How to Make the current playoffs make sense: MLB should expand and go back to just an East and West for each league (2 Divisional Winners, 4 Wild Card Teams).

How to Make the current playoffs make sense: MLB should expand and go back to just an East and West for each league (2 Divisional Winners, 4 Wild Card Teams).

32 comments
  1. It never really makes sense to have division winners play in a wild card. I always like the idea of going back to 2 divisions. Would be a lot of fun. Especially with the balanced scheduled.

  2. Note: the expansion teams were added as they were to demonstrate the east/west divisions easier when looking at a map for myself.

  3. This would be nice if they went to this after they add the 2 expansion teams in the next 5-10 years.

  4. I’ve argued for exactly this format in the past, plus a pick-your-opponent thing for the higher seed in the WC and DS rounds.

    That way, everyone has something to play for over the course of the entire season, even if you’re running away with the division.

  5. Not really related but I wish they’d also swap the Astros and Brewers back into the leagues where they belong

  6. They had the perfect format years ago with just the 1 WC team. Even the 2nd was ok but now they just decided to let any half decent team in and the format is cooked

  7. I like fewer teams and divisions, just relegate the tanking teams so we don’t have to watch them.

  8. Or better yet, four division winners, no wild cards, I’m tired of the “footballization” of baseball.

  9. If these are the 32 teams, it’s much more likely for travel/time zones (and NL/AL history) that MLB goes with eight 4-team divisions and bribes either the Rockies or D’backs to move from the NL West to the AL West.

    Alternately, if Portland gets a team, that team would go to a 4-team AL West. And Rockies, as Mountain Time (not Pacific) and farthest east of the current NL West teams, would stay in NL and move to a divisional grouping with Central Time Zone teams.

  10. Our lord and savior Dinger will not allow this heresy to stand. The NLbest will not be divided

  11. So hear me out: 16 two-team divisions in each league, no wild cards. And each division plays their division rivals 92 times a season.

  12. No. If we’re counting Chicago as ‘the west’ then there is not enough west teams to fill it.

  13. I like two divisions of 8 better than I would seeing four divisions of 4 like the NFL has.  Small divisions contribute to unbalanced situations where the second or even third place place team in one division might have a better record than the first place team in another.

    I suppose I’d have to ask, how would scheduling work?  Would each division see a greater emphasis on facing division opponents, versus opposite division or interleague ones?

  14. Just please bring baseball back to Montreal and then you can do whatever the hell you want with the divisions.

  15. Chicago and St. Louis are so EAST it’s crazy. But obviously, you’d have to have an even number on each side. That could get confusing.

    Kinda like the Memphis Grizzlies playing in the WESTERN conference. Doesn’t make sense geographically

  16. Good stuff. One suggestion though. If we are going back to East/West divisions, let’s have the Brewers and Astros swap leagues…

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