As we wait to find out when this baseball season will start, let’s take a look ahead at how it likely ends.
Unfortunately, there is a good chance that will be through an expanded postseason that prioritizes dollars at the expense of regular-season integrity.
Unlike the hollering about the arrival of the universal designated hitter, a controversial yet expected change that actually has some strong selling points, a growing postseason is a bad idea justified only by the pursuit of profit.
That’s why it is expected to face little resistance if owners and players can play nice during this pivotal stretch of negotiations. More money? Sign them up.
Here’s the scenario New York Times baseball writer Tyler Kepner sees coming.
“Get ready to be stuffed with playoff teams: 14 in all, representing nearly half of the 30-team league,” he writes. “In the owners’ proposal, the top-seeded team in each league would receive a first-round bye, while the other two division winners and the top wild-card team would choose their opponents from among the lower three wild cards. A best-of-three series would follow, with the higher-seeded team hosting all games. That would lead into the division series, league championship series and World Series.”
Players prefer an expansion from 10 to 12 teams. Owners want 14. Players have threatened to block any expansion idea entirely if the owner-led lockout starts cutting into players’ regular-season salaries before a new collective bargaining agreement is established. Meetings between the sides are playing out at Roger Dean Stadium, in Jupiter, Fla., this week. Stay tuned.
What you won’t hear much about in the coming days is if an expansion of the postseason is, you know, a good idea for the game of baseball. Well, other than MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s recent endorsement, which should be accompanied by the whirring audio of a money-counting machine.
“It’s good for players and for clubs,” Manfred recently told reporters. “It’s also good for our fans, the vast majority of whom enjoy playoff baseball. We think that the format will encourage more clubs to compete and give more players the opportunity to participate in the postseason.”
Fans are not itching for losing teams to make the postseason. If the format owners prefer was retroactively applied between 2015-19, it would have happened. Twice.
My advice is to dodge a couple of traps when it comes to this topic.
One is to avoid making the mistake of thinking fans have a say in a matter like this, beyond choosing if they should support baseball. More postseason teams mean more postseason games played, which means more money for postseason tickets and broadcasting rights. If the postseason expands as much as the owners want, it will be because the players got a deal they liked enough to allow it. If it doesn’t, it will be because they didn’t. That’s it.
A second snare to sidestep is the one that will encourage you to keep thinking about the postseason the same way you did before. Don’t fall for it. When losing teams can get into the postseason, simply making the postseason does not automatically make a team’s season successful.
Here’s a real and recent example.
The 2020 postseason, because of the scramble to claw back pandemic-affected revenue losses, had 16 teams stuffed into the bracket. Two clubs —the Astros and the Brewers — qualified despite losing records in the regular season. The Cardinals’ qualification before their wild-card series elimination by the Padres was impressive because of the pandemic-caused chaos they overcame to get there, but that does not change the fact the postseason expanded to reach them only to quickly move on without them.
An expanded postseason as the new normal, not some pandemic-caused adjustment, will be a fascinating test for teams. Will bottom-dwelling ones try harder? Will contenders be more likely to coast? Will the regular season become borderline irrelevant? Baseball’s regular season is a long grind, and this change will grind down some of its importance.
Here in St. Louis, a more specific question will have to be answered. Fans are hungry for the Cardinals’ next World Series championship after a decade-long wait. Will a softer, bigger playoff picture make the Cardinals redefine their unofficial playoff mantra?
For years, the front office has stacked winning seasons (14 in a row) while reminding fans that a Cardinals team good enough to get in can, with the right breaks, win it all. The 2011 wild-card Cardinals proved it true. Then again, this would be baseball’s second non-temporary playoff expansion since. Where you go once you are in always matters most, of course, but simply getting in means less every time more teams can say the same. Especially when losing teams start showing up to the postseason party.
Baseball is preparing to lower its postseason bar.
My advice? Adjust expectations accordingly.
