Baseball Playoff Expansion: Good idea or Bad idea?

Saw a recent story concerning how major league baseball may expand the first round of the playoffs by making it a best of seven series instead of a best of five series.

Here is the article

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/baseball/mlb/12/02/weiner.union.ap/index.html

The NBA and the NHL have both made this move. The only real difference for the casual fan is that the playoffs go on for a little longer. The number of games in the playoffs for the NBA, NHL, and MLB make the postseason last a little too long, MLB is about a month, the NBA and NHL both last about 7 weeks. A result in part because MLB has a one fewer playoff round than the NHL and NBA have.

There are pros and cons that can be weighed in determining how worthwhile this would be to baseball. Here are some pros to think about; It gives teams a better chance to win a series and makes the series more interesting. when the regular season is 162 games and 3 game sweeps are common, that one more game could be much more important as it can make a favored team work a little harder for that win. Also, it makes strategy more important, teams must have a 4 man rotation, not the 3 man that many teams rely and succeed on. Another pro, from the owners and league's perspective is that it will be a money winner. More games on TV mean more TV revenue and money going into the league. Teams will get to have additional games to sell tickets, merchandise, and concessions. For the league, this would be a no-brainer, more money and more exposure would be great for the league. I found it interesting that the players were the ones in favor of the expansion. The other pro to consider is that since the players already play 162 games, what will a couple of more games mean? The teams in the playoffs are already the best ones in the league, so they should have to prove it, thus why the playoffs exist.

There are several reasons to oppose this expansion. Obviously, with three seven game series in a row, the "specialness" of the playoffs lose their meaning. With extra games, the fatigue of the season may result in more injuries and that teams may no longer be able to rest their pitchers for as many days as previously. Also, there is the classic argument, playoffs are long enough already and don't need to be any longer.

All are valid arguments, but can be argued against. The playoffs first added league championships in the 1960s, then the divisional series in the 1990s, and fans adjusted, the additional of a couple of games is much less impactful to the playoffs than the additional of entire series. Injuries are important to consider, but the risk of injury is as possible in the playoffs as in the regular season, there are countless odd/strange/random injuries that occur in baseball, players tearing muscles attempting to make a diving catch, pitcher being hit by the ball after a player hits it. Injuries are part of the game, baseball has the luck that it is not as physically demanding as say football, a sport where a concussion is a possibility in a game, where in baseball it is very unlikely. I use the concussion example because it is one of the most serious injuries as it is affecting the brain and neurological system. And to the final arguement concerning the fact that playoffs take too long already, the players (yes, the MLB players) have said, according to the article, that they would be willing to give up the rest days that they get in order to complete the post season in a timely manner.

Well, I thought that I would be making this into more a debate, but to me, I see this as a positive. My reasoning is that the pros out weigh the cons. The players like it and are willing to give up their off days. As a player I can see that it gives them a chance to show themselves off on a national stage; say a west coast team is seen on the east coast. The owners and league officials will make even more revenue, which I doubt they would oppose. The playoffs could get more interesting, more strategy being implemented. Though many fans may be opposed at first, I think that even the most traditionalist of fans would enjoy the extra games, if for no other reason, the chance to simply watch more games between good teams.

In closing, MLB has much more pressing issues to deal with it, this one is an easy one that is win-win-win (players, owners, and fans).