TALK BACK ON TABLE
Mets’ Scherzer favors ‘ghost win’ in 14-team postseason as MLB negotiations resume
Max Scherzer favors a radical reworking of the playoffs, one that would have the higher seed in the first round of a 14-team postseason start off a best-offive series with a 1-0 lead.
Major League Baseball and lockedout players, who resume talks today, both would expand the postseason from 10 teams — that’s been the field since 2012, other than the 16 teams in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
The union prefers 12 and the parties appear headed toward that number, but Scherzer said players would consider 14 if clubs would agree to the “ghost win” format.
Under MLB’s 14-team plan, the division winner with the best regular-season record in each league would get a bye and advance directly to the Division Series. The two other division winners would choose their opponents and be at home for an entire best-of-three round.
The division winner with the second-best 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 and also play all games at home.
Selections would be made on a televised show.
“We felt like competition could be eroded in that scenario, and we had specific examples of different players who spoke up that highlighted that specifically,” Scherzer said after Tuesday’s breakdown in labor talks.
“Continuing on from those division winners down, we didn’t see the proper incentive for those other two division winners,” the Mets pitcher added. “We didn’t understand why they didn’t want to take us up on a more competitive format.”
The lockout was in it 94th day Saturday, four days after Commissioner Rob Manfred canceled the first two series of the regular season, which had been scheduled to start March 31. Players are expected to respond Sunday to MLB’s latest offer, the last before talks ended Tuesday.
Before talks broke down, players said they could agree to a 12-team postseason subject to an overall agreement. There remains a possibility 14 teams could return to discussions, depending on tradeoffs in the end stages of negotiations.
Under the postseason plan the union has discussed but is undecided whether to propose, the higher seed would be home for all games and need two wins to advance, while the visiting team would have to win three times.
A team with the first-round bye would be off at least five days, possibly complicating starting pitcher plans, and the fans of the lower seed in the opening round would not have any home games. MLB does not think the “ghost game” is the preference of broadcasters and thinks the concept would not be well-received by fans.
“The 14-team format MLB originally proposed offers significant advantages to division winners and provides incentives to win at every level of the bracket,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said Saturday. “In an effort to compromise, MLB accepted a 12-team format after the discussion of formats including a ‘ghost game.’ MLB made clear that the ‘ghost game’ raises serious issues and is not a viable path forward.”
The “ghost win” has been used in the Korea Baseball Organization since 2015, when its playoffs expanded from four teams to five in the 10-club league. The new best-of-three wild-card round has ended in one game in five of seven seasons, with the lower seed team forcing another game in 2016 and last year, then losing the finale both times.
“Working with the economists on the union staff, we felt like we had devised a format that you would incentivize competition throughout all the season, especially for division winners,” Scherzer said. “We didn’t see that that solely home-field advantage was going to be the necessary piece to try to go out there and win your division.”
Without the “ghost win” format, Scherzer said “a 12-team format made more sense to us.”
Pitcher Andrew Miller, like Scherzer a member of the union’s eight-man executive committee, said Scherzer’s thoughts on the postseason carry weight within the union.
“A core goal of this negotiation is to increase competition, and there’s no way we’re leaving the table without something that does that,” Miller said. “We’ve spent a lot of time debating the merits of various playoff formats and there’s probably not a better guy to ask in the room than Max. But we’re not going to do anything to sacrifice this competition of the season. Anything that points towards mediocrity, that’s the antithesis of our game and what we’re about as players”?
An NFC assistant coach congratulated Brian Flores on his hiring with the Pittsburgh Steelers as the two passed in an Indianapolis hotel lobby on Thursday. As the NFC coach walked away, he turned and raised his hand.
“I’m with you,” he told Flores, who acknowledged the support.
Flores’ explosive lawsuit alleging racism and discrimination in NFL hiring practices gave voice to a large number of Black and minority coaches. And the general assumption is that it already forced one meaningful change: the Houston Texans’ last-minute pivot off of Josh McCown to the late interview and promotion of Black defensive coordinator Lovie Smith.
But league sources are skeptical that Flores will be able to hold the league and its teams accountable with this lawsuit as originally intended for two major reasons: the likelihood of arbitration, and the near impossibility to try this as a true class action suit.
The decision of Flores’ attorneys to include the Miami Dolphins as a defendant in the lawsuit, in particular, could make it easy for the league and teams to hide any findings and discovery in arbitration — and out of the public eye.
“There’s a very strong arbitration defense that essentially every team is going to be able to have at its disposal,” Miami-based litigator Brad Sohn, who has significant experience suing NFL entities, told the Daily News on Thursday. “Because Flores signed a contract with the Dolphins that has an arbitration clause in it, courts look at those very broadly and are going to be inclined to sweep the entire thing into essentially a private forum where nobody hears about what happens.”
So John Mara hypothetically would be required to answer under oath why Patriots coach Bill Belichick allegedly knew Brian Daboll was the pick days before Flores’ interview. And yet arbitration could protect the truth from ever getting out.
