New playoffs format discussed for 2022:
https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-conside...tseason-format
Interestingly, this is somewhat similar to the NBA format I proposed on PFA a few months ago, including byes for the best teams.
The new proposed MLB format:
Quote:
The team with the best record in both the American and National League would receive a first-round bye, automatically advancing to the Division Series. The other two division winners would host all three games in a best-of-three Wild Card round, as would the Wild Card team with the next-best record.
Three other Wild Card teams would also advance to the best-of-three round, though none would host a game.
The division winner with the second-best record in the league would then get to decide which of the bottom three Wild Card teams it wants to play in the opening round -- a decision that would be aired on live television on the final Sunday night of the season, just hours after the regular season concludes.
LOL @ the live announcement of which team they want to play. That part sounds dumb. That sounds like they're publicly humiliating the worst of the wildcard teams.
The above sounds confusing, but they're saying that four (!!) wildcard teams would exist in each league. WTF!!!
That's a horrible idea. You'd make the playoffs if you finished just barely over .500, and it would open a serious possibility each year of sub-.500 teams making the playoffs!
This is not good, especially because MLB games have such variance, and the worst team can easily beat the best team in a short series. (It's different than the NBA, where the much better team almost always prevails.)