and, there is no way MLB shortens the first round to one game. Ummm… Lew, doesn’t that mean loss of TV revenue?

I also would like no off days during a series. Seven straight days of high pressure play. Make the fifth starter matter.

where did the extra 2 come from?

just terrible … atrocious … offensive even … it really makes me want to puke … loathsome and dreadful … I mean, I seriously abhor this idea … it is appalling on a number of levels … it is rotten, shocking and unfortunate that he would even suggest it …

Get rid of the wild card and go back to four teams making the playoffs—and the playoffs start with two seven-games series, called the ALCS and the NLCS. Series that could be played, as WCanseco suggests, with no days off.
Then all of the playoff records set by guys like Bernie Williams, Jeter and ManRam would go unbroken, but nobody would care; they would be acknowledged as the product of an era in which the playoffs expanded too much, diluting each game’s importance until audiences stopped caring.

LDS 7 games, LCS 7 games, WS 9 games. I’m tired of teams that are clearly not the best winning the World Series. More games will help ensure the best (or at least better, and I’m looking at you 2006 Cardinals) team wins.

How to keep it from going to November? Eliminate unnecessary offdays. Don’t worry about what day of the week a series begins. Even if you include travel off days, under my plan (I sound like a politician), the maximum number of days needed is 32. That’s if every round a series goes the max. So, how to avoid November?

Cut a week, at least, off spring training. Maybe two weeks. If the schedule is built so that most of these games are played in the (I think) 12-14 stadiums that are warm weather/roofed/domed the amount of bad weather games early will be limited. And even if a few crappy-weather games are played in March, that’s much better than playing them in November.

Model it after the European Champions League in Soccer.

One game at each park, if its a tie the team with the best run difference wins, and if they score the same amount of runs the team that scored the most runs on the road is the winner.

If you have the same amount of runs in both games after nine innings in game 2, you play extra innings…

I just thought of this for the first time right now, but it could be fun and it would be a little more fair than a one game playoff.

Otherwise I do think they need to reduce the season back to 154 games, begin the season a week earlier, or bring back doubleheaders. Baseball i november is just rediculous…

1. No to one game playoff. It increases the chances of cupcake teams getting in. Although, I liked the 2006 Cardinals/Mets ALCS and it going 7 games and being really exciting.

Two divisions per league. Each division champion is automatically in the playoffs. Then, of the remaining teams, the two teams with the best records are in. Or, just keep the division/wildcard system the same. Divisions foster rivalries.

2. I have to agree with changing the DH system. Instead of it being DH in AL, none in NL, make it home team determines DH. If your pitcher is CC Sabathia/Carlos Zambrano/Micah Owings/insert other HR/offense threat pitcher here, have him hit. Or if you’re the Mets and you don’t have a bench.

3. Eliminate days off by making the games before travel games day games. If you want days off, beat your opponent’s ass. Both series start on the same date, and end on the same date. There is no absolute way to control ratings. Stations are going to bitch if one of the teams isn’t Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers/slegnA/Cubs (who I hope prolong that curse for a good long time).

So long as the leagues use Finley’s baseballs. Those A’s owners and their wacky ideas; I tell ya.

as part of the special relationship between the a’s, the san jose earthquakes, and tottenham hotspur, Lew has also mooted a plan to count friendlies against foreign clubs in the MLS tables. Spurs in san jose – that’s another plan i can get behind!

shorten spring training to 3weeks and get the season started earlier.

or at the very least, the days off when there isn’t even travel involved during the postseason. that is done stricktly for TV and not for baseball. The longer the postseason drags through October (and the closer to or even into November) the more you risk the kind of weather issues that we saw in the World Series.

I can perhaps see an argument for the LDS as best of three and the LCS as best of five, keeping the World Series as best of seven. But that One game winner take all idea is best suited just for the tie breakers when needed.

I totally agree with OaklandSi. Get rid of the off days and be flexible. If the first round ends in 3 games move up the next round, same with the next round and World Series. Force the TV networks to be flexible. Allow for travel days. Also make home field advantage for the team/league with the best regular season record. Return the All Star Game to an exhibition game. No to the one game first round.

Why spend a whole game? Just start with a tie score in the 9th inning, and play extras. Now that’d be exciting!

Keep the same start date (yeah, April games can suck in Cleveland, but whatever, deal with it), and the season would end a full 1-2 weeks earlier. Then start the playoffs right away. 5-7-7, done by last week in October. Honestly, why do we even need 162 games?

If anyone cares.

I’d be fine with either a best-of-5 or even a best-of-3 for the LDS. Not a single-game playoff, not a best-of-7.

