How would you feel if the MLB added an in-season tournament?

[mmc]

The NBA is in talks to add an in-season tournament to their regular season, and it makes me wonder if it's only a matter of time before the other 3 major sports leagues in the US follow suit.  I know that the idea has been met with a lot of backlash, as people find it hard to see value in a tournament that isn't the postseason, but I think it could be a great way to break up the monotony of the regular season, which currently only has All Star weekend breaking it up in any way.  With baseball having the longest regular season, I could see it better fitting in the MLB than anywhere.  

 

What are your ideas for how the MLB could come up with a fun and interesting in-season tournament?  This is the base line of what the NBA has planned

 

[OhtaniSan]

My rough idea:

A 1-game elimination tournament is held at the halfway mark of the season, followed by a longer "all star break" to give players more rest before the 2nd half of the season resumes. The winner of the tournament has an opportunity to lock down one of the wild card spots in the playoffs.

[Dtwncbad]

Sorry if I am missing something obvious but what exactly would be the purpose of an in-season tournament?

 

[AngelsLakersFan]

1 minute ago, Dtwncbad said:

Sorry if I am missing something obvious but what exactly would be the purpose of an in-season tournament?

 

To win I presume.

[Vlad27Trout27]

We'd someout won;t even get into it. They've had a 2nd/3rd wc and we somehow get worse...

[Dtwncbad]

Just now, AngelsLakersFan said:

To win I presume.

Unless it was to secure a postseason spot, I don’t think anybody is going to actually care about it.

Further, I really doubt teams are going to want to risk injury for a meaningless trophy  when it could disrupt their roster for the actual season.

I guess I don’t get it.  

[mmc]

5 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Sorry if I am missing something obvious but what exactly would be the purpose of an in-season tournament?

 

Touched on this in my post, breaking up the monotony of the regular season.  And money, but that goes without saying

[Dtwncbad]

Just now, mmc said:

Touched on this in my post, breaking up the monotony of the regular season.

If the season is monotonous then adding an exhibition seems like exactly the wrong thing to do.

If something has to be done to address monotony, then either shorten the season or have two halves where winning the first half gets you into the postseason.

Adding more meaningless games in an exhibition I think would ultimately contribute to monotony.

[Dtwncbad]

If we talk about the major league season as if it we’re broken into quarters. . . .

There is widespread interest in the first quarter because it’s a new season and everybody has some hope.

There is widespread interest in the fourth quarter because the pennant races are in the home stretch and even if your team is out of it, you probably are following what is going on heading toward the postseason.

It’s the second and third quarter that can feel monotonous for fans of teams that are flailing and clearly not contending.

If you want to fix that, then do a first half and a second half winner.

Now you have interest in quarter one with everyone having a chance, interest in quarter two because that is the home stretch of the second half, interest in quarter three because again everyone is starting fresh with a new chance and then obviously quarter four is the second final stretch of the pennant race.

This also would help teams survive a big injury either early or late because they would have a shot to compete in the half they were healthier.

Anyway, this seems so much more sensible than adding a tournament nobody would really care about adding additional meaningless games.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Dtwncbad

[tdawg87]

Can they simply expand the playoffs to 30 teams?

[WicketMaiden]

You could do something like the cup tournaments in football (soccer), but you would need to expand each league to 16 teams to make it work.

Each 16 team league would then draw lots and decide 8 first round match-ups (no seeding) - those would be five game series at the home of whichever team was drawn in the match first, the winner of the series goes through to the next round, the losers are out and have some time to do more training or play make-up games.

The 8 winning teams are then drawn randomly to play each other in the next round, again, all games at the venue of the first teams drawn. Then four winners in the round after that until you have two left to play the final series. It would be pretty cool to play that series at a neutral venue, maybe even outside the US, sometime around the all-star break. Would be an excellent opportunity to advertise the game to a new audience without messing with the main season too much.

Prize would be a bye into the first round proper of the post-season, plus a trophy and kudos and a chance to showcase the game at neutral venues all around the world.

I'd watch knock-out mid-season baseball, that's for sure.

EDIT: Instead of yet another in-division fairly meaningless 4 game series against the A's, we'd have a knock-out series against whoever, with a chance  to get into the play-offs by winning just four sudden-death series through the first few months of the season. 

[TempeAngel]

43 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

Sorry if I am missing something obvious but what exactly would be the purpose of an in-season tournament?

 

Well, there is the money,,,

Yep, money.

[AngelsMetsWS]

Ugh, not a fan. I like a long regular season but the trend is to make it matter less and less. 
I’ll bet the regular season gets shortened soon. 
 

[Revad]

35 minutes ago, Dtwncbad said:

he If we talk about the major league season as if it we’re broken into quarters. . . .

There is widespread interest in the first quarter because it’s a new season and everybody has some hope.

There is widespread interest in the fourth quarter because the pennant races are in the home stretch and even if your team is out of it, you probably are following what is going on heading toward the postseason.

It’s the second and third quarter that can feel monotonous for fans of teams that are flailing and clearly not contending.

If you want to fix that, then do a first half and a second half winner.

Now you have interest in quarter one with everyone having a chance, interest in quarter two because that is the home stretch of the second half, interest in quarter three because again everyone is starting fresh with a new chance and then obviously quarter four is the second final stretch of the pennant race.

This also would help teams survive a big injury either early or late because they would have a shot to compete in the half they were healthier.

Anyway, this seems so much more sensible than adding a tournament nobody would really care about adding additional meaningless games.

This makes sense, it would help Angels fans for sure.  It’s good for the owners because it would add two more teams to the playoffs.  I guess when teams have the best overall record could be added too.

Edited August 7, 2022 by Revad

[Taylor]

More ways for Angel players to get injured. No thanks.

[greginpsca]

The season isn't long enough? Hell no. That is what playoffs are for.

 

 

[arch stanton]

Would they by chance be playing baseball games during this tournament? I already have access to lots of baseball games to watch during the baseball season involving the best players own the planet

[AngelsLakersFan]

If we’re just throwing out ideas, I’d like to see some separation between the regular season and the post season. The idea is to give a little more recognition to division winners and the best record in the league. Maintain the divisions, celebrate those championships and let them build some history. 

Treat the post session like a tournament, change the format regularly, have some fun with it to keep it interesting and allow it to establish a unique identity. Play with smaller rosters and maybe some other unique rules. 

As for a mid season tournament how about divisional all star teams playing in a round robin format? Get a sweet trophy for it and let the winning division have bragging rights for the year. This will reinforce the value of the division championships. The results could be used for seeding, tie breakers, and home field advantage in the post season tournament.

This would allow the All Star game to be moved to the couple of open weeks following the end of the regular season. The time could also be used to play some exhibitions between interesting teams like a team from Japan or Korea.

I think they could make it work if they rolled back the season to 154 games and eliminated the last two weeks of spring training. It would be fun to talk about truly great teams as teams that win the World Series, have the best record in the regular season and played in the strongest division.

[Puget Sound Angel]

C'mon the WNBA does gimmicks like this. 

[AngelsLakersFan]

7 minutes ago, Puget Sound Angel said:

C'mon the WNBA does gimmicks like this. 

Right, they do it because they are irrelevant, which is the general direction MLB is headed in. 

[Angel Oracle]

How is the regular season any more monotonous now than at any time in the past 60+ years (original expansion)?

Just shorten the dang games themselves!