Baseball Considers Expanding Its Playoff Field

Under this proposal, the six first-round matchups would be best-of-three games, and the team with the better record would host all three games. That would mean an end to the winner-take-all wild-card games that have been faulted by some fans as an unfair way to decide a team’s season after 162 games.

Had the proposal been in place last season, the Indians, the Red Sox, the Mets and the Diamondbacks would also have made the playoffs.

As with all changes to baseball’s rules, the proposal would have to be agreed to by the players’ union.

“Expanding the playoffs in a sensible way is something worth discussing when part of a much more comprehensive conversation about the current state of our game,” Tony Clark, the president of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said.

For decades, baseball allowed only two teams into the postseason, the American and National League champions, who met in the World Series. In 1969, the playoffs were expanded to four teams, and in 1994 to eight. The most recent expansion, to 10 teams, came in 2012.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/sports/baseball/mlb-postseason-changes.html?emc=rss&partner=rss