Rethinking the MLB Playoff Format

If you've checked the standings anytime recently, you've probably noticed the Yankees sitting a couple games back of the Rays in both the AL East and the Junior Circuit in general. The exact number they've been behind has gone back and forth, but they still haven't been able to completely erase the deficit. Meanwhile, thanks to the Red Sox hot last couple months, they're within reach of the Yankees.

At time of writing, those three teams have the three best records in the American League. Yet due to the playoff structure that MLB currently has in place, if that holds, those three would all end up on one side of the AL bracket. Whoever ends up winning the AL East seems fairly certainly to get the No. 1 overall seed. Plus, if second and third in the division end up being the second and third best in the AL too, then they would be the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds, respectively. That would lead to them facing each other with the winner then guaranteed to face No. 1. The AL Central and AL West have both been fairly mediocre this season, yet there's a decent chance one of those teams would be guaranteed a spot in the ALCS.

On one hand, it's somewhat random that the top three in the East have ended up as far ahead as the rest as they are. The postseason is also fairly random, and it's entirely possible that a Central/West team goes into the ALCS and just beats the East team straight up, and we'll just have to shrug it off. However, as a fan of a team currently in this jam of potentially being stuck in this AL East playoff gauntlet, I can't help but feel a little frustrated that the Yankees would have to deal with at least one of the Rays/Red Sox, even if they play extremely well down the stretch.

Not that I expect that MLB would immediately hop on and change their format after one wonky season, but I decided to brainstorm some potential fixes.

Seeding done by record, regardless of division winner status

This is the main one fans of all sports turn to when trying to change their sports' playoff format. In this one, you would just seed the teams by straight record one through six. If the standings going into the week held, the Yankees would be the No. 2 seed, get the bye, and play the winner of the Red Sox and Astros/Rangers/Guardians in the ALDS. (The AL West/final Wild Card standings are a bit of a mess, hence not knowing who Boston's opponent would be exactly.)

On its face, doing that seems completely fair. The one drawback is that the schedule is still unbalanced with teams playing a good chunk of games against the other teams in their own divisions. While it's not the case with the AL East this year, there have been seasons in the past where a team's record got a bit inflated by beating up on a truly terrible team in their own division. Letting the champion that comes out of each division get preferential seeding makes some degree of sense, but doing this could offset scenarios like this year where things get really wonky the closer you get to the bottom of the playoff picture.

A six-team bracket with reseeding was how the NFL playoffs worked for many years. The idea here would be that if the No. 6 seed takes out the No. 3, the No. 1 is rewarded with playing them instead of the No. 4/No. 5 winner. This wouldn't necessarily change the issues with this year's AL mess, but if the last team in manages to knock off the No. 3 seed, the Yankees/Red Sox/Rays wouldn't all have to immediately face each other.

This one might be a bit confusing, but it's something I brainstormed up and kinda like. Under this plan, here's what would happen. The Wild Card round of the playoffs would be exactly as it is now. The top two division winners in each league get byes. The third division winner still gets to play the No. 6 seed, while the top two Wild Cards have to face each other.

However after the first round is complete, the seeding for the LDSes are then done by records. For example, if we take the AL standings going into Monday, and then assume the higher seed won, the seedings for the ALDS would then go like this:

The Rays would face the Astros/AL West winner in the ALDS, while the Yankees would jump up to the No. 2 seed and get home-field advantage over the White Sox, who they have a much better record than at time of writing. This may be needlessly confusing, but it would still give each division something to play for in the unbalanced schedule era. However, if two teams (in this year's case three) teams from one division separated themselves from the pack, they can still get some sort of advantage in the later rounds. It's probably dumb, but I came up with it while in the shower and thought it might work.

Get rid of divisions, balance the schedule, shrink the playoff field so only the cream of the crop makes it and teams have to actually spend to try and compete to make the playoffs

Rob Manfred just appeared outside my window wearing a Michael Myers' mask. I gotta go.