Major League Baseball will have 16 playoff teams in the 60-game 2020 season, the league announced Thursday night. The league and union restarted talks about an expanded postseason -- a concept that previously came up in negotiations about the 2020 season that ultimately proved fruitless -- earlier in the week and wanted to strike a deal before the 2020 season started Thursday night. They were able to succeed.
Here are some notable features of the new format:
- All first-round games will be part of best-of-three series. The games will also all be played at the home of the higher seeded-team, eliminating the need for a travel day. The "Wild Card Series" will all take place between Sept. 29 and Oct. 2.
- The league and MLBPA agreed on a $50 million postseason bonus pool for players, per Evan Drellich of The Athletic. MLB had previously offered $25 million in negotiations last month.
- All six second-place teams (every division) will qualify for the 16-team playoff format. The seventh and eighth teams in each league will be chosen by the best record among other teams. Teams will be seeded one through eight based on the 2020 season record.
- The division winners will be seeded 1-3; the second-place teams will be seeded 4-6 and the final two "wild card" teams will be seeded 7-8
Here are statements from commissioner Rob Manfred and MLBPA chief Tony Clark on the expanded playoffs:
"We are excited to announce the expansion of the 2020 Postseason," Manfred said. "This season will be a sprint to a new format that will allow more fans to experience playoff baseball. We look forward to a memorable Postseason concluding a year like no other.
Added Clark: "The opportunity to add playoff games in this already-abbreviated season makes sense for fans, the league and Players. We hope it will result in highly competitive pennant races as well as exciting additional playoff games to the benefit of the industry and all involved heading into next year."
MLB was originally set to enter the season using its normal playoff structure, which has been in place since 2012 and features 10 playoff teams -- six division champions and two wild card entrants per league. That postseason format consists of two wild card games, the LDS round, the LCS round, and the World Series.
Negotiations between players and owners had been the story for much of the shutdown. The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shut down spring training in March and pushed back Opening Day roughly four full months. Players had been angling for a longer regular season, but thanks to the pandemic and the glacial pace of negotiations on the league's side the 2020 season will span just 60 regular season games. Commissioner Rob Manfred, per the terms of a March 26 agreement on player salary, had the power to implement a regular season structure.
One concern with 16-team playoffs is whether an autumn surge of the virus could interrupt the postseason. Since much of MLB's national television revenues are tied to the playoffs, that's a serious concern. Expanding the postseason deeper into the fall would necessarily increase the risk of a second shutdown before a champion was crowned. It's possible the relative low rate of positive cases during reopened spring training has emboldened MLB and the players on this front.
