Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald reports Major League Baseball has informed American League General managers that the team with the best record at the end of the season will chose between two different Division Series playoff schedules.
Silverman notes the difference between the two schedules is the amount of days off during the series, he writes…
“The team with the best record would choose between playing in the Division Series that lasts up to eight days featuring three off days or the one that lasts up to seven days and has two off days.”
According to Silverman, onces a team clinches the best record, they will have one hour to notify Major League Baseball of it’s choice.
Next season the National League team with the best record will get their choice.
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switching back and forth then? Maybe the league that wins the All-Star game should be the league that has the choice of a 8-day series..
Just in case anyone was wondering, the reason why the NL best record team isn’t getting this privilege is that both NLDS series are playing the same day for all 5 potential games.
I guess the plan is to flip-flop this each year between the two leagues.
…and Mad Dog Russo is right about the LCS schedules having too many off days.
That is one of the first times he is right.
That being said there is a reason it is being done as it will help the league with TV ratings but ratings should not effect the competition between teams.
Make the Wild Card winner play all games at the team with the best records home park. I’m sick of seeing these barely making the post season teams get on a roll (or the better team slumps, see Tigers in 06) and winning it all. MLB is rewarding mediocrity at the expense of better baseball and for the ultimate goal of more money.
But last year the NL team with the worst record was a division winner and not the Wild Card team
Its ridiculous..Its just like the NBA…During the regular season you get at most one off day per week. Should be the same way in the playoffs.
second point, the rule that says two teams can’t play each other in the first round of the playoffs is stupid. It should be based on record, and record alone. If the wild card has the 2nd best record in the league, so be it. This system does not reward the best regular season performance at all. (Aside from picking an 8day LDS, which is bs.)
I agree about the wild card. I heard one of the Mets announcers (Howie Rose?) talk about wanting the wild card team to have more wins in a series in order to win it. So in a best of five, the wild card team would have to win 4 games, rather than 3. That’s seems a bit too imbalanced to me, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of a swing to the home team in terms of home games.
I believe that it is nearly crooked to decide these things once the season has already started. This creates an opportunity for someone who is a Red Sox fan in the commissioner’s office (or who has bet money on the Red Sox) to make this rule as he goes along to favor his or her team. All rules and conditions in a major league season and postseason should be decided by March 1st in my opinion.
the only problem I have with the playoffs is the 2-3-2 format, it gives the lesser team homefield advantage through 5 games and doesnt give the team that earned it the edge until game 7, its stupid…2-2-1-1-1 thats the way it should be.
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