certainly have been) lobbed against any of those three determinants, but both are much more sensible than opting to award it based on a meaningless game comprised mostly of players who won't be playing in the Fall classic (many of whom already know it by the midway point).

^^^ OTM. I always hated "this time it counts".

a third-place team wins the World Series = biggest travesty yet

I'm not sure it's a bigger travesty, than say, the fourth or fifth best team in the league making the playoffs by winning a weak division.

then get rid of the divisions, top 4 from each league make the playoffs

All this does is devalue the wild card, which seems fair. I don't care if the wild card is a second place team or a third place team. Neither of them won their division.

I think the wild card "play in" match should be some alternative form of baseball like the opposing teams intentionally beaning the other teams starting 9 until one team can no longer continue.