Chicago Cubs: 3 ways a new CBA can save the game of baseball

Chicago Cubs: 3 ways a new CBA can save baseball – #2: Expand the postseason

This goes hand-in-hand with the aforementioned prevention of tanking. By expanding the postseason, you give those teams on the brink of October to a real shot at coming away with a World Series title. As many can relate, when teams are eliminated from making the postseason, the reality is most baseball fans turn off the TV not caring who wins because that dream of a championship is on hold for at least another year.

As a baseball fan, nothing is more exciting than realizing your team is going to the postseason and has a chance to win it all. In 2021, there were nine teams that won at least 90 games that went on to the postseason. Three of those teams won 100 games. In the end, it was the 88-73 Atlanta Braves, the team with the worst record going into the postseason that won it all. It goes to show you, absolutely anything is possible if you just get there.

By preventing tanking and forcing teams to become more competitive, expanding the postseason is only going to make October baseball more exciting and engaging. Winning becomes incentivized because everybody realizes they have a shot and questions whether it’s really worth it to lose that many games and possibly not even secure a top four pick in the draft either.

This is where teams earning more revenue comes in handy for owners, which ultimately comes to fruition for players, as well. In most cases, owners that become more wealthy have less of a problem spending more money to acquire bigger names knowing that the fans will show up to see these players compete night-in and night-out. In the end, it is a win-win-win situation: owners receive more revenue, players can take home postseason shares and elevate their standing on a national stage and more fans get to root on their team when the games matter most.

Correct me if I’m wrong, as a fan when it comes to the world of baseball, nothing is more exciting than watching the team you love so passionately succeed and make it to the postseason. Currently, you have the one-game winner-take-all wild card matchup between two teams that earned a wild card spot, with the winner going on to face the #1 seed in the Division Series while the 2 and 3 seeds battle it out to advance to the LCS before the final two teams square off in the World Series. MLB has already proposed an expanded postseason and you can see details here.

The question simply becomes, does “watering down” the postseason make teams not try as hard if there’s a greater chance to make it to October? Or, does giving teams a better chance to make the postseason provide the confidence for more teams to go for it? Either way, it is something that can provide a spark to baseball. In my opinion, giving more teams incentive and the reality of being able to make the postseason is enough to make more teams go for it.

What team in baseball is going to see more teams going for it and say to themselves “Eh, we don’t care about getting a high seed in the playoffs now.” If anything, more teams going for it forces the best teams to remain on their “A” game anyway in hopes of receiving that first-round bye or home field advantage throughout. No team is going to not want to try to lock up home field advantage or be the best team in baseball just because more teams can get in now. As far as the level of competition in the postseason, I understand the sentiment to a degree. Personally, I highly doubt anybody wouldn’t be excited if their team made it to the playoffs regardless of how many teams got in.

Furthermore, I circle back to the fact that the team with the worst record heading into the 2021 playoffs, and therefore the biggest underdog, just won the World Series a mere 2.5 months ago while winning just 88 games during the year. Does adding in four more teams, such as a team like the Toronto Blue Jays who won 91 games and missed the playoffs or Seattle who also won 90 games and narrowly missed the postseason as well really water down the level of competition that much? Anything can happen if you get hot at the right time.