Rob Manfred Confirms There Will Be No Changes To The Playoff Format Because "It's Been Two Years"

I'll be real; I'm not that big a fan of the current postseason format. I just think 12 teams is too much. It's not even the long layoff for the top seeds that bothers me. If you're that good of a baseball team, you can survive having five days off. That isn't my concern. 

My biggest issue is that I think it rewards mediocrity. Eighty-four win teams making it to the NLCS will give owners an excuse to spend less money because you can have a slightly above-average team that can make a deep run through October. That's not meant to knock the Arizona Diamondbacks. They deserve credit for how they played in October, and I ultimately think they're better than the record, but my point remains the same.

Also, can we knock off the whole "I guess you don't like more baseball" argument? I just want the regular season to matter a little bit more. With that said, they were never going to be changes. I wrote about it in my blog yesterday. October baseball is now March madness. There are good things that come with that. There are bad things that come with that. There will be years in which you'll see a ton of upsets and parity, and you'll see years in which things are pretty chalky. In 2008, every number one seed made it to the Final Four in college basketball, and last year, we had chaos. You never know what you're going to get. That will excite many people, but it's undeniable that it diminishes the impact of the regular season. 

No matter what people's criticisms may be, there was no way that Manfred would bend the knee and make any changes to the postseason format. It's making the owners more money, and that's kind of all that matters at this point. This postseason has not been exceptionally enticing so far (sans Braves/Phillies), but there are ebbs and flows to this. Last year's postseason was pretty electric. I do think with this format still being in the infantile stages, it's easy for a lot of people (myself included) to point fingers. I'll never be crazy about it, but I can't sit here and act like I won't get used to it. It's baseball; I'm always going to love it.