Dodgers: LA Fans React to Proposed 14-Team Playoff Format
A big point of contention between MLB and the MLBPA has been playoff expansion. The players’ association prefers a 12-team playoff format, while the owners, want a 14-team format. Yesterday, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that MLBPA is willing to re-visit the 14-team playoff format discussion to re-kindle the CBA negotiations.
Dodgers fans provided their thoughts on the prospect of a 14-team playoff format.
I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it
— Roach! (@JRoach_909) March 4, 2022
One fan used it as an opportunity to take a shot at the arch rival San Francisco Giants.
AGAINST – it devalues the regular season. We don’t need any more 88 win teams stealing the World Series because they get hot at the right time.
— Tom (@la4052101) March 4, 2022
Mainly, baseball enthusiasts aren’t excited about the prospect of letting slightly above average clubs into the playoffs.
100% against. My concern isn’t owner revenue, it is product on the field. The current format has the best teams in the playoffs. I don’t need to see the second tier rewarded with a playoff birth. Division winners and wild cards are sufficient. Don’t add mediocrity
— Derek Pil?n (@derekpilon7) March 4, 2022
Against. It waters down the playoffs and only benefits mediocre teams. Unless they get ultra creative and ensure a crappy team doesn’t get a lucky upset over a team that performed better for an entire season.
— True to the Black and Gold (@granthamdc) March 4, 2022
Against ??. Virtually 1/2 the league. No thank you. Why play 162? Shorten the season and get right to it. It’s a joke. That is all. ???????
— BOBBY (@TheBobbyLama) March 4, 2022
The ever positive Gail Johnson is all up for whatever ends the MLB lockout.
I’m for whatever gets major league baseball players back to work.
— Gail Johnson (@GJOH29) March 4, 2022
One fan simply accepted the inevitably of a 14-team playoff coming to fruition.
Against. However, I can tell you from experience as a former employee of a professional sports league that tv rights deals are life blood. I don’t want more games from product standpoint, however,the revenue that comes with expanded playoffs is too much for ownership to pass up.
— Matt De La Rosa (@mattdelarosa) March 4, 2022
Let us know how you feel about the idea of MLB implementing a 14-team playoff format below!
This smacks of a participation trophy
I have an idea. Have the playoffs start in early April. Have each team play each other team 15-18 times in groups of 2 to 4 games. After the 162 game elimination round, have the two best teams meet in a super duper champion of the universe best of seven series. That way, we get rid of the boring “regular season” and get right to the money makers!
Absolutely NOT!
NO PROBLEM! just add four expansion teams so that half the teams aren’t in the playoffs!!!
I don’t know what the number is but a playoff race is a race and people will watch more baseball if there are teams battling for spots. With fewer spots more teams are out of it by the all star break reducing interest in the second half of the regular season. In the end the hottest team wins I don’t care if a hot May loses some meaning for a front runner if the end of the season has more teams still involved. It increases interest in the tail end of the regular season.
If the season is shortened to say 152 games or less than okay go with the 14 team playoffs. It just doesn’t make sense to have 162 games and then a prolonged playoff season.
Eliminate the wild card. Shorten postseason. You win,– You’re in.
A 14 team playoff is Rubbish. Why play the regular season at all. To reward a mediocre team who happens to get hot or lucky is not the goal. The elite of baseball should participate and only the elite. Every thing else is rewarding mediocrity
That is the point, every league that has done it has successfully maintained interest in more teams. NFL, NBA, NHL is baseball in better or worse shape? Baseball regular season suffers why? Nobody gets excited about early season games because there are a hundred just like to come and only 10 or 15 teams have real shots to do anything the last 30 games. The NFL shows the way every year, they keep the teams matched with salary rules, let a lot of closely matched teams in the playoffs. This years NFL playoffs were a huge success because they were exciting and unpredictable. Of course it will always be the team that gets hot that wins whether 4 teams or 14 are in. Dodgers won 106 and Giants won 107 last year trying to avoid a wild card game and both burned out that last month. Pitching hurt or exhausted, position players only getting a day off when injured other than catchers. The two best teams in baseball played out before the playoffs to avoid a wild card game. The is one of the major things wrong with the game. Go back to 154 if you want but get more interest in baseball by rewarding upstarts and comeback teams.
