MLB considering playoff changes
Posted: Tue Feb 11, 2020 8:50 pm
Major League Baseball is mulling significant changes to its postseason, including increasing the number of teams from 10 to 14 and adding a reality TV-type format to determine which teams play each other in an expanded wild-card round, sources told ESPN.
MLB is considering a move in which each league would have three division winners and four wild-card teams making the postseason starting in 2022, sources said. The best team in the league would receive a bye into the division series. The two remaining division winners and the wild-card team with the best record of the four would each host all games of a best-of-three series in the opening round.
Once the teams clinch and the regular season ends, the plan gets congested:
The division winner with the second-best record would select its wild-card opponent from the three wild-card winners not hosting a series.
The division winner with the worst record would then choose its opponent from the remaining two wild-card teams.
The final matchup would pit the wild-card winner with the best record against the wild-card team not yet chosen.
All of the selections, sources said, would be unveiled live on television the Sunday night of the final regular-season games.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/286 ... r-teams-14