MLB Players Union would consider adding more Wild Card Teams and expanding playoffs

• Blanket

  http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5728656
• justincredible

  

  Make the division series best of 7 and leave it alone.
• thedynasty1998

  

  Shorten the regular season and expand the playoffs sound brilliant to me. But I know that shortening the regular season has a 0% chance of happening.
• jordo212000

  

  sounds good to me
• OQB

  

  Not if it makes the season even longer....only way is to take about 20 games off the regular season and then add a few wildcards. MLB's season is just way to long.
• Tiernan

  Yeah why not just let everybody into the play-offs like the NBA and NHL seem to do? Talk about your stupid ideas!
• HitsRus

  

  what we really need is a salary cap and a salary floor, so small and mid-market teams have an equal shot of retaining free agents.
• ts1227

  

  Tiernan;534638 wrote:Yeah why not just let everybody into the play-offs like the NBA and NHL seem to do? Talk about your stupid ideas!

  
  If they added 4 teams they would be on par with the NFL in terms of percentage of teams getting in, and it's still less than half. It's not letting everyone in, and not even as bad as NBA/NHL.
  
  I think it's fine the way it is (maybe go 7 games for the first round), but if they insist upon adding a couple teams I can live. It didn't kill/dilute the NFL when they went to their current format, MLB could swing it.
• like_that

  

  Dumb, if you are not good enough to make the playoffs after 162 games (163 in some cases), then you shouldn't be in the playoffs. How could they do this anyway? 6 teams for each league? So two team in each league will be waiting for with a bye? Thats a huge disadvantage for the teams who have a bye imo.
  
  They better consider starting the playoffs in mid September if they are going to expand.
• heel023

  

  Baseball needs to be over by September. Because once football starts up I don't think anyone pays attention to it.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Big fan. What's annoying about baseball is if your team is not in the top two of the division by July, season is over usually. Why should I watch the Indians the rest of the year if they are 10 games out in July?
  Expanding the playoffs adds more interest to more teams.
• tk421

  

  Terrible idea. Baseball season is way too long as it is.
• Al Bundy

  I would rather see them go to a format that several minor leagues used to use and MLB used it during the strike season of 1981. You split the season in half and have a first half champ from the division and second half champ. They play for the division title. If the same teams wins both halves, they are already division champs. It puts everybody in a race in July. It would cut down on much of the salary dumping midseason. It rewards a team who was good enough to win their division in both halves. You couldn't do this with 3 divisions, so you would have to restructure the division format.
• mhs95_06

  Make the AL and NL 15 teams each. Have inter league play going all the time. 153 game regular season(4x12 games in division, 10x6 games in league, and 15x3 games in other league). 16 teams in playoffs. Start all playoff series on Wed and go for 7 straight days if needed. If a series goes 7 days, start the next series the next day(more like regular season). If rain-outs, play double headers, except in World Series, then add a day. Regular season ends 3rd Sunday of Sept. World Series ends no later than Oct 23 unless rainouts in World Series. Max games played would be 181, same as it is now.
• Non

  

  baseball is the only sport I'm in favor of more teams added to the playoffs
  
  even if it's just two more teams it brings a lot of other teams into contention and that will help with attendance and the overall interest
• Al Bundy

  Non;536909 wrote:baseball is the only sport I'm in favor of more teams added to the playoffs
  
  even if it's just two more teams it brings a lot of other teams into contention and that will help with attendance and the overall interest

  
  If you go with only 2 teams you do create bye rounds for some teams. In football the bye is a reward because it is a huge advantage. In baseball, I think the bye could be a disadvantage to the good teams because they would be sitting around for a week waiting for the first round series to end.