The CBA lockout is over a week old and the league and player’s association are still in negotiations. There doesn’t appear to be a resolution in sight, so there’s no point in discussing when we’ll get back to baseball. Instead, let’s look ahead at one of the items on the negotiation table: expanded playoffs.
Expanding the playoff structure is nothing new to baseball. In 1994, the leagues were realigned into three divisions each and the wild card era was born. This added an extra round and introduced two additional teams from each league into the playoffs each season, doubling the total number of participants from four to eight.