Major League Baseball expanded its playoff format to 10 teams Friday, adding a second wild card in each league.The decision establishes a new one-game, wild-card round in each league between the teams with the best records who are not division winners, meaning a third-place team could win the World Series.This is the only change in baseball's playoff structure since the 1995 season, when wild-card teams were first added."This change increases the rewards of a division championship and allows two additional markets to experience playoff baseball each year," commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement. Source: ESPN
i suppose this is a good thing for the interest-level of MLB, as there can now be more teams in the hunt for a playoff spot. However, i really don't like the 1 game playoff in baseball. It's hard enough to have the best team win in a 7-game series. 1 game is just a coin flip in baseball.
1 game is a coin flip in football too. I love this idea, and I am pumped up for this season. The 1 game playoff is going to be INSANE.
yep, even in football it's kind of a coin flip, also b-ball and hockey, but especially in baseball ............. Really, you need to play at least 10 games (2 times through the rotation), to get a good idea of how teams match-up.
I like this as well, but so much of that one game will be based on who has the better pitcher going into that game. Gonna be interesting.
I met one of the bench coaches for the Pirates back in the early 90's when they were winning division titles and a ton of regular season games but always got ousted in the playoffs. I asked him what he though of the playoff system and he said most coaches/players felt like it was really difficult to have a true result of the better team winning in a 7-game series because so much of baseball can be a funny bounce or a bloop hit dropping in that can get a team an extra win or 2. He said the 162 game schedule really determined the best team but that the playoffs were obviously a necessity .................. he was a little biased though i'm sure since they could never win in the playoffs.
I love that they are allowing more teams in the playoffs. All I hear from non baseball fans is that theres only a hand ful of teams that wil win the world series but now theres a better chance for a different team other then the usual teams to win it all
