Major League Baseball and the locked-out players resume talks Sunday. They would both expand the postseason to 10 teams — this has been the field since 2012. The 16 teams were eliminated in the short-lived 2020 season.
Although the union prefers 12, the parties seem headed towards 12 but Scherzer stated that players would consider 14 if they were offered the “ghost-win” format.
The MLB 14-team plan would give the division winner with a winning regular-season record a bye to allow them to advance to the Division Series. The winners of each division would then choose their opponents, and they would be at home for the entire best-of-3 round.
The winner of the division with the second-best record would pick its opponent from the three lowest-seeded wild card teams. The third-best division record winner would be allowed to choose from the two remaining wild cards. After the division winners have made their selections, the top wild card will face the team left and play all home games.
The selections would be made during a televised program.
Scherzer stated that he felt competition could be lost in such a scenario and that he had examples of other players that highlighted this fact after Tuesday’s collapse in labor negotiations.
The New York Mets pitcher said, “Continuing down from those division winners down,” that they didn’t see any incentive for the other two division winners.” “We couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t take us up on a more competive format.”
The lockout began on Saturday, the 94th day of the regular season . This was four days after Commissioner Rob Manfred cancelled the first two series, which were due to begin March 31. The latest MLB offer is expected to be accepted by players on Sunday.
Players indicated that they were open to a 12-team postseason, subject to an overall agreement. There is still a chance that 14 teams could be re-engaged in discussions depending on the outcome of tradeoffs at the end stages.
The union has been discussing the postseason plan verbally, but it is not yet decided whether to formalize it. The higher seed would be at home for all games, and would need to win two more wins to advance. The visiting team would have three wins.
The first-round bye team would be absent at least five days, potentially complicating the starting pitcher plans. Fans of the lower seed in round one would also not have home games.
At Monday’s meeting with Dick Monfort (Chief of Colorado), Scherzer advocated for the plan. MLB informed the union that it was not interested. MLB doesn’t believe the “ghost” game is the preferred choice of broadcasters, and believes the concept wouldn’t be well-received among fans.
Glen Caplin, a spokesperson for MLB, stated Saturday that the original 14-team format MLB proposed provides significant advantages to division winners and offers incentives to win at all levels of the bracket. After a discussion about formats, MLB agreed to a 12-team format.
Since 2015, the Korea Baseball Organization has used the “ghost win”, which was introduced when the league’s playoffs grew from four to five teams to a 10-club league. In five seasons, the best-of-three wild card round ended in one, with the lower seed teams forcing another game in 2016 or last year, and then losing both.
Scherzer stated that he and the economists from the union staff felt they had created a system that would encourage competition throughout the season, particularly for division winners. “We didn’t realize that only home-field advantage would be necessary to encourage competition to win your division,” Scherzer said.
Scherzer stated that a 12-team format was more logical than the “ghost-win” format.
Pitcher Andrew Miller is a member of the eight-man executive board of the union. He said that Scherzer’s views on the postseason are important to the union.
Miller stated that the core goal of negotiations is to increase competition. There’s no way Miller could leave the table without something that accomplishes that. Max is the best person to ask because we’ve spent so much time discussing the pros and cons of different playoff formats. We won’t sacrifice the season’s competition. Anything that leads to mediocrity is the antithesis of what our game is all about and what we are as players.”
