OC Register: MLB’s postseason is vastly outshining the regular season, so let’s expand it

[AngelsWin.com]

It’ll never happen.

Not in a million years.

There’s too much money at stake.

Still, we can dream. From the time pitchers and catchers reported to spring training, to the first round of the playoffs, the 2019 season has amounted to a brilliant advertisement for a better way to divvy up eight months’ worth of baseball games.

Four teams had never won 100 games in the same season before 2019. Four teams had never lost 100 games in the same season, either. The disparity between the best of the best and the worst of the worst teams has never looked so large.

The regular-season schedule does not discriminate between winners and losers, however. Everyone had to play 162 games – almost. The Detroit Tigers managed to lose 114 games even though rain canceled a game from their final series against the Chicago White Sox. The two teams were left with a decidedly uneven 161-game season.

Consider it a step in the right direction.

Until 1961, teams played no more than 154 games in a season unless a tiebreaker was needed to determine the World Series participants. Would fans of the Tigers, Royals (59-103), Marlins (57-105) and Orioles (54-108) complain about four fewer home dates? Would fans of the Astros (107-55), Dodgers (106-56), Yankees (103-59) and Twins (101-61) complain about trading a few summer games against the cellar-dwelling teams in their division for an extra playoff game or two?

“Yes” is the hopeful answer here. Mine is not merely a plea for more aesthetically pleasing baseball, with better teams playing better games more of the time. There’s reason to believe the disparity of 2019 is not a fluke.

Ever since the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros won the World Series in 2016 and 2017, respectively, their roster-building model – stripping the organization for parts, then rebuilding for the long term – has gone mainstream. No longer controversial, the “wholesale rebuild” has become accepted practice. It’s playoffs or bust.

For teams that bust, there are consequences. In January I spoke with economics professor JC Bradbury, who had just studied the economics of “tanking” in professional sports. In MLB, Bradbury found that postseason participation was associated with a $5 million increase in per-team revenue. The Seattle Mariners have baseball’s longest playoff drought, at 18 seasons and counting. That’s a lot of lost revenue.

Subsequently, we’ve seen the impact of prolonged rebuilds on attendance. The Marlins brought up the rear this season, with an average of 10,016 fans per game. The four biggest year-over-year attendance declines belonged to teams in the throes of a rebuild: Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco and Detroit. A fascinating follow-up to Bradbury’s 2018 research would explore how much regular-season revenue each team lost – attendance and otherwise – by virtue of rebuilding their rosters.

Regardless, according to Forbes’ most recent team-by-team value rankings, even the poorest team by revenue (the Oakland A’s) pulled in $218 million as measured by EBITDA. Since $5 million is relatively little in the grander financial scheme, Major League Baseball could use a more powerful mechanism for incentivizing teams to make the playoffs.

Here’s an easy one that fans and owners alike can get behind: expand the postseason. Make the Division Series round a best-of-seven affair. Make the wild-card participants play a best-of-3. Give the best teams more games, more opportunities to fill their stands and better games against better competition.

Convincing the players, who must participate in the longest season in professional sports, might be more difficult. A tradeoff is in order. Roll back the regular season to 154 games, and the league might have a starting point for negotiating an expanded postseason with the players’ union.

Those conversations are better left for the offseason, but now is the best time to highlight its necessity. The typical postseason game, to this point in October, has been vastly more entertaining than the typical game from April to September. For the sake of the baseball, let’s hope the two sides find a way to make the money make sense.

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[Dtwncbad]

In before somebody says in before

[Hubs]

Expand to 32 teams. 2 divisions of 8 per league. Play your own division 12 times and the opposite one 6. Play one division in the other league and your rival for a total of 30 games. (12x7) + (6x8) + (30) = 162.

2 Division Winners per league get byes. 

4 wildcards per league play one another in a three game series in 3 days. Simultaneously playing some prime time games.
 

4 Division series start Friday and are 5 game series played in 6 days. Simultaneously playing some prime time games.
 

2 championship series starts Friday. 7

game series played in 9 days. 
 

World Series starts following Tuesday and is played over 9 days.

There will be off days over the 27 day Schedule but you get as many as 53 games in 27 days. With 5 off days lol. 

October Madness feel. 

[Lou]

5 hours ago, AngelsWin.com said:

Four teams had never won 100 games in the same season before 2019.

2 have been eliminated and another one may be in the same boat tomorrow

[yk9001]

Completely disagree. The only thing interesting in the postseason is Do or Die games.

Keep watering this stuff down and you're going to find Major League Baseball Playoff games on truTV. Is that really what you want?

[yk9001]

The last play off games in Tampa, St Louis, and Washington DC did not sell out. I did not see the attendance for Atlanta or La last night. But go ahead and water it down some more.

[Blarg]

These arguments for curtailing the regular season while extending the post season completely neglect to include every part of playing a single game at a venue. Not just the television rights that are long term contracts that have to be renegotiated but every players salary and the operation of the field, vendor contracts, parking, ticket sales, security, etc. 

If I had a magic wand, sure. Wipe all of September off the books as regular season games and turn that month into playoff madness. The amount of teams involved doesn't matter as long as the first week of October is the World Series. No more fucking stupid late season 40 degree game time temps.  

[Claude]

The Rays and the A’s qualified for the playoffs. How far down the ladder to we need to go? 

...oh wait

[Second Base]

I'd keep it as is, but expand the wild card play in game to a 3 game series and the division series to 7 games.

[AngelsLakersFan]

The more you expand the less interesting the playoff become. The more you expand the less interesting the regular season becomes.