Major League Baseball just can't resist trying to tweak the way it goes about it's business.
For one thing, it wants to expand the playoffs from five to seven teams in each league. That would mean 14 out of 30 overall, or 7 out of 15 per league.
For another, it would allow teams to pick who they want to play, and it would do that on TV.
Both of those proposals are bad ideas.
The MLB season means something. You have to play well to make the playoffs. Expanding the format by two teams in each league could mean teams with .500 records are playing in the post season. Ugh. The NBA and NHL playoffs are not better because 8 teams in each conference qualify (nobody cares about the first round), but it is understandable because the seasons are half as long.
In addition, records must continue to mean something. It's only fair that teams get ranked and seeded by record, and that the team that finishes first potentially plays the lowest seed in its second round series.
What does make sense in this round of proposed rule changes is that the wild card games become best-of-three series at the home field of the team with the better record. One and done has never seemed right in a sport built on series of games throughout the year.
