MLB has proposed shortening the regular season from 162 to 154 games in CBA negotiations with the Players Association.

[TURBO]

MLB has proposed shortening the regular season from 162 to 154 games in CBA negotiations with the Players Association.

Also coming along with that would be the expansion of the Division Series from five to seven games, and the ability for high seeds to pick their opponents at the beginning of the playoffs.

- Matthew Pouliot

7m ago

Source: Jeff Passan

[TURBO]

I don't want the season shortened to 154 games, not at all.

Messes with history, records, etc.  I'd hate this!

I don't mind the division series being best of 5, but not a dealbreaker for me to go to best of 7.

The ability for the high seeds to pick their opponents at the beginning of the playoffs?  My God, this just seems horrible.

[wiguy94]

I like all three of these things especially the Division Series bumping up to 7 games.

[MrTPlush]

I don’t know the math logic, but I saw somewhere where all the games would be primetime in the postseason in this scenario. I’ll take that. Early start times in the postseason is insanity.

I won’t get too invested into these proposal ideas until the season is done. Right now it’s just throwing crap at the wall. Who knows what sticks.

[owbc]

154 game season -- mixed feelings. Seems like there are other ways to mitigate the grind of the regular season like having a taxi spot on the roster for an extra pitcher and position player vs. the constant back-and-forth that they do now. 

7-game division series. Yes please. I feel like it could be done tomorrow if they just reduce off days in the postseason.

Higher seed picks opponent. I think this would be fun. High meme potential. 

I'm glad realignment isn't one of the things being considered but I'm sure it will come up again when they inevitably expand to 32. 

[bucks2281]

This means a lot more baseball in either March or November

[baseball101]

Absolutely love the high seed getting to pick. It’s really the best reward possible for the best record. Don’t want to face the “hot” team? Choose a different team to play. 

[Patrick425]

35 minutes ago, TURBO said:

I don't want the season shortened to 154 games, not at all.

Messes with history, records, etc.  I'd hate this!

 

I use to feel this way also when this would be brought up in the past. Since the steroid era messed up many of the records anyways, I don't care as much.  I always thought the idea of shortening the regular season was to avoid the late October / early November games. But sounds like all they are doing is creating more off days and expanding the playoffs. The whole proposal will actually make it more likely that there are games in November.  Yeah....not sure I'm in favor of that.  The idea of top seeds picking their opponent is intriguing. 

[GAME05]

43 minutes ago, TURBO said:

Messes with history, records, etc.  I'd hate this!

Already happened when we moved from 145 games.

A baseball season already takes too long, made even longer with added playoff series. And adding more and more teams to the playoffs makes the length of the regular season less and less necessary. We're already awarding the playoffs to teams who only manage to reach .500.

>The idea of top seeds picking their opponent is intriguing. 

I've been wanting this for a while and have posted as much. It would really help to develop rivalries plus be a further reward for getting higher seeds. It should happen in all sports.

I'm also in favor of a realignment more toward E/W of the Mississippi River, which would benefit players not having to fly as many miles during the season. No reason the Brewers and Twins or the Yankees and Mets shouldn't play each other more often. Really I don't see why we need Divisions at all. 

[BruisedCrew]

33 minutes ago, TURBO said:

I don't want the season shortened to 154 games, not at all.

Messes with history, records, etc.  I'd hate this!

The season was 154 games until 1961 and nobody really seemed to care that much about history and records except when it came to Roger Maris hitting 61 home runs to break Babe Ruth’s single season record. Commissioner Ford Frick, who had covered Ruth as a reporter and was friendly with him, decreed that anyone who broke that record in a longer season would have the difference noted in the record book.

I find it amusing that people seem to care about this in baseball, but don’t seem to be bothered at all as the NFL expanded its schedule from 12 to 14 to 16 to 17 games over the course of the last 60 to 70 years. The NFL season now is almost half again as long as it was in 1960.

In baseball records relating to playoff performance are significantly affected by the fact that there are so many more teams making the playoffs now than there were in the past. 

If changing the schedule to 154 games would mean more off days during the season and a seven game division series I would take that in a heartbeat.

I don’t like the idea of playoff teams picking their opponents in the early rounds. All that seems to do is give the selected team some additional motivation because it seems like the team that picked them disrespects them. I don’t think a seeded team should be put in that position.

[Patrick425]

13 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I don’t like the idea of playoff teams picking their opponents in the early rounds. All that seems to do is give the selected team some additional motivation because it seems like the team that picked them disrespects them. I don’t think a seeded team should be put in that position.

