NEW YORK (AP) — Max Scherzer is advocating a radical playoff overhaul in which the top seed in the first round of the 14-team postseason will start a best-of-five series with a 1-0 lead.
Major League Baseball and the lockout players, who resume negotiations on Sunday, will expand the postseason from 10 teams since 2012, with the exception of 16 teams in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
The union prefers 12 and the parties seem to be aiming for that number, but Scherzer said the players would consider 14 if the clubs agreed to a “ghost win” format.
Under MLB’s 14-team plan, the division winner with the best regular season record in each league would get a bye and go straight to the Division Series. The other two division winners chose their opponents and stayed at home for the entire best-of-three round.
The second-best division winner will choose their opponent from the lowest-seeded three teams. The third-best division winner will then be able to choose one of the remaining two wildcards. The highest wild card will face any team remaining after the division winners have made their selection, as well as playing all games at home.
The choice will be made on a TV show.
“We felt that competition could be undermined in this scenario, and we had concrete examples of various players who said that they specifically emphasized this,” Scherzer said after the collapse of labor negotiations on Tuesday.
“Continuing down from those division winners, we didn’t see the proper incentive for those other two division winners,” the New York Mets pitcher added. “We didn’t understand why they didn’t want to take us in a more competitive format.”
The lockout was on Saturday, Day 94, four days after Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first two episodes of the regular season, which was due to start on March 31st. Players are expected to respond to MLB’s latest offer on Sunday, the last one before negotiations close. Tuesday.
Before talks broke down, the players said they could agree to a 12-team postseason, subject to a general agreement. The possibility remains that the 14 teams could return to the discussions, depending on compromises in the final stages of the negotiations.
Under the postseason plan, the union discussed verbally, but did not decide whether to formally propose, that the higher seed would be home in all games and would need two wins to advance while the visiting team would need to win three times. MLB told the union it was not interested.
The team with the bye in the first round will be out for at least five days, potentially complicating the starting pitcher’s plans, and lower-seeded fans will not have home games in the first round. MLB does not believe broadcasters favor a “ghost game” and believes that the concept will not be well received by fans.
“MLB’s original 14-team format offers significant benefits for division winners and incentives to win at every level of the bracket,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said Saturday. “In an effort to compromise, MLB adopted a 12-team format after discussing formats including a ghost game. MLB has made it clear that the “ghost game” is causing serious problems and is not a viable path forward.”
“Ghost Victory” has been used by the Korea Baseball Organization since 2015, when its playoffs expanded from four teams to five in a 10-club league. The new best-of-three wildcard round ended in one game in five of seven seasons, with the lower-seeded team forcing another game in 2016 and last year before losing in the final both times.
“Working with union economists, we felt we had developed a format that would encourage competition throughout the season, especially for division winners,” Scherzer said. “We didn’t realize that this single advantage at home would be a necessary part of trying to get out there and win our division.”
Scherzer said that without the “phantom victory” format, “the 12-team format made more sense to us.”
Pitcher Andrew Miller, like Scherzer, an eight-member union executive committee member, said Scherzer’s postseason thoughts carry weight in the union.
“The main goal of these negotiations is to increase competition, and there is no way we will leave the table without doing so,” Miller said. “We’ve spent a lot of time debating the merits of the various playoff formats and there’s probably no better person to ask in the room than Max. But we are not going to do anything to sacrifice this competition of the season. Anything that points to mediocrity goes against our game and who we are as players.”
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