Thinking (and rethinking) about MLB's new playoff format
Plus: John Schneider, Cody Bellinger, Hyun Jin Ryu, Nate Pearson, Hagen Danner, a Blue Jays Happy Hour update and more!
MLB’s new playoff format has, so far, proven to be incredibly fun. I’m sure there will be years where that’s less the case — the big-spending, big-market teams running into trouble is particularly delicious for neutrals — but right now we’re seeing great drama in some truly compelling matchups. Jays fans can be forgiven for having been soured by their own experiences, but so far MLB has produced a pretty great playoff product.
It’s also a product that has produced a lot of Twitter discourse — which I’ve weighed in on… maybe the wrong side of?
On Sunday I tweeted that the outcomes of Saturday’s games were hilarious — and they were, indeed, truly perfect, with the Braves, Dodgers and Mariners (sorry not sorry) all being eliminated, and the Yankees being pushed to the brink — but that I thought there needs to be more of advantage given to teams with better records than they get in this format, because I was worried about the continued devaluation of the regular season. Some agreed, many did not, and I got a lot of great pushback.
Plenty of fans see the fact that “anything can happen” as a feature and not a bug — the so-called randomness being part of the beauty of this sport we love. Plenty of fans would also simply suggest that the teams that lost should have played better in these impossibly short series.
Well, yes, obviously. But I must say that the latter is a point I find easier to accept in sports where a team can physically outwork opponents, and where the old Tommy Lasorda quote about losing one-third of your games no matter how good you are, and winning one-third of your games no matter how bad you are, is accepted logic. At least if the point of the playoffs is to crown a “best of the best” in any kind of meaningful way.
More than ever, under this format, it doesn’t.
That, I’m sure, doesn’t make any team’s World Series victory any less sweet, or any loss less bitter. But I guess I’m guilty of being something of a fusty old traditionalist in the way that I long for the days when such an idea was, if not true, at least truer.
Thing is, none of that was really my point in all this. The World Baseball Classic is fun as hell. Soccer? I love the World Cup, love the Champions League. Short, dramatic, thrilling, heartbreaking, compelling. Not every high-stakes tournament has to be about showing us who is The Best, per se. It’s about showing us who won an incredibly fun and entertaining-ass tournament. And it doesn’t need to be about more than that.
My worry here stems from the fact that it takes a gruelling 162-game odyssey to get a ticket to this dance, that the results of that gruelling 162-game odyssey pretty quickly become relatively meaningless, and that MLB wants fans to stay engaged with their regular season product — and pay ticket prices that would require most to take out a second mortgage if they want to go regularly — for all of that. Or, more accurately, the way that MLB evidently just prefers fans stay engaged, but are happy to have clubs live fat off TV money until the massive bounty of playoff dollars arrive.
I don’t think that’s good for the game, but can admit here that my worries might be unfounded at this stage. For one, plenty of fans seemed to stay engaged with the Jays this season, and others, even after it became clear that only seeding was at stake. For two, had fewer teams been actively trying to lose this year, maybe the jostling for playoff position would have had more of a life-or-death quality to it — and with fewer bad teams to pad win totals against, maybe more of the top spots would have been in play during the second half.
I think it would be naïve to say that making it easier to make the playoffs will push teams into thinking differently about rebuilding, but it might. And if that happens we’re probably not going to see the effects for a few years yet, as teams would have found it difficult to change their long-term courses coming out of the lockout. Declaring a thing like this good or bad in year one doesn’t make a ton of sense, I suppose. And if it actually leads to it, more parity would seem to be a good thing, and might even make the “anything can happen” nature of the playoff format feel a little more just.
Of course, the same goes for what could happen with the teams at the top in this, who in the long-run might be less inclined to spend. That’s something most fans probably won’t care much about, thinking that it will only affect players’ already ample bottom lines, but that could change the game pretty fundamentally. Maybe in a good way! But knowing that league’s priority is making as much money as possible, rather than making the product better, I suspect that would only come about by accident.
And maybe that, too, is fine. If everybody’s entertained by the entertainment product, then, for whatever venal garbage goes on behind the scenes, it’s hard to say it’s not doing its job. If we reach a point where something needs to change, where engagement sags and Yankees and Dodgers of the world somehow win too much (?) to maintain a grip on their markets, it’s not like it can’t be changed.
I suppose that, like all traditionalist ideas in this sport, worrying about the best team not being crowned champion is motivated by nostalgia for a thing that never actually existed. And worrying about ripple effects of the shift to this new playoff format is a concern for much later — and not something fans are going to have the power to do anything about anyway.