I would have to believe the top seeds would be questioned by the media as to the reasoning of their pick. And I would assume that the answers would mostly be based on logic - like picking the team where the previous series took longer or the team that took longer to clinch the WC spot with the assumption that they had to use their best pitchers for those recent games. Having said that, I could see the Brewers avoiding the Cubs in an attempt to avoid their fans from snatching up a good portion of the tickets. Which could back fire in a big way if they then had to play them in a subsequent series.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

I like all three of these things especially the Division Series bumping up to 7 games.

I'm kinda against the postseason expanding even more, but I've wanted 154 games for a long time. Baseball shouldn't start in March.

[nate82]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

Messes with history, records, etc.  I'd hate this!

The first 162 game season wasn’t until 1961. Before that they played 154 games.  So what records and history are being messed with?  

[jw5511986]

7 minutes ago, nate82 said:

The first 162 game season wasn’t until 1961. Before that they played 154 games.  So what records and history are being messed with?  

The records and history from the living memory of posters, particularly of their youth which studies show is the peak of nostalgia. Personally I would cut even more games but 154 is a great start.

[GAME05]

33 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

I'm kinda against the postseason expanding even more, but I've wanted 154 games for a long time. Baseball shouldn't start in March.

But we all knew they'd push to expand each Series, eventually.

Probably try to push through those two additional playoff teams like MLB tried to do last time, too. They'll make sure the regular season means about nothing.

[MrTPlush]

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t really see the allure with messing with the postseason structure.

WC series is great at three games, I really don’t see the issue with 5 game LDS, and picking your opponent seems like a goofy fantasy sports type gimmick.

 

[folly412]

Don't mind eight fewer games to guarantee a weekly off day.  Those 18 games without an off day stretches are rough.  

"Pick your opponent" is clownish.  Nothing like giving lower seeded playoff teams all the ammo they need to pull upsets while guising it as an advantage to the higher seeds.  Feels reactionary to the AL stinking this year and the precious AL East teams getting bunched up against each other.  I don't hate giving the 3 seed a little more than a pseudo-wild card berth, but there doesn't seem to be a great solution for that outside of going back to 5 teams which will never happen or expanding further which I hope doesn't happen.

I'm sure we're headed for a 32 team league with 16 playoff teams and all best of 7 series so the postseason means little but lasts forever like the NBA and NHL.

[tmwiese55]

Picking your opponent is a dumb gimmick.  Simply reseed after round 1 (like I'm pretty sure the NFL does) , good enough tweak to help the problem without anything too weird.   

[torts]

Realignment isn't a CBA thing, is it?  That's not something the mlbpa would have any say in, I don't remember noticing that 

[Thurston Fluff]

18 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t really see the allure with messing with the postseason structure.

WC series is great at three games, I really don’t see the issue with 5 game LDS, and picking your opponent seems like a goofy fantasy sports type gimmick.

 

If you are then so am I. I like the short three game series because it makes teams fight for the bye. Sometimes a team can wrap up it's division early and coast the rest of the way. Having a bye to fight for makes more teams play for real longer. I'm not against the lowest seed facing the highest seed in the second round but picking the opponent seems like a gimmick. I guess it could let the top seed pick a team that had to go through their pitching staff more to get to that round but that's about it.

As far as 154 games goes. Hell no. Listening to games is part of my daily life from April through September. I go through withdrawal symptoms on off days. I don't even want to talk about the horror of the All-Star break.

[nate82]

15 minutes ago, torts said:

Realignment isn't a CBA thing, is it?  That's not something the mlbpa would have any say in, I don't remember noticing that 

Realignment wouldn’t need any MLBPA approval.

[owbc]

25 minutes ago, Thurston Fluff said:

If you are then so am I. I like the short three game series because it makes teams fight for the bye. Sometimes a team can wrap up it's division early and coast the rest of the way. Having a bye to fight for makes more teams play for real longer. I'm not against the lowest seed facing the highest seed in the second round but picking the opponent seems like a gimmick. I guess it could let the top seed pick a team that had to go through their pitching staff more to get to that round but that's about it.

As far as 154 games goes. Hell no. Listening to games is part of my daily life from April through September. I go through withdrawal symptoms on off days. I don't even want to talk about the horror of the All-Star break.

The current postseason system is the best ever IMO. The top 2 seeds are highly rewarded with the rest and pitching advantage. Although the lopsided AL East caused bracket problems (hence the need to either reseed or do the opponent choice gimmick). 

There are a couple reasons why I prefer the 7-game DS.
- Force teams to use their full roster -- reward depth
- Reduce the impact of a few lucky breaks helping a weaker team
- If they can restructure the schedule to get rid of weekday day games, that would be an added bonus

[nate82]

I would like the season shortened even more.  I would like a 100 game season where teams play 20 5-game series.  With 10 series at home and 10 series on the road.  First game starts at the end of April and the final game in mid September.