MLB’s 16-team playoff plan would be a disaster beyond this season

It’ll be fine for a season as weird as this one, but a 16-team playoff should not be permanent. 

If you were up late on Thursday night on the east coast during the non-blowout portion of the Dodgers-Giants opener, you definitely watched Karl Ravech, Eduardo Perez and Tim Kurkjian try not to talk over each other via Zoom during the broadcast. If you’ve ever been on a group video call, you know it’s difficult.

What you may have missed, however, was the trio talking about baseball’s expanded playoffs that was agreed to just hours before the regular season began. Eight teams from each league will reach the postseason and play best-of-three series all hosted by the higher seeds. During the Yankees’ rain-shortened win over the Nationals earlier on, Matt Vasgersian, Alex Rodriguez and Commissioner Rob Manfred all gushed over how good this will be for the game. On a related note, seven of those eight series this year will be on ESPN.

Only Kurkjian had the guts to say what is undeniably true, that a 16-team playoff field in a full season would be an unmitigated disaster. Would it be good for TV revenue and increase the owners’ coffers? Of course. But it so greatly diminishes the regular season that the extra money isn’t worth it.

The NBA is often criticized for its regular season not mattering or lacking relevance, because more than half the teams make the playoffs anyway. Imagine doubling the regular season of the NBA or NHL and then telling a team like the Milwaukee Bucks or Boston Bruins who dominated during an 82-game stretch that if you lose two of your first three playoff games, you’re out. It’s over.

The Dodgers won 106 games last season, but split their first two Division Series games against the Nationals last season. They worked too hard over the regular season to then have an elimination game that quickly in the playoffs. Sure, Los Angeles would’ve been able to choose between the Diamondbacks, Cubs or Mets in the first round in 2019, but that’s not enough of an advantage or a reward for a team that achieved regular season excellence.

In professional sports where there’s a postseason, teams have been historically given an advantage for being the best regular season team. In hockey and basketball, top seeds over 82 games play the worst teams and have to lose four times over seven games to be eliminated. In the NFL, the top teams in each conference don’t even have to play in the first round after a 16-game season, which based on my math is less than one-tenth of a baseball season.

So now baseball’s gonna play 162 games and force the best team to win two out of three or they’re out? Getting all the games at home isn’t enough. As Kurkjian said, and as any competent baseball fan knows, teams lose two of three at home all the time.

Though Vasgersian and A-Rod’s interview of Manfred on Thursday was more known for Rodriguez seemingly complimenting the commish while openly bidding to buy the Mets, or Manfred not wearing a mask or a visible bolt of lightning coming on in the background, an innocent mistake was what stood out the most to me.

In asking Manfred about the playoff format, which had just been introduced a few hours prior, Vasgersian asked if the top teams would get byes. Of course, the commissioner said no, but Vasgersian was asking a logical question. How does it make sense for teams who dominated the regular season to be treated this way?

If I rooted for the Yankees, Dodgers or Astros for six months and knew that all the hard work the team put in could be over against a team that struggled all season, I wouldn’t pay attention as much during the regular season, because each game means way less than in years past.

The same applies to the shortened 60-game regular season in 2020. If three more teams in each league make the playoffs, the regular season means less than it would if only 10 teams made it. It rewards mediocrity and punishes greatness when there are 60 games, and tremendously damages the sport of baseball if this playoff format takes place when there are 162 games.