They could also tighten up the schedule in the post-season, too. That’d help alot.

I was originally against the 3 division and wild card format, but have since been convinced otherwise.

Bring back double-headers. 2-3 per year for each team. REAL double-headers, none of this day-night crap.

Eliminate the time consuming post-season tournaments that make it more likely the two best teams from each league will not meet in the World Series.

Eliminate the divisions. The 162-game regular season will determine who goes to the World Series. If there is a tie for first place, a one-game playoff will determine the league champion.

Weekend World Series games will be played during the day. On weekdays, games will be played at night. The World Series will be restored to a best-of-nine contest and there will be no off-days between games. It’s over by Columbus Day.

Enough of this not-finishing-in-first-and-making-the-playoffs nonsense! Fie on this anything-can-happen-in-a-small-set-of-games foofaraw! To the dustbin of history with this rewarding-inferior-and/or-lucky-teams dross!

Returning to division winners is not, however, nearly radical enough. “Divisions” are, after all, merely arbitrary heuristics for grouping teams. As, for that matter, are “Leagues.” And “Seasons.” The best team shall win out over a large enough sample size. I hereby propose to eliminate the playoffs, divisions, and leagues in their entirety, and to reorganize all of Professional Base-Ball in one massively flat ecumenical holding company, in which all participants compete on an equal and unending basis.

moving up the end of the regular season by a week and eliminating any chance of November baseball. Done.

Make the wildcard two teams, they do a play-in game against each other to face the league champion. It rewards teams that win 100+ games but wouldn’t otherwise make it, it rewards the league champion by making the wild card team play an extra game, and everyone still gets the excitement of their team having a chance to stay alive late in the season.

1. LDS in 3 games: shortens postseason (the main goal) and each squad gets one game from their top 3 starters.
2. 2 rounds of 1 game playoffs (8 teams each league); LCS in 3; WS in 5 - thats ridiculous, i know, but it would also be entertaining.

i also like the play-in game idea

The problem is the schedule; it should begin a week sooner. (Yes, spring begins a week sooner, too.) The first playoff round is very crucial, too crucial for a one game series. If the A’s lost the first round because of one game screwed by a lousy umpire, or an overwhelming pitcher, or whatever, that would suck. But if they lost that first game and came back and won three … or, better yet, four (yes, a seven game first round playoff is my choice but only if the season started sooner), then momentum takes them into the next ALCS. And who, by the way, wants the season to END? Start sooner and keep it longer, if possible. If it’s one game and the A’s had to play away that would equally suck because not unless they win it would we, the fans, be able to be apart of it

Is there a worse one? OK, maybe a “1/3 of a game playoff” where the one-game playoff starts with a rain delay in the 6th inning of a tie game.

We scrutinize over 162 games just for a 1 game-crap shoot. That is so irritating. Jake Peavy would become quite a bit more valuable…

Best of 3 would be reasonable if it was like football in that the best teams got a bye from that round.

I think it is perfect like it is. I wouldnt complain about best of 7 all the way through.

and then have it boil down to one game. It would totally suck and make the playoff experience less fun and the championship (if eventually won) less meaningful.

After further review I still like my idea:
For a 14-team league, each team plays the other thirteen clubs10 times. No divisions. At the end of 130 games, August 31st, the top six teams, by W-L record, enter into a “Super September Series”. For 30 games, the top six teams only play each other, three home, three away. The bottom eight only play each other, so they can play “September callups”, etc. At the end of the thirty-game-“Super September” the best team of the top six teams goes to the World Series.

This is more in keeping with baseball’s unique character. In a basketball series of five games, seven games, any single game never hinges on one play like it does in baseball, which seems to carry over to the playoffs. In the current 5-game playoffs, ONE DUMB PLAY (failure to slide, stopping at third instead of continuing home, failure to catch a ground ball) can psychologically damage a good team (a la the Cubs, with Derek Lee’s fumbled grounder), with the best team overall failing to go to the World Series. IMO the 2000-2004 A’s clubs should have been in one WS, since they were so good. But those A’s teams IMO were not structured for playoffs.

Leave “playoffs rounds” to hockey and basketball. Those sports are more suited to it. Not baseball. A six-team 30-game playoff ends the season on September 30, the World Series is the first 7-9 days in October.

Stop paying so much attention to the playoffs.

Derive your fan joy from how many wins your team wins in the regular season. Then treat the playoffs like they’re just exhibition games that don’t count, like spring training or the Pro Bowl.

why not have the postseason be a 32 team tourney, with the Japanese Pacific and Japanese Central league champions thrown in?