MLB Officially Adds 2 Playoff Slots For 2012

Tom Verducci:

Well, yes ... Unless, perhaps, the playoffs were expanded yet again, to include (say) six or even seven teams per league. What if four teams from the same division could qualify for the postseason? Wouldn’t that go a long way toward convincing them to support such a scheme?

Baseball’s moguls and players have agreed that they’ll expand the postseason by adding two extra wild-card teams, starting this year; the two wild cards from each league will play a winner-take-all game, with the winner moving on to the Division Series as it’s been constituted since 1995.

You know all this from Friday’s announcement. However, there’s one possibility that could cause quite a bit of trouble, and it’s summed up here by Jayson Stark:

So, in the wake of the news that we’re going to have two more postseason teams and an extra round in the annual tournament, I couldn’t help noticing these two headlines ripped from the pages of competing websites ...

Expanded playoffs are good for baseball

Reminder: When Bud Selig became the chairman of the Executive Council of Major League Baseball in 1992, he was never supposed to be the permanent commissioner. The owners spent six years looking (or pretending to look) for an ostensible replacement before voting Selig into office.

When you consider that, it’s amazing to think about all of the changes in baseball that Selig has been responsible for over the past two decades. And there’s no denying that the game is healthy financially -- there’s a reason the dude gets $22 million per year and a private jet. Matthew Callan of the Classical, though, isn’t impressed with the new changes:

It’s official. Major League Baseball has added a second wild-card team to its postseason, beginning this year. The two wild-card teams will have a play-in game, then the postseason will move on to the division series round. Here’s one of the key details:

Adding Wild Card teams this year created a logistical issue: The regular season is scheduled to end on Wednesday, Oct. 3, leaving two days for travel, weather problems, possible season-ending tiebreakers to decide division titles and Wild Card berths and the Wild Card elimination games prior to the start of the Division Series on Saturday, Oct. 6. The World Series is scheduled to begin on Wednesday, Oct. 24.A month ago, I asked “What’s the rush?“ for those very reasons; it’s going to create a very tight schedule for the playoff teams, without the off days we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. At least this is for one year only. In 2013, says Ken Rosenthal, these shouldn’t be major issues:

When the rumors started to swirl about the basic components of the new playoff format -- one extra wild-card team for a one-game play-in -- the open question had to do with how ties would be handled.

According to Jon Heyman, it looks like a tie will be settled by a one-game playoff to get to the one-game playoff:

It is our reality now: henceforth every MLB postseason will feature ten teams, instead of eight. At least, they’ll feature ten teams until they feature more than ten teams, which seems like an eventual inevitability. When does expansion become too much expansion? I don’t know, and more expansion probably means more money.

Anyway, forget about the future and focus on the present. Some more details are coming out, and here are two of them:

Playoff expansion from eight to ten teams was inevitable. It was definitely going to be in place by 2013. There were efforts to get it in place for 2012. Successful efforts, as it turns out. Though in theory Thursday was the deadline for an agreement to be reached, Major League Baseball officially announced on Friday that the 2012 postseason field will include ten teams, with two additional wild-card slots.

Part of the press release:

NEW YORK –- With Major League Baseball set to add another wild card to its postseason – perhaps with an announcement as early as today – it’s possible that because of inadequate time to fix the schedule, division winners could be forced to open the playoffs on the road, SB Nation has learned.

The addition of another wild card team will create a play-in game between the two wild cards, but because the 2012 regular season schedule was made prior to this proposed addition, there may not be enough days built in for travel. Therefore, if MLB cannot find a resolution, the current 2-2-1 format would change to 2-3, with the division winners opening away from their respective home ballparks.

We’re still here, and we’re still talking about MLB’s proposed playoff expansion from eight to ten teams. We’ve known for some time that there are going to be ten playoff teams in 2013. Getting that all set up for 2012 is a different animal.

Based on recent reports, it looks like a virtual certainty. One complication is that there was supposed to be a March 1 deadline to reach an agreement. According to sources, though, the consensus attitude is “whatever”.

Minutes ago, we shared a tweet from Ken Rosenthal, saying that MLB adding two new wild card slots in 2012 was a “go”. Now we’re going to pull back just a tiny little bit:

In case you don’t remember, the two wild cards in each league would play a one-game playoff, with the winner advancing to the division series and the loser returning home and wondering what just happened.

We’ve pretty much known for a while that Major League Baseball was going to increase the playoff pool from eight to ten teams. The only question was whether they would introduce two new wild card slots in 2012, or in 2013. There was a desire to get things done for 2012, but matters were complicated by the fact that the 2012 schedule is already set, and that the 2012 season begins in a month.

Nevertheless, MLB kept working to get this implemented immediately, and according to Ken Rosenthal, it’s happening, you guys:

So, a brief summary:

According to every source known to Man, Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed to expand the postseason, adding one “Wild Card” in each league. There are details, though. Scheduling details. And those details have not been resolved, which throws the whole enterprise into question. In 2012, anyway. Especially with a <em>March 1 deadline</em> looming.

But, wait.

And for our next trick, we will explain the difference between a deadline and a hard deadline.

But we are now “likely” to have those added postseason teams. Jayson Stark:

Deadlines like this aren’t something that have ever been really important to Bud Selig & Co., who have often postponed tough choices while they dither around. Here’s the primary issue:

Bud Selig has been after expanded playoffs for a long time, and now with the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, he will almost certainly get them. Selig was even optimistic that the new wild cards would go into place this year -- as in, eight months from now. Jayson Stark, though, spoke to some folks who aren’t convinced that specific timetable is realistic:

Wednesday was supposed to be the day the commissioner’s office finished a proposed schedule for the 2012 postseason and shipped it to the players’ association for consideration. But sources told ESPN.com that deadline wasn’t going to be met -- not because talks have broken down, but because fitting two extra wild-card pieces into the postseason puzzle has proven to be more involved than the commissioner has been willing to acknowledge.The biggest hurdle is that the schedule for the regular season and postseason have already been set. Squeezing an extra two wild-card games on top would be daunting enough, but there are also tiebreakers to worry about -- picture a three-team tie for a division that would need to be whittled down into a division winner and two wild-card winners, for example.