My problem with a bye in a playoff format is the sitting around.
Having the better team cool their heels for an extra week works fine in football. You can get over injuries and rest up for the next fight. Football is bruising.
Baseball is timing. Pitchers and hitters sitting around for 8 days not playing, when their comfort zone has been playing basically every day for 7 months, is not smart to me.
In a bye format I wouldn't want a best of 5 for the play-in to the divisional round - it takes too long and does a disservice to those who won higher slots by letting them get rusty. OTOH, one game for all the marbles is too short. It should be kept to a length that is reasonable to see a team wait. In a best of seven series one team can sweep and one team can go 7, so there can be a 3 game wait for an opponent to be ready.
And that's why I'd graduate it. 3 games for the Wild-card matchup, 5 games for the divisional, 7 for the pennants and the World Series.
That way we're not pushing the World Series too far into November hopefully either.
Otherwise, I'm down with it. The Wild Card helped baseball dramatically by making it possible to see Cinderella tales and not just divisional races that are over by the trade deadline.
It helps individual teams all get races to be aware of, and reasons to go to the park beyond the hydroplane races on the scoreboard.
I DEFINITELY wouldn't expand, though. Contract, maybe. Go to 28 teams instead of 30, and have 14 in each league. The powers that be would never allow that, though. Not when the Nationals franchise sold for a billion whatever dollars, and the Rangers was similarly obscene. Phase out 2 billion dollars of assets just to consolidate talent and make the other teams better and more competitive while removing markets unsuited for the game?
Craziness.
But if we can't get them to contract, we can at least stop them from expanding and watering down the talent pool even further.
Just an expanded playoff is fine, please - as long as it's done the right way.
~G
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