Major League Baseball is still full of surprises. With the NBA, we know everything and how things will run for the duration of the season. Baseball is still throwing out Wild Cards. They’re cutting the brakes like Charlie Kelly. First, we had the Toronto Blue Jays get told by Pennslyvania that they cannot play there, and I honestly think Omaha might be the Blue Jays’ best option. Second, baseball and the players are having discussions on expanding the playoffs from 10 teams to an eye-popping 16. This is very weird but in the spirit of Workaholics, let’s get weird.

The only real problem with doing this is you guarantee a team with a sub .500 record makes the playoff. There is no way that there will be enough teams with 31+ wins. Maybe I’m wrong there, and it will only be one or two. But it would be bizarre if a team with 28 wins out of 60 gets hot at the right time, and they end up winning the whole damn thing. This would lead to asterisk talk among other things. Baseball is likely trying to capitalize on fans’ attention towards the game and knows there is a real opportunity for a rating bonanza with the playoffs.

So what would a 16-game playoff look like if we used last year’s records? Here’s are the matchups in both leagues.

National League

• 1. LA Dodgers vs. 8. Chicago Cubs
• 2. Atlanta Braves vs. 7. Arizona Diamondbacks
• 3. Washington Nationals vs. 6. New York Mets
• 4. St. Louis Cardinals vs. 5. Milwaukee Brewers

American League

• 1. Houston Astros vs. 8. Texas Rangers
• 2. New York Yankees vs. 7. Boston Red Sox
• 3. Minnesota Twins vs. 6. Cleveland Indians
• 4. Oakland A’s vs. 5. Tampa Bay Rays

You can see exactly why baseball sees some opportunity here. My guess is these would be three-game series, but you get a Dodgers-Cubs, Yankees-Red Sox series. Each would be great for ratings. Last year, there would have only been one sub .500 team to make it and that’s the Texas Rangers. Maybe I’m not considering the bottom of the barrel of each division and there is an opportunity for more 30+ win teams.

We’ll see if baseball can get a deal done before the first pitch of Yankees-Nationals.

Charlie.