FRIDAY, 1:15pm: MLB has officially announced the expanded format. For 2012 only the Division Series will open with two home games for lower ranked teams, and continue with three home games for top ranked teams. This will cut down on travel time and make the Wild Card play-in game possible.
THURSDAY, 6:19 pm: The new playoff system will not be announced today, reports ESPN's Jayson Stark (on Twitter). MLB.com's Barry M. Bloom says talks are still ongoing, with the biggest logistical problem being the time between the end of the regular season and the start of the LDS round. At the moment they only have two days for potential tie-breakers, travel, weather delays, and the Wild Card play-in games.
WEDNESDAY, 3:32pm: MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner told Bob Nightengale of USA Today that "we'll have an answer in the next couple of days." Nightengale confirms that players and owners have agreed to expand the postseason for 2012.
1:26pm: The agreement isn't final but will happen, adds Rosenthal. He says the announcement for tomorrow isn't certain, but is possible. Rosenthal's full story is here.
1:13pm: The MLB playoffs will expand from eight to ten teams for 2012, tweets Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports, with an announcement coming tomorrow.
The non-division winners in each league with the two best records will be the wild card teams, meaning it is now possible for a third-place team to reach the postseason. Each's league's wild card pair will face off in a one-game playoff.
Two divisions
NLCS and ALCS
World Series
#OldSchool
I absolutely hate that idea.
Which means less playoff games, which means less money for MLB.
#NotHappening
Whatever you do, don’t plan this an extra year in advance.
Wait… What?
Edit: …Was supposed to be a reply to “Awesome Anahiem Angels”
I’ll take care of that for you.
How come you have two profiles now?
Ones from the iPhone app. It won’t let me use my normal one.
Same does that for me with the Droid.
It’s annoying. If you click on my profile, it’s not even JacksTigers, it’s hockeyball.
Title: MLB To Announce Expanded Playoffs for 2012
First line: “The new playoff system will not be announced today…”
How anticlimactic…
Can’t wait for the 2nd place wild card to play a 1 game playoff with the 3rd place wild card cause they’re tied, so they can play a 1 game playoff with the 1st place wild card.
Wait… What?
Imagine the fact that the A’s could make a possible Cardinals-esque playoff run.
More than in favor of this new system. It’s absurd that a team with 88-89 wins can have the same advantages a team with 116 can.
At least this way one of them goes into the playoffs hopefully burning their ace or #2 in one of these games.
I like the changes, but I don’t see how they resolve the problem you speak of. The Wild Card team often has a better record than 1 (sometimes even 2) of the division winners.
Well I mean a non division winner. If the Braves are the Wild Card next year, they shouldn’t have almost the same advantages as the Phillies, with the only difference being homefield.
I hate the idea of a one game series. That completely de-legitimizes the regular season. It should be a 3 game series or nothing
Exactly.
Might as well just cut the season to 140 games, give the division winners byes and put the other 24 teams in a March Madness style tournament.
It’s all about playoff excitement, right?
I don’t understand how it de-legitimizes the regular season.
As far as I’m concerned the original Wild Card shouldn’t be in the post season anyway… I could care less if their season ends in one day.
I hate, hate, hate this. Why not cut the season to 81 games, let 16 teams in, and just play 3 months of playoffs? More is better, right? MLB could be just like the NBA!
I don’t like the Wild Card at all. More Wild Card is worse. It’s bad enough that they cheapened the season with interleague play, but adding more playoff teams after a marathon season makes no sense. We’ve already had a team make the playoffs after losing their division by 20 games. Now we can have two, three, or even four!
Between this and the Astros being forced to the AL (I’m an Astros fan of 40+ years), I think I’ve had enough of Bud Selig trying to wreck the game.
After 17 years, it’s time to cancel Extra Innings and find something better to do with my time. Congratulations, Bud. It took a while, but you’ve finally managed to get me to lose interest in the game.
Grandpa Joe, why you so mad?
You’d better get off his lawn.
Brewers should have just gone back to the AL where they belong.
It didn’t take the Astros being bad for that long for you to lose interest. I have been a die hard Orioles fan for almost thirty years. AN ORIOLES FAN! Leaving because there is an extra wild card? Give me a break.
This is possibly the worst idea that the mlb has ever gone through with…a one-game playoff in baseball? I understand that the Orioles, Rays, and Blue Jays hate the current system, but why screw up the playoffs for three teams?
The current system seems to have done pretty well for the Rays.
Excellent.
Where has this been announced? It’s not on the main site and no Google search bears this out.
2-3 format is a joke. Don’t mind the 1 game playoff btwn Wild Cards
EDIT: Nevermind I guess it is only for this year and back to 2-2-1 next year
And even 2-2-1, why a team that couldn’t win their division should have 2 games at home when its a best of 5 series? give them 1 at home and wish them luck. When two divisional ‘champions’ face against each other, ok 2-2-1 its ok.
“This will cut down on travel time and make the Wild Card play-in game possible.”
It’ll also help Bud Selig coordinate the hotel arrangements. Since, you know, that’s why determining home field advantage during the all star game is important.
I thought we got rid of the 2/3 format for a reason. So now the best team in baseball could play only ONE home playoff game, while the worst team could potentially play THREE?????
How is this fair?
Well, the worst team in baseball probably wouldn’t play any playoff games.
He didn’t said IN BASEBALL, when talking about playoffs it is implied he is talking about the worst that could make the playoffs. And I agree with him, a wild card should be ‘penalized’ and given at much ONE game at home and nothing more.
