I think it's high time to give more teams the chance to make the playoffs, and also reward the best teams in the league.
My proposal is simple:
- Expand the playoffs to add a third round, with two additional wild card teams, a best-of-five, giving the top two seeds (which must be division winners) a bye in the first round. The structure of the playoffs will be thus:
- Seeds one through three will be the three division winners, as decided by who has the most wins that season.
- The three wild card teams will be seeds four through six, seeded by the number of wins that season.
- Seeds one and two will have a bye in the first round.
- Seeds three and four will have home field advantage in a best of 5 series (two home, two away, one home) against, respectively, seeds six and five.
- The teams will be reseeded after each round, with the lowest seeded remaining team playing the top seeded team, and the other playing the second seeded team, both in best of seven series as current.
If we had done this last season, for example, Seattle and Antelope Valley would have had a first round bye, and London would have played Maui, and Brick against Atlanta, in the first round. Going back five seasons, the teams that would have been the #6 seed had 86, 85, 79 (two teams, actually, which would have necessitated a play-off game), 85, and 82. And, I didn't even look at the teams that would have been the 5th seed and were left out of the playoffs.
I don't feel strongly about it, but having half the teams in the league make the playoffs seems a bit much. Maybe expand to a fifth team, and adjust the format accordingly? That way, 5 teams make the playoffs and 7 stay out?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I'm in favor of a five-team format though. In practice, that may work out to be pretty destabilizing. Recently, Seattle has usually had the best regular season record. A five-team playoff would have meant in those years that Seattle would have had a bye and the consequent advantage.
I don't think a playoff format that helps the favorite is a good thing. I understand the goal to give more teams a chance, but I'm also not thrilled about half the teams in the league making the playoffs. Perhaps we just periodically realign the divisions?
I don't really have a clear feeling as to the right answer here. I'll probably just end up following the crowd on this one.
While I am generally in favor of expanding the playoffs to give other teams more opportunities, I don't like the idea of a first round bye for the best teams.
ReplyDeleteI'm not thrilled with the first-round bye, either, but the way I see it is that the teams that would be getting the bye still have the same number of rounds, we are just adding more teams, and thus more rounds.
ReplyDeleteHow about a play-in best of 3 (or 5?) between seeds 4 and 5 for the Wild Card spot, and keep the current playoff arrangement otherwise the same? That's not my preferred method, but I'd accept that as it gives one more team a chance.
I agree that half the league should not be in the playoffs, so I would lean towards no on expanding the playoffs. I could be onboard with a play-in game/short series if we wanted to make things a little more interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking that the playoff system is fine as is.
ReplyDeleteI'm ok with the current system, but also ok with a wild card play-in game or short series.
ReplyDeleteI also remain fine with realigning the divisions, if the concern is that the Zotti Division has dominated the wild card berths.
I think the divisions are fine it just so happens that the 2nd best team has been Brick for awhile give it time and another team will be just like them.
ReplyDeleteafter a lot of thought about this i have o vote no...the only way to do this is go to ether 6 or 8 teams and that is not good either it makes us look bad like a NBA or NHL playoff where almost everyone makes it and makes the regular season has no importance
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a voting thread, Fred, so save your votes for that.
ReplyDeleteBut, I can tell this isn't going to be a popular suggestion. So, maybe we should discuss re-alignment, again.
Back when we moved from two leagues to three divisions, we went from 6vs6 to 4vs4vs4. Some thought was given to the distribution of the teams. If I remember correctly, we used the last-five seasons worth of W/L records to rank the teams 1-12, and put the top three teams in different divisions, and then the same with the next three, and the three after that.
Should we do so again? If we do, here are the rankings for the past 5 seasons (2023-2027) worth of wins:
1. Seattle - 557 wins
2. Brick - 429
3. Brooklyn - 422
4. Maui - 416
5. Antelope Valley - 412
6. Shackamaxon - 407
7. Norfolk - 392
8. Atlanta - 389
9. London - 384
10. Highland - 355
11. Ohio - 355
12. Houston - 342
So, using the same idea as before, Seattle, Brick, and Brooklyn would be in separate divisions, with Maui/AV/Shackamaxon as the next three teams to be seeded, Norfolk/Atlanta/London after them, and then Highland/Ohio/Houston.
Does this sound better to folks than a 5th or 6th Wild Card team?
I don't like playoff expansion to six teams.
ReplyDeleteHow about this as a crazy idea: Realign the divisions every year! We could base it on record, or just make it random. I don't really feel any long term division rivalry, so who is in my division every year doesn't really matter to me.