Quote:
Originally Posted by Hrycaj
Isn’t the cat already out of the bag here? I’m hardly seeing anyone clamoring for 4 eight division teams where ONLY division winners make the playoffs. Let’s face it, people love the wild card teams and the crazy trading deadline is causes each year. I wholeheartedly agree the more you let in the more you reduce the impact of the regular season. However, on the flip I don’t think people are willing to give up all wild card teams and lose that drama. For that reason it is only a matter of time that we have a huge expanded NBA/ NHL style post-season in baseball.
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Even if you keep the same # of teams making the postseason (it's currently at 12 and I'm not convinced they'll increase it when they expand to 32), more divisions will still lead to a greater chance of lesser division winners. If you have only 4 divisions you'd presumably take the 4 div winners and 8 wild cards. If those WCs are spread amongst all of MLB, you'll get the best teams you can get. If you instead have 8 divisions, there's a good chance at least 1 or 2 of the teams will be bad and while the wild cards will probably all be pretty good, the div winners likely won't all be. But either way, if the wild cards are evenly split between AL and NL or western conference vs eastern conference, instead of spread amongst all of MLB, you'll decrease the chances of having all the best teams in the postseason.