I’m really against it – I agree that I don’t want to see a 2nd or 3rd tier team make the playoffs and get hit to eliminate a team that played great for 162. But, if this is what’s holding things up, then get it going!
The argument that mediocre teams wouls be in the playoffs is a good one, except that rosters change and a mediocre team like the Braves can become the best team once they make the necessary changes. Maybe they should split the season in 2 and give the first and second half winners a bye in the playoffs.
The only benefit I can see from this is it MIGHT keep a couple of teams from tanking, and that is not going to be enough of a reason to do this.
Not just no. HELL NO!!! I don’t want November baseball, we are headed to DECEMBER baseball now. If left up to the owners, there would be baseball 12 months of the year thinking that they could sell more tickets and get more TV $$$. The sheer greed will eventually be the end of the game very soon.
I don’t even like the current wild card setup. However, in all honesty, I would go for a 6-team playoff setup: 3 Div champs, 3 WC teams. The 2 best records get a bye, while the other 4 do 3-game series. With that, reduce the season to 154 games and let’s end November baseball.
i like 16 teams in the playoffs with no bye rounds. 4 rounds , races to three each round and race to 4 in the final round.the season is waaaay too long though theyre unlikely to shorten the reg seas games. but expanded playoffs should make the game more interesting every year to more fans across the spectrum of teams out there. if you have a weaker team and you can win over a better one , upsets are par for the course and everyone is fair game in the playoffs. byes and free games to start the playoffs make no sense. the game and sports in general are dying anyway. its hard for fans to relate to salaries spiraling out of control and most people are getting priced out of existence. and baseball espec. has lost so many fans. theyre getting turned off by by all the payscale insanity and costs for even the simplest of pleasures that people are voting with their feet to stay away from the ballparks and hold onto their dwindling duckets.the money system breeds and reinforces insanity and those with the most gold make all the rules regardless of intellectual capabilities where the wealthiest are no smarter or dumber than the poor basically. it shows up over time by analyzing everybodys moves and thought processes in a general sense and less of a personal sense and then it becomes possible to get an idea of solutions to the fermi paradox for instance. an asteroid hits. or its too difficult for most species to evolve to where we are. or gravity is an issue in space travel and living. or its too hard to make it out of a solar system and travel into a galaxy. evolution can take billions of years. and reasoning creatures dont always reason too clearly . and are prone to insanity and delusions of grandeur. sociopaths take over in most societies throughout history. and reason that theyre so smart they dont make hardly any mistakes intellectually when often our entire thought processes are filled with continuous errors of which often no one really has a clue. and then they try to convince you that theyre all knowing and all seeing . and the wealthy loom over everyone else condescendingly speiling out their truths with the passionate confidence of interested falsehood.
Leave it the HELL alone!!! Just more $$$ to the owners.
I think baseball’s playoffs are just too much right now. I don’t like the idea of baseball in November, so let’s reduce it back to the best 8 teams record wise in all of baseball. Meaning 5 could be from one league, 3 from the other. The teams are then seeded 1-8, 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, etc. It could be the first round might have the Dodgers play Cleveland, or the Dodgers play San Diego. In the end it could be 2 National League teams for the title.
I hate this, it’s already too many playoff games, we got guys trying to play in November. this is all just owners’ greed, same as the lockout was. they had this garbage all schemed out in advance. they never had the slightest intention of negotiating with the players, and the lockout was a way to make sure they didn’t have to. if they meant to honestly negotiate it would have started the week after the World Series ended, not two months later.
if these idiots get their way much more they will flat destroy this game. if it was up to me we wouldn’t even have the take-out-the-trash wild card round, that is already superfluous and needs to just go in the nearest dumpster.
and we need to can Manfred while we’re at it. look at his huge grin the day he announced Opening Day was cancelled and tell me he wasn’t enjoying himself. fire the guy and get somebody honest who isn’t a total tool next time. Kenesaw Mountain Landis must be spinnin’ in his grave about now.