Friday, November 19, 2010

MLB Adapts To Trophy Generation Needs

If eight playoff teams is good, thinks Bud Selig, then ten playoff teams has to be 25% gooder:

Commissioner Bud Selig's plan to expand baseball's playoffs to 10 teams gained a sense of inevitability after little to no opposition emerged during meetings this week with owners and general managers.

Selig said his special 14-man committee will discuss adding two wild-card teams when it meets Dec. 7 during the winter meetings in nearby Lake Buena Vista.

"We will move ahead, and move ahead pretty quickly," Selig said Thursday after three days of meetings concluded.

A change would have to be approved by owners, who next meet Jan. 12-13 in Paradise Valley, Ariz., and by the players' association, which has said it is open to the extra round. The additional games would also have to be sold to baseball's national television partners and slotted into a crowded schedule that has already pushed the World Series into November in the past two years.

Because baseball's labor contract runs to December 2011, the extra round of playoffs is not likely to start until 2012.

"I'm not going to rule out anything," Selig said. "We'll just proceed and whatever we decide, then we'll just see how fast we can get it done. Once we pass something, I'm always anxious to get it done." [...]

There would be two wild-card teams in each league, and the wild-card teams would meet to determine which advances to division series with the three first-place teams in each league. [...]

Some would have the new round be best-of-three, and others would have it as a one-game winner-take-all game. The mechanics appear to be at issue more than the concept.

"I pretty much know where all the constituencies are now," Selig said. "Eight is very fair number but so is 10."

No comment as to whether Selig thinks nine, eleven, twelve, and thirteen are fair numbers or not (frankly, I've found that eleven number to be kinda surly, in a I-don't-want-to-meet-this-number-in-a-dark-alley kind of way; but maybe Bud has had different experiences). But it is nice to see that Selig is making sure even more teams feel like their 162-game slog was worthwhile. We can all be winners, right?

8 comments:

Jason said...

Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten playoff teams and make ten be the top number of teams and make that a little more exciting?

Bud Selig: [pause] These playoffs go to eleven!

Nostradamus said...

Well, I know at least one SoSGer with an affinity for eleven.

I could get probably get behind behind a 10 team bracket. Maybe with a play-in series for the wild-card.

Kyle Baker said...

Nice Animal Farm reference, BTW.

Fred's Brim said...

Rumor has it, Bud is working out a plan where the winner of the World Series will play that year's Stanley Cup winner to determine who has a more meaningless regular season.

The sport they play will be determined by which league has poorer viewership for their respective all-star games. That was chosen after they couldn't get Hillary Duff to mud wrestle Rihanna

Nostradamus said...

They need to go with a neutral sport. How about badminton?

Nostradamus said...

...or full-contact Trivial Pursuit.

rbnlaw said...

Really, MLB is just trying to lap the NBA in length of season.

Pistol Pete Reiser said...

Let Spinal Tap decide...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeOXsA8sp_E