While we await the conclusion of the negotiations between MLB and their ownership groups and the MLB Players Association, we must wait and wonder about the nature of the proposals we hear a slow drip of detail about. One consistent insistence from MLB and ownership is upon the idea of playoff expansion, a long-time focus of the league due to the immense financial gain to be had from more high-leverage baseball games, combined with the lack of need to share revenue from playoff games at the usual rate with the players. MLB has already sold the rights to a theoretical expanded playoffs to ESPN, so it seems all but assured that they’ll make sure 14 teams are in the playoffs moving forward, with most recent proposals looking something like this:
• The team with the best record in each league would get a bye into the best-of-five division series.