The One Hitter…14 Team MLB Playoffs

This is the one hitter, don’t forget to exhale…

I think by now we’ve all heard about the 14 team playoff the owners are looking for in the MLB CBA discussions. For me, while opposed to the overall idea, I’d like to think of a way it could work. My biggest concern is that in a short series, you’re adding a lot of variance to the outcomes and we’ll see a bunch of teams with not great seasons knock out the team who had the best season. Sure, sometimes that will be enjoyable, but in general, I would like to see the best teams playing in the World Series.

This past weekend, me and BeefLoaf were having this discussion alongside many beers and we came up with an idea. What about some type of pool play?

After a little more thought, it could work something like this:

Division winners all advance to the divisional round automatically. The remaining 4 teams play 6 straight days after a Monday off. This would equate to each team playing against one another twice. This will need to be held in a single location. Lot of ways to do this, but I’d like to give this to some of the small market teams were concerned with. So maybe Milwaukee and Tampa or Seattle. Places that are not big markets, but also have weather proof stadiums to ensure the 6 games in 6 days.

The winner of the pool advances to the divisional round and the top seed gets to choose its opponent from the other division winners and the team that just got through this gauntlet.

It’s a bunch of games, it gives an advantage to the teams that won their divisions, and that Fri, Sat, Sun of back to back games with everything on the line could be great.

What do you think about this option? What would you like to see if 14 teams make the playoffs?

-Chorizy-E