Yesterday, I mentioned that Bud Selig wants to add 2 teams to each league’s playoffs as soon as 2012. Assuming this comes before any crazy divisional realignment happens, how would it work?
There are three different concerns that weigh against each other, as far as I can tell. They are:
- How do you select the teams who move on to the playoffs?
- Who gets the bye?
- How do you fit another series into the schedule without going too long?
A 6-team playoff has a lot more issues than an 8 team playoff does. At least two teams will have to sit inactive while the other teams play out. Furthermore, with three divisions, its not clear how you select whom those 3 teams are. Here are my two proposals for 6-team playoff systems.
The Round Robin – You have three division winners. Each of these teams move on to the Divisional Series. However, before that divisional series, each of the 2nd place teams plays each other once in a round robin. The winner of the round robin is now the wild card team. They play the 1st place team, regardless of which division they come from. It looks like this:
Round Robins can get messy. If one team wins both its games, then it moves on. However, if each team wins 1 out 3 games, then you have to do the whole thing again, or determine the winner through a series of tie breakers. Imagine if a round robin went 9 days? I could see it being configured for a maximum of 4 games – if all three teams win 1 game, then the top-2 teams are determined by a tiebreaker, and then they have a one-game playoff for the wild card spot. Travel in between the one-game matches could get pretty nasty pretty quickly. You’d either designate 1 home ballpark (or, I guess, a neutral site) or two home ballparks, while the third place team doesn’t get a home game.
If you use tiebreakers for a 4-game maximum, this actually wouldn’t hold back the playoffs all that much. If the Round Robin starts the day after the regular season ends and doesn’t include off days, and you started the 2nd/3rd place division champions on the day after the Round Robin is complete (giving the winner a day off), you could start the season without much delay, and at the same time fit the whole thing into MLB’s existing TBS schedule.
Two Teams Get A Bye – The only alternative I can think of is the scenario where the top-two division winners get byes. It looks like:
There are a lot of decisions to be made here. Would the series by a 5-game series, or a 3-game series, or even a one-game playoff? Would you give teams the standard playoff off days? Are the Wild Card teams just each division’s 2nd place team, or the top-3 teams overall who are not division winners?
At the very least, you’d be looking at a 5-7 day hiatus for the two bye teams. That’s a very long time in baseball. In many ways, it’ll be a disadvantage. At the same time, you’re really hurting the 3rd best division winner, who now has to play in another crazy, random, luck-based short series. With an unbalanced schedule during the regular season, this can get unfair real quick.
Personally, I’m 100% on board with the Round Robin. But what do you guys think? Are there any other formats that are possible? And if you’re in favor of the Bye system, how long would you make the first round of the playoffs?
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I posted this on the division alignment post, copying it here as it’s more relavant:
Here is what I would do – ROUND ROBIN WITH ALL 6 TEAMS:
3 division winners qualify along with 3 wild cards. The 3 wild cards are the next 3 best records, regardless of division. To make it fair, I would balance the schedules across the AL/NL (only exception being interleague). With the 3 division winners and wild cards, I would play a round 1 round robin. Each team plays each other once. It would take 10 days with 3 games the first day, travel day, 3 games the next day alternating AL/NL so there are a guaranteed 3 games every day. The division winners would get 3 of the 5 games at home, the wild cards would host 2 games. Once the round robin is finished, the top 2 teams would then meet for a traditional 7 game series.
I think this format brings a lot to the table:
More strategy for managers to align pitchers up against the right opponent.
A distinct advantage to win the division and get 3 home games.
The best 6 teams are going to get into the playoffs regardless of which division they are in
Guaranteed baseball for 10 days instead of the days were all 4 series could be over by sweeps and we have to wait 5 days for another game.
A schedule as short as possible for a 6 team playoffs, only adding 2 additional days to the overall schedule.
What do you guys think? Any major holes in this plan? I’m sure old-schoolers would hate it, but I think it would identify the best 2 teams – the ones that are best against the cream of the crop.
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EJ Fagan Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Hmm, that’s interesting. How would you handle a 3-way tie?
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Chuck Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 2:47 pm
Ties would be an issue. I guess I would do a tiebreaker of:
1. Run Differential in Round Robin
2. Regular Season Record or Regular Season head-to-head
Or if there are tiebreakers that make more sense than that, I would just use a tiebreaker instead of another round sandwhiched inbetween the 1st and 2nd as I’m trying to limit total days and days that could possibly have no baseball at all.
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Maybe I’m missing something, but Bud wants to add two teams total to the playoffs for 2012, which would make it five in each league.
The two wild card teams would play a one or three game playoff, then the playoffs would continue as it currently stands.
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Moshe Mandel Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
That was my impression as well.
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TedK Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
I was just about to post the same thing. I thought Bud is looking into adding two total — only one per league.
The complication with idle days is not just how many days the new round takes, but also that there have to be at least two idle days to allow for tiebreaker games for who makes it as a wildcard.
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EJ Fagan Reply:
April 7th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
That would make sense. Though I read it differently. We’ll see.
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I understand the desire to increase the teams in the playoffs, but I’m against it. There already is a 162 game playoff, and it’s called the regular season.
If we need to change things, I would be in favor of is creating 4 divisions in each league without a wild card.
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