MLB weighs expansion of playoffs
Major League Baseball is considering expanding the playoffs to nearly half the 30 teams and allowing higher-seeded wild-card teams to choose opponents.
The playoffs would grow from 10 clubs to 14 under the plan, first reported Monday by the New York Post. There would be four wild cards in each league, up from two.
Details were confirmed by a person familiar with the proposal who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because MLB did not authorize any public comments. Another person, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said MLBhasbeen looking at several plans.
Any proposal would have to be negotiated with the players’ association. The current collective bargaining agreement runs through the 2021 season.
“Expanding the playoffs in a sensible way is something worth discussing when part of a much more comprehensive conversation about the current state of our game,” union head Tony Clark said in a statement.
Only the division winner with the best regular-season record would advance directly to the Division Series under the plan. The two other division winners and wild-card teams would start in a best-of-three round.
The division winner with the secondbest record would choose its opponent from among the three lowest-seeded wild-card teams. The division winner with the third-best record would then get to pick from among the remaining two wild cards. The top wild card would face whichever team is left over after the division winners make their choices.
The selections would be made on a televised show.
MLB long restricted its postseason to just the pennant winners facing each other in the World Series. Postseason teams doubled to four with the split of each league into two divisions in 1969, then to eight with the realignment to three divisions and the addition of a wild card in 1995, a year later than planned due to a players’ strike.
The postseason reached its current 10 with the addition of a second wild card and a wild-card round in 2012.
Ex-Jays pitcher sues Astros: Former major league pitcher Mike Bolsinger sued the Astros, claiming their signstealing scheme contributed to a poor relief appearance in August 2017 that essentially ended his big league career.
Bolsinger’s suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeks unspecified damages for interfering with and harming his career. He’s also asking that the Astros forfeit their nearly $30 million in postseason shares from their 2017 World Series title, with the money going to children’s charities in Los Angeles and a fund for needy retired players.
According to the suit, Bolsinger, then a reliever with the Blue Jays, was put into a game in Houston on Aug. 4, 2017, and allowed four runs, four hits and three walks in one-third of an inning in a 16-7 loss. The suit said the right-hander “was immediately terminated and cut from the team, never to return to Major League Baseball again.”
He was demoted to Triple A and hasn’t pitched in the major leagues since. He was 0-3 with a 6.31 ERA in 11 appearances with the Blue Jays in 2017. The 32-year-old pitched in Japan in 2018-19, and is seeking a job with a big league club for this season.
According to Bolsinger’s lawsuit, graphic designer and web developer Tony Adams wrote a web application to document every instance of banging on a trash can during Astros home games in 2017. He found that the most bangs occurred in that Aug. 4, 2017, game, including on 12 of 29 pitches Bolsinger threw, the lawsuit said.
Extra innings: The Diamondbacks and two-time Gold Glove SS Nick Ahmed agreed to a four-year, $32.5 million deal. The 29-year-old Ahmed avoids his final year of salary arbitration with the deal, which keeps him with the team through 2023. ... A’s RHP Daniel Mengden underwent surgery on his pitching elbow. He had arthroscopic surgery to shave a small spur off his elbow. The team gave no timetable for Mengden’s return. Mengden, 26, was 5-2 with a save and a 4.83 ERA in 13 games, including nine starts, last season.