For this week's prompt, I'll explore how I think the MLB postseason can be made better.
My ideal format would see the following:
- Eliminate the WC completely
- Change the league to four divisions
- No more WC round of playoffs, Division winners play each other and advance as they always have
Given that is unlikely to happen, I'd do the following:
- Expand the number of Wild Card teams to three
- Expand the Wild Card from a "play-in" game to a best of five (with the two WC teams with the best records)
- At the same time of the WC series, the Wild Card team with the worst record faces the Division winner with the best record; the other two division winners face off
- The WC team that wins the WC playoff series plays the winner of the WC/D1 series; the winner of the D2/D3 series has to wait for that series to play for the LCS.
Then, the rest of the playoffs unfolds as it currently does (LCS, World Series).
I'd also implement the following rules/changes (if they are not already in place):
- The only off days are travel days (no two day wait between games)
- Start the playoffs on the same day for both leagues. The schedules adjust anyway if a series is short due to a sweep.
- No early afternoon playoff games (all start times either at 4:05pm or 7:05pm local time)
- No morning playoff games (local time)
- No 8pm (or later) scheduled start times for night games
- Play double-headers if needed due to weather (modify rules to allow flexible rosters in that situation, if it doesn't already exist)
I'd also make the season a bit shorter (about 10 games) to accommodate the extra playoff round. Instead of 162 games, it'd be 152, which might allow for more rest days during the season as well.
