I don't think Manfred hates baseball. Otherwise he wouldn't be in/around baseball for the past 35 years. You're probably right that he doesn't love it but I don't think that should be relevant? A lot of CEO don't *love* the business they're in. His job is to make the owners money.

Of course it's about the WHO. Apparently nobody outside of the local fan bases and hardcore fans cared about those two teams. Part of it is obviously that none of the teams had a big name but that wasn't an issue in the past if there was something compelling about them. The 1980 World Series (when the US population was 2/3 of today) featured the Phillies and Royals and game 6 of that series had more viewers than every game this year combined. This year games 1-4 each had less TV viewers than 60 Minutes on CBS on Sunday.

Not 100% sure on this but didn’t teams play their division more back then? They didn’t play the same schedules if that’s the case.

The Phillies were really good. Probably underrated at the time because nobody knew how good Schilling was. The championship series had a 104 win team playing a 97 win team. No mediocre or just decent teams there.

The 97 win team had homefield advantage which was stupid though so that was an obvious flaw, and easily fixable so it baffles me why the league didn’t change that.

I don’t really disagree with you that the system seemed unfair to the Giants though. So I wouldn’t be against any changes to fix that (which MLB did by adding a wild card which I thought was fine).

I still think it was much better than the system today. All 4 teams in the playoffs that year were impressive teams.

Looking back at that 93 season, and that era in general, I can't help but laugh at the Atlanta Braves being in the NL West.

I’m sorry the Red Sox and Dodgers didn’t make it.

Let us have this one.

Member when the Phoenix Cardinals were in the NFC East

Obviously not as far West but the Cowboys are still in the NFC East while the Chiefs are in the AFC West even though Dallas ist West of KC.

I can pretty much 100% say that no one would complain about DBacks vs Rangers if both had best records. TV execs wouldn’t like it for reasons though

Regarding NY and LA there would be less complaint than DBacks because they generally have more stars that they buy. So from that perspective many would find it more interesting

But on board with restricting the teams. Get rid of two wildcards and do best of seven again

I think the right number is 5 playoff teams.

Two wild cards play the do or die playin game (or give them a 3 game series, I don’t care).

Don’t like the variance? Win your division next time.

I liked 4 per league the original wildcard.

In before 16 team playoffs.

I always thought the Division Series would go to a best of 7. The ALCS and NLCS went from a best of 5 to a best of 7.

The NBA and NHL have a best of 7 when it gets to 16 teams.

And even then they won’t stop there. They could add a play-in round like the NBA does and have a 20 team playoff and add mid season tournaments. People have talked about 24 teams for the NHL.

Gotta be like the other big sports in America; even college football is trying to be like everyone else and quickly went from 2 playoff teams to 12.

Maybe even increase the number of regular season games like the NFL did because everyone still has a chance in September.

Well college football definitely needed it and it’s going to be awesome with campus site games. But it wasn’t very quick. It’s taken a long time with the entire world crying for it.

Meanwhile no one is asking for it in MLB

I’m not sure if many people in cities with mediocre teams cared about being in the wild card chase

I think it was pretty quick after they finally decided to expand beyond 2 teams. It is true it took forever to go beyond 2 teams. If someone told me a decade ago they would be going to 12 teams this quickly I wouldn’t have believed it.

It took ten years, so it’s a matter of opinion whether or not that was quick.

I don’t think it was quick considering how many people wanted it, how easy of a solution it was, and how successful it will ultimately be.

For the past two years you’ve seen people put up what the brackets and match ups would have been, and salivate

People really wanted to expand beyond 2 for as long as I can remember and they stuck with 2 for a longer period of time. I’m not sure people were as eager for expansion once it got to 4 teams.

The BCS lasted longer than the 4 team system and I thought people hated the BCS system more.

Right number was 4. But DS should have been best of 7 and they should have actually tried to take the best 4 teams not use archaic divisions which made sense 40 years ago and make no sense today.

The NBA used to have best of 5 in the first round.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_playoffs

Carlos Mendoza moving from Yankees bench coach to Mets manager means one of the two NY teams is going to look pretty stupid going forward. Or maybe both?

Wow, Cubs firing Ross to get Counsell.

I always heard it and for past two years you always see what the brackets would have been with people drooling

But with how successful it will be and how much money it will make. it seemed like it should have happened sooner even if last time it took longer

But to put it another way, I have not seen a single person criticize it. Whereas in MLB and other pro sports, people don’t like more playoff teams

Hell of a ****ing move right there

LOL Aaron Boone is the only conceivable reaction to this news.

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/y...brenner-warns/

dumbass loser org lol, uh2ci

If stolen bases just increased hugely, why **** that up by bunting more?