Imagine the scene: In each league, two teams have survived the Wild Card round, each waiting in its clubhouse or hotel conference room to learn which club the top seed will select for their best-of-seven Division Series.
Perhaps a live reveal show. The live shots capture the humor, the anguish, the rivalry-stoking slight of being picked.
It could be baseball's version of the March Madness selection show -- another piece of competitive theater built around the postseason.
And it isn't a pipedream.
Major League Baseball may not envision a selection show quite like that, but the idea of top seeds selecting their playoff opponent is part of the proposal MLB announced in its latest submission in collective bargaining negotiations.
The opponent-selection idea is part of a broader package of structural changes designed to make baseball more compelling for fans through a better optimized, and more entertaining, calendar. Individually, the proposals have merit. Together, they could reinforce one another.
Under the proposal, the No. 3 seed in each league would choose between the No. 5 or No. 6 seeds as its Wild Card opponent. After the Wild Card round, the No. 1 seed would select its Division Series opponent from among the Wild Card round winners. Two acts of competitive theater.
But it would also create stakes beyond seeding: stoking rivalries and giving teams another incentive to finish higher in the standings.
MLB is advocating for something rarely seen in collective bargaining: structural change rather than incremental. After putting forward proposals on free agency and a cap and floor to address long-existing and growing competitive imbalances on and off the field, the league's latest proposal is largely tied to rethinking baseball's calendar. MLB wants to build a better one.
Thursday's proposal included reducing the regular season to 154 games while expanding the Division Series and spreading out the postseason calendar. It also called for a weekly Monday off-day for most teams, and created a new national television spotlight window.
The changes would begin in 2029 in concert with new national media rights being negotiated. The whole package is contingent upon a cap-and-floor system being in place.
The headline item is to reduce the regular season from 162 games to 154, the number of games played during the 1904-1960 seasons.
MLB and the MLBPA have spent years adding to the calendar: more playoff teams, longer series and expanded postseason formats. But the calendar was not redesigned to accommodate those additions optimally. The result is an increasingly squeezed schedule.
Yes, a 154-game season would mean less regular-season baseball overall. The idea is to reallocate some of that inventory toward games with greater value to fans: a best-of-seven Division Series that gives better teams more opportunity to advance, combined with a more deliberately staggered postseason and a new national television window.
The goal is to trade quantity for value.
The regular season would end a week earlier -- each team would also play four split doubleheaders during the season (one against each divisional opponent) -- and a Game 7 of the World Series would end no later than two days later compared to the present system.
That's a better use of the April-through-October calendar.
Now, there are real costs.
Local broadcasters would lose inventory. Fans would lose eight regular-season games, and players would have fewer opportunities to accumulate statistics, though thresholds for bonuses, options and other financial provisions would be adjusted proportionally.
There are always trade-offs with change in negotiations. But there are other subtle benefits for all parties involved, too.
A 154-game season allows for MLB to give each team a single off day each week, typically Monday for most teams, which reduces some of the wear and tear on players. For the players who play on Sunday afternoon they wouldn’t play again until Tuesday night.
While difficult to quantify what extra rest might mean, it ought to boost player performance and have some health benefits.
It would almost certainly mean less roster churn.
From 2022-25, teams averaged 1.45 optional assignments per week in weeks with an off-day, compared with 1.9 in weeks without one -- that's 24% fewer such transactions. Optional assignments are the shuttling of players on the 40-man roster back and forth between the big leagues and Minors.
The benefits include more national spotlights to place on the game and its stars, too.
While most teams would have Monday off, MLB would plan on one or two games played on Monday, a new exclusive broadcast window -- which would increase national exposure with new spotlight games. (The Monday off-day would not be in effect for national holidays and special-event games.)
Reducing the regular-season schedule would also allow MLB to stagger the postseason more effectively to avoid playing four playoff games on the same day, which is a difficult volume of baseball to absorb for even diehard fans. It would mean more eyes on more playoff games.
The economic calculation is straightforward. Additional valuable postseason inventory combined with more room to breathe in October, in addition to a new Monday national television window during the regular season, should result in greater media rights deals -- offsetting losses from a reduced regular season.
MLB needs growth, to continue to build on recent fan enthusiasm. MLB's revenue growth over the last 20 years lags behind the other major North American sports.
The additional off-days during the postseason would also allow teams to concentrate more innings in their best arms. That would make October baseball even less representative of the regular season, but fans want to see stars perform in the season's biggest moments
Taken together, it's an exciting vision for the future.
Yes, fewer regular-season games would be a real trade-off in some ways for fans, players and broadcasters. But if the changes create a regular season with more incentive to finish higher, a less punishing schedule, a postseason when games have more room to breathe, more national media exposure -- and a little more entertainment along the way -- MLB would almost certainly end up with a better product despite playing less of it.