It was a joke, guy.
The WC winner gets a watered down home field advantage? Huh?
Don’t have home field advantage in the division series? Well… now you almost do!
It’s still considered home field advantage considering you get more home games, but nontheless, this is DUMB.
Last year, the last day of the regular season was one of the most amazing days in baseball. By having this, we can basically guarantee the excitement every year.
From the comments I read, I think I am one of the few who likes this idea. There should be emphasis for winning the division. Look at NFL for example, the division winner has a bye while the other team battles it out. This move puts emphasis on winning the division in order to have your rotation set.
By having a one game playoff, the wildcard teams will need to burn their ace. This messes up their rotation should they make it to the DS. There was a lot of hate when wildcards were introduced and it all turned out good. I like this move.
I don’t think it was necessary to implement the change for this season.
Since the scheduling is very tight, the LDS will be set at 2-3 as
opposed to a 2-2-1 format, which I don’t think is good. For the years
thereafter, the LDS will revert back to its regular 2-2-1 format.
I guess Selig & company want to sort out the WC issue now, so for
the next off-season they can focus on other issues.
For example the Astro’s move to the AL West will cause changes to the
regular season schedule. Inter-league games will be held throughout the
year, but does that necessarily mean more inter-league games in general?
That’s going to be the topic for the next off-season.
Artificially-created excitement is just that: artificial. The reason the games 162 last year were so exciting is because they were unexpected, the results of a season (really, a month) where the unlikely-bordering-on-impossible happened. It came out of left field (pardon the expression), which is what made it so exciting.
Now every year Bud Selig is basically starting us off by saying “Hey everyone! Guess what! The end of the season is going to be ~exciting~, oooooh.” It is simply lacking.
“The reason the games 162 last year were so exciting is because they were unexpected”.
I think it was the contrary, it was highly expected by almost everyone, almost every fan wanted to see that, and when it happened, fans were exhilarant because they got what they wanted, they felt united even for one day, and while the bosox were crying away their loss, Orioles and Rays fans were in festive mode, while the Yankees only cracked a oooh so slight smile of sweet sweet schadenfreude.
My biggest problem with this idea is that the wild card team, even if they have to burn their ace in the Wild Card game, will have their ace back and ready to go by the team their team hits the road in game 3/4/5. So, they get an incredible advantage.
Its a legit concern. I think because of the length of the season it makes sense for there to be two wild cards, but there are going to be a lot of little problems like this they have to address and iron out.
Well, of course they’ll have their ace back for one of the games. But the other team will get to pitch their ace twice. I don’t understand this ‘advantage’.
So they just shouldn’t get to pitch their ace at all? There’s a reason your best pitchers pitch first, and it’s so they can pitch again late in the series if they have to. Wild card team may get to pitch their ace against the other team’s #3 in game 3, but the other team had the advantage in the first two games of the series like they were supposed to.
2-3 format? What the heck. Well at least it’s only for this year.
I don’t think the 2-3 is a HUGE misstep… I mean, the best team in baseball should be able to win one road playoff game with their two best starters going.
Game 3’s usually the most important game of the series anyway.
I suppose. And regardless they are still with home field even if they lose the first 2 games.
Yeah.
I mean I think it’s a dumb idea I just don’t think the Yankees, Phillies, etc on paper should really worry about it.
A team like Milwaukee might if they make it in.
Why not do a death cage match for the World Series. Everybody gets bats. 18 men enter…one man leaves.
The MLB Hunger Games.
Is the 2-3 format JUST for the team that’s playing the Wild Card team? If that’s the case (I still think it’s an awful idea), it isn’t bad. But if both sets of teams (including the 2nd and 3rd best teams who would be playing each other) have to go by the 2-3 format, it’s horrible.
No it’s not just for the wild card, it will also happen in the other series. I also just read that the wild card team now can face their division winner in the opening round.
So therefore based on what happened last year, (assuming Tampa BAy won a WC game over Boston), Tampa would host NY in Games 1 and 2. On the other series which would have been Detroit/Texas, the lower seed which was Detroit would have hosted Games 1 and 2 in an LDS.
why are purist against this? the wildcard is some what of a new addition…this makes the wild card spot less desireable and forces team to push for the division title (which was lost under the previous system). the ratio at which teams “gets in” increases, but the 2 teams are going to be eliminated in one day. give it a shot. the powers that be have decided to change it for many reasons including money, but if it doesn’t work for the balance of the game, they’ve proven they’re willing to change it.
“purists” are against everything. They think it makes them cool.
Expand by 2 teams. Four eight team leagues. 4 playoff teams. Realign the leagues regionally. The money saved on added travel expenses might offset the potential added playoff revenue.
I’ve wanted this too
For baseball, I think it would have been best to wait for this in 2013. I don’t know why Bud was in such a rush to get this done with. They would have plenty of time to figure out what to do with a schedule for next year’s wild card playoffs, and at the same time they could also have made it a best of 3. Not to mention now we are stuck with a 2-3 format in the first round
If baseball waited 1 more year for this and if they put in a best of 3 instead, we wouldn’t really have a problem for it.
For baseball, I think it would have been best to wait for this in 2013. I don’t know why Bud was in such a rush to get this done with. They would have plenty of time to figure out what to do with a schedule for next year’s wild card playoffs, and at the same time they could also have made it a best of 3. Not to mention now we are stuck with a 2-3 format in the first round
If baseball waited 1 more year for this and if they put in a best of 3 instead, we wouldn’t really have a problem for it.