With congressmen proposing to ban chewing tobacco from the World Series and owners set to consider the union’s scheme of inviting more second-place teams to the playoffs, baseball has no shortage of foolhardy ideas for the postseason. On the eve of the 106th World Series, we posed the following question to a group no less qualified to deal with the big issues of the sport than the esteemed United Cardinal Bloggers: Other than naming the Cardinals this year’s National League representative, how would you improve the World Series (or the playoffs generally)?

Bill Ivie of i70baseball.com and BaseballDigest.com started the ball rolling:

I honestly think that it could not hurt for there to be a few more teams involved. I know, it goes against everything a baseball “purist” believes, but it would increase revenue around the league(s) as well as make things more exciting for the casual fan.

Currently, eight teams make the playoffs. Adding two teams per league and adopting the NFL’s playoff structure would give you the best two teams in each league with a bye week. I say the first round (3 Wild Cards and the Division Winner with the worst record) is a 5 game set, second round (Two teams with bye weeks + winners of round one) is a seven game set, then the LCS and World Series remains 7 games.

With revenue sharing in MLB, the added revenue would help all teams, not just those in the playoffs and the game itself benefits from expanded excitement with 12 of the 30 teams making it in.

I know some of you are hard core baseball people, so I expect and welcome the hate mail.

Great question, Pip!

Dennis Lawson then entered the fray:

I think that the first change I would institute is a change in the seeding format for the playoffs. The team with the best record would play the team with the 4th best record, even if they are in the same division. The current system penalizes the team with the best record by making them play a division winner in some years.

Another way I would improve the playoffs is that I would ban any relative of George Steinbrenner from ever singing “God Bless America” at Yankee Stadium again. Haley Swindal sounded like a street urchin with whooping couch out there. In my opinion, the best rendition this postseason was the one by Patrick Wilson, and the rest haven’t been close.

Finally, I’d like to see the playoffs become more of a sprint than a marathon. In my baseball utopia, a 7 game series with a 2-3-2 format would take 9 calendar days to play. Yes, it’s great to see the best pitchers go 3 out of the 7 games, but it’s a lot of fun to watch the #4 starter load the bases with the #2 starter warming up in the bullpen.

Unlike Bill, I can’t quite take such an avant garde approach to changing the playoffs. It’s not that I’m a baseball purist (I don’t bristle at the thought of the DH.), but I do think that giving the team with the best record a bye swings too far as an overcorrective move. Additionally, I don’t really feel like baseball belongs on tv a few weeks before Thanksgiving.

From Dustin McClure:

My first thought is to eliminate having the all star game outcome decide home field advantage in the World Series. That’s the most ridiculous rule in all of sports.

I’m completely on board with Dennis and having a new seeding format in which the 1 seed plays the 4 seed regardless of division. Base it solely on overall record. Whatever it takes to finish the World Series before November I’m also good with. 

To which Cadence Rippeto of Cardinal Diamond Diaries replies:

I am in agreement on two things so far. One is not having the All-Star Game determine home field advantage. I love the All-Star Game and enjoy the festivities, but, like Dustin, I don’t really like that rule. Some teams sometimes don’t even have a representative from their team on the All-Star Roster, so it doesn’t really seem to make sense to me.

Also, I HATE that there are so many off days in the playoffs. I would love to see playoff series played in 7 days for the LDS and 9 days for the LCS and WS; one day off for travel between the cities in the 2-2-1 and 2-3-2 format that Dennis was describing. I understand that there will still be some extra days off in the case of a series sweep or winning in 5 or 6 games, but I don’t understand why there are so many extra days off. I think it effects the flow of the season because there are never that many days off in the regular season except for the All-Star Break. Heck, sometimes there is even a Sunday Night Baseball game in one city followed by a Monday day-game in another city (rare, but it happens). Right now, the World Series is set to START tomorrow, and in 2006, the WS ended on the 27th of October. As much as I love baseball and hate to be without it for almost 4 months, it is just strange to me that the WS could end on November 4th.

Those are the only things I have a huge desire to see changed.

Prompting a passionate reply from Jacqueline Conrad:

I’ve done quite a bit of reading and researching this subject. I worry about our beloved game competing with pro and college football, pro basketball and hockey. You can’t improve the post season without improving the regular season. Games and the season itself are just too long. Reduce the amount of time it takes to play a game by going back to a normal strike zone, insist that batters stay in the batter’s box and limit the number of times the catcher can go to the mound. Limit the length of the season by ending the regular season in Sept. Either cut it back to 154 games or play more double headers. Stop the idiotic idea of having WS home field advantage given to the winner of the All Star Game.

