Frankly I’ve figured a 154 game regular season with expanded playoffs (yes, playoffs) is likely for a while and don’t have a huge problem with it.
14 teams would be 3 division winners and 4 wc’s in each league. So a couple of play in games , then a wc series, then playoffs as we’re currently accustomed?
I fear it would be very much NFL style. Bye for 1, and 2-7. 3-6, 4-5 matchups.
Probably, but at this point I don’t really care. It seems inevitable. The saving grace is that those off-periods may be more of a penalty than a blessing. It would be hilarious to watch the #1 Dodgers lose because they’re out of sync after sitting out a week or 10 days.
Thoughts and prayers for the hated fucking dojers if that were the case.
If the Dodgers get fucked by new rules, just tell them Bauer said it was consensual.
Do just enough to squeak into the postseason and then hope for a hot streak becomes the most logical and fiscally responsible way to architect and manage a team in any of these expanded post season scenarios. Nauseating.
Edited to add: just look at the Astro’s last three WS appearances. The multi-year juggernaut team won at a .333 clip.
Everyone becomes the Rays: build the cheapest 86-win team possible and hope for a break. Except now you can do it with 83 and you don’t really have to hope for a break.
This is why the players don’t want the 14-team playoff. It doesn’t really encourage teams to sign better players. They don’t have to really get better, they just have to hang within six or eight games of .500 through August and say they were in the race.
We’ve gone from ghost runners to ghost wins
Oh, bullshit. I cannot believe the players proposed it.
I also can’t believe MLB didn’t say “why didn’t we think of that first?”
I believe KBO has used that format for a while. It’s a decent way of giving the higher seed a stronger advantage.
Any news from the meeting yesterday? We are traveling and I’ve been having a hard time getting anything. Incidentally we were in Manhattan the same time as the negotiators. Did the Freedom Tower and visited the 9/11 Museum. Deeply affecting stuff and extraordinarily well done in every respect, I thought.
Melvin Edwards said on Facebook that the players had agreed to no shift, a pitch clock, no computer umps.
I saw multiple reporters on Twitter last night characterizing the talks as “deadlocked”.
I think the “No shift” stuff is so wrong. Managers should be able to place their players anywhere they want, no matter how crazy it may be.
I agree. It’s arbitrary bullshit like the batter-faced minimum.
Would heartily endorse the pitch clock, though I wonder how long it would take for them to replace the time saved in-game with longer breaks between innings for commercials. Although I suppose I’d take that over in-game commercials…
There is a pitch clock at Express games, and the guy who runs it is a friend. He says it NEVER is enforced.
A no-shift rule is going to lead to the same infuriating decisions one sees with the charging arc in basketball or offsides with VAR in soccer. Just wait until a winning Yankee run is allowed or disallowed on what would have the final out because the shortstop’s toe was touching some imaginary line.
It’s arbitrary bullshit and I don’t like it.
But the batter faced minimum does lead to an idea - what if instead of banning the shift, it has a minimum? If you shift a fielder he has to remain on that side for the next two batters.