In a short 60 game season a 16 team playoff makes sense. Not so much in a 162 game season so I don't think it will become permanent.
That article is a couple days old. My understanding is they will play by seeding... 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc. "The top seed would play the eighth seed, the seventh versus the second and so on, and the three division winners plus the second-place finisher with the best record would host all of the games in a first-round best-of-three." https://nypost.com/2020/07/25/mlb-playoff-expansion-needs-elimination-twist-sherman/
That was just a proposal and was not adopted. Seeds 1-3 are division winners, in order of record; 4-6 2nd place, in order of record; 7-8 the next 2 best records. 1 plays 8, 2-7, etc...
You think wrong. Baseball players still put up bulletin material over the slightest of infractions against them. Royals announcers were bringing up LMJ's throat slash 5 years after the fact in a exhibition game.
A 16-team playoff makes the odds a great team makes the playoffs better in a 60-game season, but it slightly lowers their chances to win the World Series. A 60-game season may not be as good as a 162-game season at determining the best team, it still is better than the playoffs. Also...
Of course the No. 1 should win, but odds are 60-40 (or whatever you think they are) instead of 100-0. If you get 0 dollars for a $10 bet, if the No. 1 team wins, but get an infinite amount for a $10 bet if the No. 8 seed wins, who do you bet on?
Baseball writers should be totally amped up to do some real investigative reporting... rather than write 30 articles and 1000's of tweets on the Astros scandal. This is a major development in regards to how pro sports can possibly function when numbers around this country are this high.
NBA is doing a bubble with far less players on rosters compared to MLB/NFL.... wtf are these sports doing
If there were cutouts of Manfred in the Crawford Boxes, does anyone think we might put more balls there?
Without an attempt at a bubble, I never saw how this was going to work. I enjoyed watching Astros baseball over the weekend, at least.
A bubble would be preferred from a health and safety standpoint. That said, I expect the biggest fault is lack of enforcement of social distancing and lack of masks. Considering this largely has impacted the players than staff, I think this is more behavioral than being stuck in a plane with 50-60 people with limited space.
I'm not sure sports teams or sports commissioners are the best people to consider what should or shouldn't be done in the midst of a pandemic. Teams are reconfiguring their clubhouses by "taking away couches"... but there's really likely very little oversight amongst the individuals. I saw plenty of bullpen shots this weekend where guys just sitting right next to each other, like always, no masks. As @Joe Joe said, the dugouts have been mixed with business as usual and zero masks (with just those players who weren't in the lineup sitting elsewhere). While on the one hand they have a chance to be better protected in this set-up vs. what they do at home... all it takes is one infected individual being in the same clubhouse with the same air circulation, and little enforcement of masks, and the entire team is at risk. They've already figured this out in different restaraunt/bar contact tracing scenarios months ago.... but apparently still comes as a surprise at how virulent this can be.