The Wild Card team should be decided by a three game playoff between the two highest finishing non-division winners. The way the Wild Card is decided now is nonsensical. There is no disadvantage in being a Wild Card winner. There should be. Winning your division should count for something.

The Divisional Playoffs should be seven games and drop the idiotic rule that the Wild Card winner can’t play someone in their division. We are rewarding the Wild Card winners and punishing the Division winners. After playing 162 games and winning your division, you should at least get a seven games series to prove your worth.

Speed up the post season by eliminating all the superfluous off days and bring back more day games. The post season needs to be over by Nov. The schedule for the post season is a lesson in how to bring any excitement and momentum to a dead stop and lose your casual fan base.

I love this game too much to watch it lose the post season excitement I remember growing up. 

Then UCB founder Daniel Shoptaw weighed in:

I won’t argue at all with the premise of reducing off-days and ditching the All-Star connection. I’ve railed about the ASG “counting” since it was proposed and will probably do it until people in charge come to their senses.

I do not believe that more teams are needed. I’d much rather have 162 games of baseball than cut the schedule for more postseason baseball, much of which many years I will not care about. I could get behind #1 and #4 playing no matter, though I understand some of the reasoning behind the separation now. That’s no dealbreaker to me.

The schedule gets adjusted next year, so that the season starts a bit earlier and that means the postseason starts earlier as well. Hopefully we’ll be done with November baseball–though I do always hate seeing the season officially come to a close.

I’d have weekend games during the Series be day games. There is nothing visually like seeing baseball played on a crisp October day. That might be my biggest contribution. 

Ryne Gery likes the status quo, with one exception:

Honestly, I would only make one change. I would like to see the Division Series’ become a seven-game series rather than best of five. I think five games isn’t enough to decide which team is better. Seven games adds to the drama, it gives teams the chance to come back, and gives a better indication of the best team. To play 162 games and watch it all go to waste in three games if the team is swept is just brutal. At least the extra game leaves some room for hope. Who knows, maybe the Rays would have come back to beat the Rangers. A 3-2 lead isn’t very comfortable in a seven-gamer, but it’s the end in the Division Series. So, I want more baseball. And I’d be open to shortening the regular season by a few (3 to 5) games if it makes it happen.

I’d also be open to eliminating some of the off days to make it more comparable to the regular season. Force teams to win with four pitchers instead of three like the Yankees did last year. Once again, you go 162 games with five hurlers and then in the postseason all that matters is three. It doesn’t make much sense to me. October should be as close to the regular season as possible in this respect.

Other than that, leave it alone! There is nothing that could improve the World Series or baseball. I was screaming at the TV when Mike & Mike were discussing replay and how to improve baseball. Greenberg wanted to force players to stay in the batter’s box for the whole at bat and limit catcher visits to the mound. My answer to these ideas along with replay is simple. Why? Stop overanalyzing the game. Baseball is baseball. It takes as long as it takes. That’s part of the beauty. There is no clock and there’s no reason to speed up the game. Why shouldn’t players be allowed to step out and take a swing or get a sign from the third base coach? It’s part of the game. When you start taking away the little things that make this game great, what will be left of it? I know, I’m probably overreacting, but the game doesn’t need to change one thing. If someone can’t handle the length of the game, then it’s not for them. They don’t understand and they’re not a fan. We shouldn’t change the game to make it more exciting or quicker to attract more fans. If anything, baseball and the rest of professional sports could stand to lose a few of the casual bandwagon fans that hop on the train when “their” team wins the World Series. The game will never be the problem, it’s a great game. 

Shoptaw rejoins:

If that last paragraph was on Facebook, I’d have clicked “like” about three times. 

Mark Tomasik of Retrosimba then enumerated his changes:

The postseason became too long with the extra round of playoffs that were added in 1995.

Here are the changes I would like to see:

• Winning a division title is much more impressive than earning a wild-card berth. The deck should be stacked significantly in favor of division champs in the playoffs as a reward for their regular-season accomplishments. Suggestion: Just one home game for a wild-card team in each playoff series.
• The playoffs go on far too long. Reduce the first round back to best-of-five and quit having so many off days in all the rounds.
• The World Series should be a showpiece, not a tired end to a grueling postseason slog. Play the World Series in mid-October (it should end by Oct. 20 or so), play all weekend and Monday World Series games in the daytime, announce all the major postseason awards during the World Series week, and honor past and present with classy ceremonies for the top achievers of the season and those recently named to Hall of Fame.

The two-timing blogger Mike Metzger of Stan Musial’s Stance (A Cardinal Blog) and Padres Trail (A Padre Blog) doesn’t mince words:

Lots of great ideas in this thread.

I am one of those weirdos who would like to eliminate the divisions and have the best NL team play the best AL team for the World Series. Yes the Cardinals won’t make the Series in 2006 under that premise, but they would make it in 2005 and have a playoff with Houston in 2001 to decide who goes. Bobby Cox’s Braves would have represented the NL seven straight Series (1992-1993, 1995-1999). Here’s a funny tidbit: those poor Cubbies would have made the Series THREE times since divisional play started (1984, 1989, 2008) had the pre-1969 rules stayed in place.

I’d also like to see inter-league play end. Neither of those things are going to happen.

So, playing the hand we’ve been dealt, I like the current 5-game LDS and 7-game LCS format. Agree with not using the All-Star Game to determine home field. Best record should play the wild card team in the LDS always. Weekend playoff games should be day games. All non-travel off-days should be eliminated.

I’d like to see a mid-week day game during the LCS and World Series (Game 5?). Run the playoffs like the NHL does; as soon as both teams in the bracket advance, take a day off then start that next series.

I’d add Wild Card teams should never have home field advantage for any playoff series. If both Wild Card teams should advance to the World Series (like 2002), then the team with the better record gets the advantage. Lastly World Series Game 1 would always be on a Saturday, and Game 7 would always be on a Sunday. For the Crown Jewel of our sport, allowing TV to dictate a series start/finish on a Wednesday/Thursday is criminal.

That caught the attention of Matt Sebek (JoeSportsFan.com), who gushes:

Whew, I nominate Metzger the Mayor of this thread. Very nicely done. Guy brought the heat.

As opposed to echoing everything M^2 said, I’ll take it a slightly different direction.

I’m usually an advocate of institutions leveraging an increased audience to test progressive technologies. Put down the pitch forks, I’m not talking about instant replay or anything that changes the dynamic of the game. I’m talking about little tidbits that offer added value for the viewer.

MLB is on its proverbial “biggest stage” during the playoffs. More viewers, more eyes on its product. By sheer percentages (and research analysis), baseball has more new eyes on its game during the Playoffs (and the All Star Game). I’d like to see them leverage this mix of experienced and novice viewers to experiment with innovation. Conduct user-studies and if people don’t like it, learn from it. I’m sick of MLB using ignorance as an excuse for their lack of evolution – specifically around emerging statistical categories.

• FanGraph-type overlays during the game to view a team’s “percentage change” of winning
• Discussion of the shift in WPA after a play that’s deemed “clutch”
• “Player of the Game” given to highest Win Probability Added
• Display of the top social media trends (i.e., “what people are talking about on Twitter”) in between innings

Yeah, most of these ideas are way too progressive for Playoff baseball and are probably better suited for an All Star Game, which is completely meaningless (wait, what?). That said, I’d like to see them try a few innovative things that complement – not change – their product. 

Andrew Moses then had a single request:

I’m fine with the playoff format. But please, please rid the broadcast, pre-game, post-game of the tired ex-player analysis. I’m not saying I want the entire staff of Baseball Prospectus stuffed on to a set talking about how smart they are, but some fresh analysis would be really nice.

I also support incorporating social media trends. 

Josh Gilliam of Pitchers Hit Eighth concluded:

Guess that makes me the odd duck of the group. While I support keeping baseball the same game it has always been, I enjoy watching new teams make the WS. To me the only way to help this occur is by adding to the postseason fun.

While giving this a lot of thought, there is no perfect way to change the alignment of the divisions. What I propose is adding the second place team in each division as a Wild-Card. Give the top two teams in each league a bye in the first round and have the format either 5-7-7-7 or 3-5-7-7 with limited days off. Heck if you want to improve ratings, make the first two rounds include a day/night DH in the mix.

I do support the idea of shortening the regular season by a week or so for health reasons and to keep October just for the playoffs. Good luck selling that one to the owners though!

As for Mike and Mike, I nearly stopped watching them after Greeny put his foot in his mouth. Baseball works because it is different than football. I’m all for helping my favorite sport became America’s past time yet again.

We’ll next summarize the views espoused by our blogging colleagues and will comment on their ideas that we like best — and eschew the most.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 6:06 pm and is filed under group blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.