Whaddaya know? The league and players’ association CAN agree on something… and it’s the baseball league and union I’m writing about. Amazing!
They’ve agreed to expand the playoffs for this season thusly: All the division winners are in, of course. All the second place teams are in too. Then the next two teams with the best records round it out. The teams are then seeded and play a best of three series at the higher seed’s home stadium. The remains 4 teams in each league then play a best of 5 Division Series. The ALCS, NLCS, and WS will be best of 7 like normal. With no byes, the playoffs will be more random than normal, on top of the unpredictability of the short season.
Each round of the playoffs comes with $50M for the players to split up, so the enticement was clear. Regardless of my personal feelings of shortening the season and at the same time expanding the playoffs (would prefer a longer regular season instead), and agreements between the two sides is good to see.
Another reason to completely disregard the 2020 season. 16 teams is insane and way too much. Why even bother with a season, just make the entire thing a round robin tournament and call it a day.
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But what if the O’s are a little better than thought, get off to a good start, are relatively lucky in terms of injuries and Covid infections and get into the playoffs with say a 27 – 33 record. And then, of course, end the post season of a Covid ravaged Yankee team.
Good No?
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Forget t sixteen team system. Just buy Participation Trophies for all 30 teams. They can all get together and hug in a socially responsible way at the end of the season.
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