St. Louis Cardinals: The new postseason idea is a joke

The new postseason idea is terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad. Can you imagine the St. Louis Cardinals selecting to play the Cubs for the playoffs? I cannot.

On Monday, Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that Major League Baseball is “seriously weighing” expanding the postseason to seven teams, where the top team in each league gets a bye, and the top two Wild Card teams to select their opponents. St. Louis Cardinals fans rightly thought this was a joke.

In essence, baseball becomes reality TV such as The Bachelor and the top two wild-card teams get to hand the rose to their choice. Count me out.

Major League Baseball’s goal in expanding the number of teams into the postseason is to limit tanking. From the Post:

"Any change in playoff format must be collectively bargained with the union; the CBA — like the TV deals with ESPN and Turner — expires after next season. In theory, though, additional playoff teams should provide elements that the union has been wanting. More playoff openings would motivate more teams to try, which should mean less tanking.If more teams are viable for the playoffs, they will spend more to chase a spot. A club that projects itself internally to, say, 81 wins would think about adding to get to 84 or 85 and have a chance of being even one of seven playoff teams per league."

Now there are a couple of problems I have with this argument. First, certain teams will still tank to get the high draft picks regardless. Second, the actual MLB product will not improve. Teams might choose to not spend if the talent they have now is good enough to make the playoff at 84-85 wins.

Dan Szymborski of FanGraphs also cited this idea on Twitter, noting that teams will actually be less incentive to reach more wins. Click on the link to read all of his thoughts.

1/People who think that larger playoffs means more teams trying to be competitive are missing the boat for a few very crucial reasons.
— Dan Szymborski (@DSzymborski) February 11, 2020

We saw last year during the NLCS how few fans attended Busch, and this was for a team with 91 wins, a Central Division title, and a playoff series over Atlanta. Do we really think those empty seats will be filled in 2022 if, let’s say, an 85 win team makes it?

Needless to say, this idea is not viewed highly by some:

No idea who made this new playoff format proposal, but Rob is responsible for releasing it, so I’ll direct this to you, Rob Manfred. Your proposal is absurd for too many reasons to type on twitter and proves you have absolutely no clue about baseball. You’re a joke.
— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) (@BauerOutage) February 11, 2020

https://twitter.com/DidiG18/status/1227072027506376704

Half the league in the postseason doesn’t generate more hope. That’s cute though. It DOES generate potential POSTSEASON revenue for teams that haven’t spent $ to be competitive. This is LOWERING THE BAR. Just a mechanism to allow the tanking to be veiled as being competitive. https://t.co/fVweuohlzo
— Dallas Braden (@DALLASBRADEN209) February 11, 2020

Last thought about this and then I am done ranting: If we want our game to get fixed, I encourage everyone to listen to Trevor Bauer’s six-minute video posted right afterward.

Take note, Rob Manfried.

The new postseason idea is terrible, awful, no-good, and very bad. Can you imagine the St. Louis Cardinals selecting to play the Cubs for the playoffs? I cannot.

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