“As long as there is a lawsuit proceeding, the parties of that lawsuit are going to have a right to take people’s depositions and sworn testimony,” Sohn said. “Now, as far as will the world ever get to hear his answers to those questions? I think the answer to that is, if it does end up in arbitration, it’s almost a zero percent chance.”
This is why Giants GM Joe Schoen and Daboll continued to decline comment on the matter at the NFL Combine. Answers to those questions may never be made public if the NFL and teams simply hang tight.
“The team put out a statement on Feb. 4, I’d refer to that,” Schoen said. “We interviewed six qualified candidates that were diverse, and at the end of the day we felt that Brian Daboll was the best candidate for our situation.”
“I understand the question,” Daboll said. “Right now it’s an ongoing legal process and I’ll just leave it at that.”
There are also a couple of reasons Flores likely won’t be able to proceed with this as a true class action suit.
For one, while many Black coaches are grateful to Flores for taking a stand, it’s harder than you might think to find employed coaches who are willing to add their names to the suit and risk their own careers. And a true class action suit requires more than a handful of aggrieved parties.
Secondly, Sohn said class action suits involve “identical harms to very large groups of people,” and that would be difficult to prove in these circumstances.
“Here, the very broad concept of discrimination is a harm that may have impacted lots of people, but exactly how that manifests itself is going to be very individualized,” Sohn said. “It’s going to depend on individual state law decisions and requirements. It’s going to depend on things like hiring practices that the New York Giants follow, versus the Houston Texans, the Denver Broncos, the Miami Dolphins, etc.”
“So I think those variances are going to make it almost impossible for the case to proceed as a class action,” Sohn said.
In that case, especially given the gravity of the allegations, Sohn doesn’t think the NFL and its clubs would be motivated to resolve or settle the lawsuit, either.
“The NFL has taken some body blows the past couple years on racial issues to begin with,” he said. “If I were the NFL and I thought I had a defensible case here, I might be inclined to pursue those defenses because otherwise I’m just going to continuously have the target on my back.”
So it remains to be seen exactly how Flores and Black coaches will be able to effect the needed change they are seeking.
The News asked Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians, who is white, for his opinion on how the NFL’s hiring practices can be fixed. Arians’ offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles again didn’t get head jobs elsewhere.
“I’m very frustrated,” Arians said. “Because I’ve been on those committees for five or six years, and watching the hiring process each and every year just pisses me off more and more — because of the quality of guys that aren’t getting opportunities. Not that the guys that get hired aren’t. They’re damn good. You only got 32. That’s the thing. You got 32 jobs, 32 owners and that big ass pool of really qualified people.”
INDY GOSSIP
l Mississippi State offensive tackle Charles Cross seems like he’s firmly in play for the Giants’ first pick at No. 5 overall. Alabama tackle Evan Neal, Oregon edge Kayvon Thibodeaux, Michigan edge Aiden Hutchinson and N.C. State tackle Ickey Ekwonu are the early consensus top four players in this draft, maybe in that order. The Giants have picks Nos. 5 and 7. They might need four new starters on their O-line. And they have a high opinion of Cross, sources say. Schoen is scouting first-round pass rushers, receivers and defensive backs, too. Keep an eye on Cincinnati corner Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner. But the O-line is the Giants’ greatest need. Cross ran a blistering 4.93 unofficial 40yard dash on Friday night at 6-4, 307 pounds.
l With the NFL ceasing Covid protocols entirely this week, sources say the league supports reopening locker rooms to the media in 2022 and foresees doing exactly that. This is great news for storytelling, for transparency and for the fans.
l A Philadelphia Eagles source said new Giants assistant GM Brandon Brown is a thorough and excellent evaluator and a tireless worker who was tough for the organization to lose. Brown, 33, is most valuable to Schoen immediately in personnel evaluation. When Schoen can’t spend as much time on film or players because of his other responsibilities, he needs someone whose eye he trusts implicitly to be an extension of himself. That’s Brown. Schoen said he interviewed Brown for a Miami Dolphins scouting assistant job in 2014, observed his work over the years, and received a ringing recommendation from a friend, Eagles assistant director of pro scouting Max Gruder.
The plan? “(Bills GM) Brandon (Beane) prepared me for this job, and I would like to do the same thing for Brandon Brown,” said Schoen, who will expose Brown to the salary cap, as well. Eagles sources fully expect Brown to continue rising and are quietly excited for Brown even as he switches green for blue — well, maybe not on two Sundays out of every fall.
l Two notes on how the ‘new’ Giants are operating: one encouraging, one discouraging. Start with the latter: a source said while there’s been a lot of public talk about the Giants making major changes, the organization mainly is running the same outside of having two new faces at the top of the masthead. That includes a lot of holdovers in key front office positions. The flip side is that so far, Schoen seems to know what he’s doing. His roster moves and deliberations reflect that he has a good idea of what he’s watching