NEW YORK -- Max Scherzer, a pitcher for the New York Mets, favours a radical reworking of the playoffs, one that would have the higher seed in the first round of an expanded postseason start a best-of-five series with a 1-0 lead.
Major League Baseball and locked-out players, who resume talks Sunday, both would expand the postseason from 10 teams 鈥� that's been the field since 2012, other than the 16 teams in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
The union prefers 12 and the parties appear headed toward that number, but Scherzer said players would consider 14 if clubs would agree to the 鈥済host win鈥� format.
Under MLB鈥檚 14-team plan, the division winner with the best regular-season record in each league would get a bye and advance directly to the Division Series. The two other division winners would choose their opponents and be at home for an entire best-of-three round.
The division winner with the second-best record would choose its opponent from among the three lowest-seeded wild-card teams. The division winner with the third-best record would then get to pick from among the remaining two wild cards. The top wild card would face whichever team is left over after the division winners make their choices and also play all games at home.
Selections would be made on a televised show.
鈥淲e felt like competition could be eroded in that scenario, and we had specific examples of different players who spoke up that highlighted that specifically,鈥� Scherzer said after Tuesday鈥檚 breakdown in labour talks.
鈥淐ontinuing on from those division winners down, we didn鈥檛 see the proper incentive for those other two division winners,鈥� the New York Mets pitcher added. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 understand why they didn鈥檛 want to take us up on a more competitive format.鈥�
The lockout was in it 94th day Saturday, four days after Commissioner Rob Manfred cancelled the first two series of the regular season, which had been scheduled to start March 31. Players are expected to respond Sunday to MLB鈥檚 latest offer, the last before talks ended Tuesday.
Before talks broke down, players said they could agree to a 12-team postseason subject to an overall agreement. There remains a possibility 14 teams could return to discussions, depending on tradeoffs in the end stages of negotiations.
Under the postseason plan the union has discussed verbally but is undecided whether to formally propose, the higher seed would be home for all games and need two wins to advance, while the visiting team would have to win three times.
A team with the first-round bye would be off at least five days, possibly complicating starting pitcher plans, and the fans of the lower seed in the opening round would not have any home games.
Scherzer argued for the plan during a Monday meeting with Colorado CEO Dick Monfort, and MLB told the union it is not interested. MLB does not think the 鈥済host game鈥� is the preference of broadcasters and thinks the concept would not be well-received by fans.
鈥淭he 14-team format MLB originally proposed offers significant advantages to division winners and provides incentives to win at every level of the bracket," MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said Saturday. "In an effort to compromise, MLB accepted a 12-team format after the discussion of formats including a `ghost game.' MLB made clear that the `ghost game' raises serious issues and is not a viable path forward.鈥�
The 鈥済host win鈥� has been used in the Korea Baseball Organization since 2015, when its playoffs expanded from four teams to five in the 10-club league. The new best-of-three wild-card round has ended in one game in five of seven seasons, with the lower seed team forcing another game in 2016 and last year, then losing the finale both times.
鈥淲orking with the economists on the union staff, we felt like we had devised a format that you would incentivize competition throughout all the season, especially for division winners,鈥� Scherzer said. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 see that that solely home-field advantage was going to be the necessary piece to try to go out there and win your division.鈥�
Without the 鈥済host win鈥� format, Scherzer said 鈥渁 12-team format made more sense to us.鈥�
Pitcher Andrew Miller, like Scherzer a member of the union鈥檚 eight-man executive committee, said Scherzer鈥檚 thoughts on the postseason carry weight within the union.
鈥淎 core goal of this negotiation is to increase competition, and there鈥檚 no way we鈥檙e leaving the table without something that does that,鈥� Miller said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e spent a lot of time debating the merits of various playoff formats and there鈥檚 probably not a better guy to ask in the room than Max. But we鈥檙e not going to do anything to sacrifice this competition of the season. Anything that points towards mediocrity, that鈥檚 the antithesis of our game and what we鈥檙e about as players.鈥�
