There seems to be a lot more complaints this year about the expanded playoffs, and in particular the "disadvantage" the teams with the best records have by taking 5-6 days off between their last game and their 1st playoff game.

Hypothetically, if they were to seed #4-6 in the same spots in the current bracket format and then allowed #1, 2 & 3 to pick the bye or defer it to a lower seed, do you think anyone would ever NOT choose the bye?

This has been discussed in the playoff discussion thread

Weird. I think it's great. Only complaints have been from the teams that don't seem to realize you're out after losing one series regardless of what happened in the regular season.

Only change I would make is make ALDS all home games. The 3 game series while statistically a tougher road doesn't seem to be all that detrimental to the team that comes out of it the winner, especially with the pitching rotations not being impacted all that significantly.

So I think you tilt things in favor of the higher seeds a bit more and make all games in the ALDS home series like the WC.

Baseball has been defined for a hundred years by the 3 game series. The one game wild card never made sense, like the one game college baseball final that was in place forever. Love the 3 game format...but...

I would give the wild card teams an extra day BEFORE starting the series. I want to see a classic 2-of-3 with the top 3 starters going for each team. Next, a 1 day lay-off after game 3, with only 1 day off in the Divisional round... Before the playoffs begin, the teams with byes have to declare whether they want to play the first 3 at home and the last 2 on the road, or the first 2 on the road and the last 3 at home. This would crunch the wild card winner pitching a bit.

3 days off after game 5 before the LCS begins. Want everyone to be at full strength. Same with WS. Whether you played 15 games or 7 games, it shouldn't matter. League champion is still league champion, and deserves the right to square off fully rested.

All this talk about how to "change the playoffs to make sure the best teams have the best path" is a bunch of people searching for an answer to something that's not a problem. All year long the O's, Rays, Braves and Dodgers routinely won series after series. Then when it mattered most, they didn't. The fact is that you have to perform come playoff time and 2-3 games where the bats go cold means you're going home.

I'm sure baseball would have preferred a Braves vs Dodgers NCLS and an Astros/Orioles ALCS for reasons of national interest as we watched the best regular season teams battle it out. But quite simply, those teams didn't have the horses to make it through the postseason. All 4 of them despite great records entered the playoffs with questions about either their rotations or their bullpens, mostly due to injuries.

At this point we're letting most teams with a winning regular season record in the playoffs, and then those teams battle it out for the championship, seems fair to me. Better record gets you more games at home, and playing at home in baseball gives you the tangible advantage of batting last and knowing your park defensively better than the other team.

The break between games is a reward. It allows teams to get rested and get their rotation right for the playoffs. If a team or teams can't handle it mentally and show up ready to play, then that doesn't mean the system should change.

I think the bigger factor in their postseason losses is those juggernaut teams like the Braves and the Dodgers was how early they clinched their divisions. The Braves clinched the East on 9/13 and the Dodgers clinched the West on 9/16. Both of those teams played 15-16 more or less meaningless regular season games over the course of 3 weeks before being in a high-leverage environment again.

The time off didn't bother the Astros. If the people arguing the current playoff format are arguing that the "best" teams don't always compete for the championship then I would counter with why even have a postseason at all? It's a bad argument.