Ken Rosenthal’s New Playoff Format is Brilliant
MLB on Fox reporter, FoxSports.com senior baseball writer, and MLB Network Insider Ken Rosenthal published an article earlier today on a new potential playoff format for Major League Baseball and his ideas are brilliant.
Rosenthal mentions how new MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred, is open to new suggestions and how this could very well be a suggestion he should look into.
"A split season – two halves of 81 games each – would improve the game in two notable ways, creating September-like urgency throughout the season and giving teams that stink in the first half the chance to start anew in the second.We’re talking greater excitement, increased fan interest and yes, potentially higher ratings for networks such as FOX. We are not talking about abandoning the tradition of the sport."
In a situation similar to that of Minor League Baseball (exceptions: Triple-A International and Pacific Coast Leagues, Double-A Eastern League and Short-Season Class-A New York-Penn League) with first-half winners and second-half winners making the playoffs it makes baseball in the first three months of the season truly mean something.
We hear it time-and-time-again, “Oh, the games don’t even matter until mid-August anyway.” Well, this solves that problem easily.
"Here is one possibility, preserving the current postseason structure:* The AL and NL teams with the best overall records in each half would qualify for at least the wild-card game.* The division winners after 162 games would qualify for the Division Series.* If either wild-card qualifier won its division, the team with the next-best record over 162 games would go to the wild-card game."
This new system would reward great first-half teams, great second-half teams, and most important… great teams throughout the entire season.
Look at the Milwaukee Brewers right now. They are 16-32 and are 11 games out of the second National League Wild Card spot as of this date. They’ve got some great pieces on their team, but in this year’s format there is no way they can overcome some of their early season injury woes to leapfrog 10 teams and make the playoffs.
In Rosenthal’s new system the Brew Crew would have a fresh slate following the beginning of the second-half.
The major road block however is scheduling.
"Good luck trying to achieve the proper balance between home and road games, division and non-division games. Good luck creating an even distribution of off-days, accounting for postponements and addressing tie-breaker possibilities. Then again, when is the schedule ever fair, anyway?"
The last line cracks me up because it seems that the scheduling is always off-beat.
For example, at the beginning of this season the St. Louis Cardinals were enjoying their fourth off-day on the same day the San Francisco Giants were receiving their first off-day of the season. St. Louis was sitting at 8-3, while the Giants were suffering en route to a 4-10 start to the season.
Funny how one day off for the Giants allowed them to pull everything together and have gone a league-best 25-10 since their first off-day.
Another problem arises with postponements and a team like the Colorado Rockies has plenty of experience with that in 2015 so far with four games being postponed thus far.
Finally, what about the low-revenue ball clubs in their pursuit of playing competitive ball with teams from bigger markets with more spending money?
"Remember how former commissioner Bud Selig used to talk about “hope and faith” for low-revenue clubs when pushing competitive balance? The split season would be an extension of that philosophy. Many low-revenue teams cannot sustain success over 162 games. But over 81? Different story."
A team like the Houston Astros could benefit from this greatly in 2015 as their core of youngsters have propelled them to an American League leading 30-18 record so far. Can they all maintain this momentum all year? Who knows. If they could receive a playoff spot (at least an AL Wild Card birth) for their play in the first half it would be a huge morale boost for the club when the long summer months hit in just a few weeks.
I like the way that Rosenthal presents his ideas in this potential new MLB playoff format and I highly suggest you give his article a read. Baseball will always be a revolutionary sport and something like this could very well change the landscape of the sport for years to come.