I not watching anyhow because of the BS, but this is terrible.
Baseball ain't football, days off can hurt as much as help.
We seen it many times, one team in the League Championship sweeps 4-0, while the other team in the other league goes 7. The team that swept their series sits around for a week or more waiting for the other series to finish.
The World Series starts and the team that swept their LCS is now cold and flat, while the team that went to 7 is still hot and sharp.
I don't know how often that happens. I think the team with a bye in a playoff round has an advantage just from setting up its starting rotation the way it wants for the next round.
I'll never forget the epic 2004 playoff series between the Yankees and Red Sox. The Yankees were up 3-0 in a best-of-seven series but the Red Sox came back to win it. After the Yankees were up 3-0 I remember telling a co-worker of mine who was a big NYY fan that I didn't think their chances were all that great because of the way the pitching matchups worked out for the last four games. If I remember correctly. the Yankees had wasted their ace on a game early in the series that got rained out, and that made all the difference for the remainder of the series.
It’s expected that the top 2 division winners will get byes. The third-seeded division winner plays #6 seed, all games at home. 4 and 5 play each other in what at lest should be a relatively well matched series.
I don’t like it, but it’s better (less bad) than the crazy 14-team plan teh owners were originally pushing.
I thought the one game playoff between 4 & 5 seed was a bad idea. To me the one game playoff is for an actual tie, but all other playoffs should be at least 3 games. The season is getting too long (they’re playing into early November). If they want more playoffs, cut the season back to 154 games.