This week, Major League Baseball set their postseason plans, detailing the neutral-site locations, bubbles and schedule. The 16-team 2020 playoffs is set to begin on Sept. 29.
On Thursday's episode of "Nothing Personal with David Samson," host David Samson gave his thoughts on the extended MLB playoffs and his predictions for what next year's postseason will look like.
Samson starts by going into one of the main reason for the change: "MLB decided, as any business would when you have a money problem: you do things to create value."
MLB realized during the short season that it would be "fair and just and profitable to have expanded playoffs," the podcast host said.
However, there are people who are not fond of this year's 16-team format. Some say it's too easy to make the playoffs in this formt, and that it will have a crushing impact on the regular season if it sticks around.
"You have got to have incentives that make it necessary to actually care," Samson pointed out, adding that this idea of needing an incentive is why we now have a single-elimination Wild Card games in normal, 162-game MLB seasons.
Making his prediction for next year, Samson said, "I think what you will see next season is you will see 16 teams still make the playoffs, but you will see the first and second best record in each league get a bye."
He also thinks that to make more of an incentive to win in the regular season, they'll change how the first round works going forward.