I like the idea of the playoffs being truly best-on-best, and I’d love to see the regular season mean more — either with more postseason incentives, so that the best teams are less likely to be upended, while the other teams still have a chance, or with more prestige afforded the team that wins the regular season crown in each league (preferably with a balanced schedule and no divisions). But I recognize that prestige doesn’t come so easily (ask any NHL team that’s won the Presidents’ Trophy), and that there probably isn’t the appetite for the kinds of wacky ideas to tilt series further in favour of teams with better records that I prefer. (I’m not a traditionalist, I just play one when the Jays embarrass themselves.)
So… OK. It’s fine. It’s fine! For now. Still worried about the ripple effects, but it’s fine! Enjoy the rest of the playoffs, everyone. Go… uh… Phillies?
⚾⚾⚾ This site is the only way that I make a living. The site is free for all to read, but is made possible by paid subscribers. It only takes a couple clicks to upgrade — or to contribute again if at some point along the way your credit card expired! — and by supporting you help keep my work free for everybody else. Win-win! ⚾⚾⚾
Quickly…
• There’s obviously not a lot going on with the Blue Jays right now, which in the case of still-interim manager John Schneider, is maybe a little bit curious. I strongly suspect, based on Ross Atkins’ words last week, plus pretty much all of the Jays’ actions during the Shapiro-Atkins era, that the delay in announcing a manager is a simple case of the club doing its due diligence. It’s a big decision and obviously one the club has a right to explore in full, despite what we all think about why Schneider had so steadily risen in the ranks in the first place. But I can’t blame anyone for thinking it’s kind of odd!
• Former NL MVP Cody Bellinger has been awful over the last two seasons and is projected to make nearly $20 million in his final year of arbitration, which may lead to the Dodgers non-tendering him. He’s a lefty bat with a very good glove in centre field, making the Jays a very interesting potential fit on some kind of a short bounce back deal. There will definitely be suitors if it happens, and while I’m not sure I’m ready to believe there’s anything left in his bat, or that the Jays are necessarily as anxious to do better than their current George Springer/Whit Merrifield combo in centre as fans are, there are certainly some compelling reasons to do it…
• Something definitely worth mentioning that goes back to my piece last week about arbitration projections and the Jays’ financial situation is that a couple people reached out to say that they had heard Hyun Jin Ryu’s contract is, in fact, insured. Take from that what you will and revise your thoughts about free agent possibilities accordingly.
• We’re definitely reaching the point — if it hasn’t already been reached — of no longer feeling the need to hang off of every bit of news on Nate Pearson’s various rehab stints, but I think this is still worth passing along.
• Great stuff here on the best Blue Jays prospect stories this season from D.M. Fox — aka Future Blue Jays — who is now right here on Substack! Give him a follow/subscription! And go read about the seasons had by known quantities like Ricky Tiedemann, Yosver Zulueta, and Addison Barger, plus the lesser-known Davis Schneider and Jimmy Robbins.
• Speaking of prospects, MLB.com’s Sam Dykstra talked this week to Hagen Danner, who is pitching in the Arizona Fall League this month after a season hampered by an elbow injury. Danner, for those who forget his early prospect days, is a former catching prospect who has gone back to pitching, and was producing such impressive velocity at the end of last season that the Jays added him to the 40-man in order to avoid him being taken in the Rule 5 draft. If he’s healthy in 2023 he could be one of those guys who comes out of nowhere throwing in the upper 90s that the Jays’ relief corps. seems to consistently lack.
• Great stuff here, as always, from Nick and the Zubes on the latest Pitch Talks!
• Lastly, and speaking of Nick, him and I don’t have a schedule yet for when we’ll be coming at you next with an episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour, but we’ll definitely be doing one again soon. Watch for an announcement on Twitter, and on the Callin app!
⚾ Be sure to follow me on Twitter // Follow the Batflip on Facebook // Want to support without going through Substack? You could always send cash to stoeten@gmail.com on Paypal or via Interac e-Transfer. I assure you I won’t say no. ⚾
Couldn't agree more that the current playoff structure is deepy flawed.
The overall weak vibes surrounding the WC (and, let's be real, the DS), makes them feel like a play-in tournament for losers.
To me the solution is very simple - play fewer regular season games but make all playoff series' best of 7. NHL and NBA play half the regular season games but still do 4 best of 7 playoff rounds, so it makes no sense to me why MLB would have a best of 5 series (let alone best of 3). I don't think the 100 win teams need more home field or to start up a win, they just need a larger sample of games to play. If Seattle beat the Jays 4 out of 7 I would be much more content that the Jays didn't "deserve" to advance than I am right now. What's the argument against this? Who doesn't want more playoff games?