With 50-game MLB season possible, here's a look at how a short schedule can lead to playoff madness - CBS Sports

It's looking increasingly like MLB is dragging its feet on negotiations with players until playing even half a regular season in 2020 will be impossible. If that's the case, then commissioner Rob Manfred will likely unilaterally implement something like a 50-game regular season. Players recently proposed a 114-game regular season, but owners rejected that before offering a 76-game proposal that appears to have no chance of being accepted by the union. 

While a negotiated settlement at something like 82 games remains a distinct possibility -- and we've previously explored that hypothetical -- it's probably wise also to start pondering what a 50-game slate would look like. 

So let's do that by "back-testing" the last five seasons. While it's still subject to negotiation -- and owners are doing what they can to make those negotiations contentious -- it's likely we're going to wind up with a 14-team playoff field, up from 10, for 2020 and perhaps beyond. As we did with our look back at how recent history would've played out with an 82-game schedule and 14-team playoff field, we'll take two approaches to our walking tour of the 50-game season. First, we'll eyeball the standings and tell you which two teams in each league would've claimed those extra third and fourth wild card berths from 2015-19. Second, we'll look at how all those playoff berths would've been determined based on just 50 games of regular season baseball. Onward.

Adding four playoff teams based on 162-game standings

Playoff berth/Year	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
AL East champion	Blue Jays	Red Sox	Red Sox	Red Sox	Yankees
AL Central champion	Royals	Indians	Indians	Indians	Twins
AL West champion	Rangers	Rangers	Astros	Astros	Astros
AL Wild Card 1	Yankees	Blue Jays	Yankees	Yankees	Athletics
AL Wild Card 2	Astros	Orioles	Twins	Athletics	Rays
AL Wild Card 3	Angels	Tigers	Angels, Rays, Royals (tie)	Rays	Indians
AL Wild Card 4	Twins	Mariners	Angels, Rays, Royals (tie)	Mariners	Red Sox
NL East champion	Mets	Nationals	Nationals	Braves	Braves
NL Central champion	Cardinals	Cubs	Cubs	Brewers	Cardinals
NL West champion	Dodgers	Dodgers	Dodgers	Dodgers	Dodgers
NL Wild Card 1	Pirates	Mets	Diamondbacks	Cubs	Nationals
NL Wild Card 2	Cubs	Giants	Rockies	Rockies	Brewers
NL Wild Card 3	Giants	Cardinals	Brewers	Cardinals	Mets
NL Wild Card 4	Nationals	Marlins	Cardinals	Pirates	Diamondbacks

Wild card Nos. 3 and 4 in each league are the ones new to the scene. Our own Matt Snyder back in February took a look at what these last five years would look like with those extra berths, and you can check out his observations on how things might have been shaken up. 

Now that you've done that, let's get to the matter at hand -- i.e., what happens when we end these seasons at the 50-game mark, which as noted is what might happen in 2020. Feast upon the following cornucopia of pretend outputs: 

Adding four playoff teams based on 50-game standings

Playoff berth/Year	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019
AL East champion	Yankees	Red Sox	Yankees	Red Sox	Yankees
AL Central champion	Tie: Royals, Twins	Royals	Tie: Indians, Twins	Indians	Twins
AL West champion	Astros	Tie: Mariners, Rangers	Astros	Astros	Astros
AL Wild Card 1	Loser of Royals-Twins tiebreaker	Loser of Mariners-Rangers tiebreaker	Red Sox	Yankees	Rays
AL Wild Card 2	Tigers	Orioles	Loser of Indians-Twins tiebreaker	Mariners	Red Sox
AL Wild Card 3	Angels	White Sox	Orioles	Angels	Indians
AL Wild Card 4	Rays	Indians	Tie: Angels, Rays	Athletics	Tie: Athletics, Rangers
NL East champion	Nationals	Tie: Mets, Nationals	Nationals	Tie: Braves, Phillies	Phillies
NL Central champion	Cardinals	Cubs	Brewers	Brewers	Cubs
NL West champion	Tie: Dodgers, Giants	Giants	Rockies	Tie: Diamondbacks, Rockies	Dodgers
NL Wild Card 1	Loser of Dodgers-Giants tiebreaker	Loser of Mets-Nationals tiebreaker	Diamondbacks	Loser of Braves-Phillies tiebreaker	Brewers
NL Wild Card 2	Mets	Pirates	Dodgers	Tie: Cardinals, Cubs, Nationals, Pirates	Braves
NL Wild Card 3	Cubs	Tie: Cardinals, Dodgers, Marlins, Phillies	Cardinals	Tie: Cardinals, Cubs, Nationals, Pirates	Padres
NL Wild Card 4	Pirates	Tie: Cardinals, Dodgers, Marlins, Phillies	Cubs	Tie: Cardinals, Cubs, Nationals, Pirates	Tie: Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Pirates

Behold these pleasing jumbles! We saw this a bit with the 82-game scenarios, and when you reduce the sample size to 50 games you get even more of a mess. Each of these five seasons back-tested under the 50-game format requires at least one tiebreaker game to sort out the playoff field. Again, with 14 berths and less than one-third of the usual regular season to sort things out, this isn't all that surprising. Note in particular the nine car pile-up that is the 2018 NL playoff picture. Some other observations on these 50-game outcomes: 

• When we did this with an 82-game schedule, 22 of the 30 true division champions wound up winning their respective divisions. Under the 50-game back-test, just 13 of 30 division champs were alone in first place at the cutoff. 
• In the tent revival of misfortunes we call real life, the Dodgers have reeled off seven straight NL West titles. In the above alternate universe, however, they won only one in five years with a shot at two depending on how that tiebreaker in 2015 works out. 
• With a shot at two division titles in two years on the job, Gabe Kapler almost certainly keeps his managerial job in Philly. 
• The same goes for Andy Green, who likely saves his job as Padres skipper with that wild card berth in 2019. 
• You'll note that the Pirates will participate in the 2019 tiebreaker for the final NL wild card sport. That means potentially the Pirates and Padres, who combined for 185 losses last year, could have been part of a playoff fray build off a 50-game regular season.
• Speaking of 2019, the Red Sox make the playoffs under the expanded format, as they did under the 82-game scenario. Do they still cynically trade Mookie Betts coming off a postseason appearance? Yeah, probably. 
• Also in 2019, the champion Nationals miss the playoffs entirely, as they were saddled with a record of 19-31 at the 50-game mark.
• The Mariners' historic playoff drought comes to an end in 2016. 

To be sure, in a 162-game season managers use their rosters in more sustainable ways than they wound if the season were 50 games long, and that much be taken into account. In a 50-game format, each regular season contest would matter more, and each of those games would be treated as such. 

That said, reducing the sample of games to such a massive extent means weird outcomes will be more likely (by extension, bettors should be wary of World Series favorites in any season but especially one that spans just 50 games). That's the nature of smaller sample sizes, and that's especially the case with a sport like baseball, the structure of which lends itself to the unexpected. If we do wind up with a 50-game regular season in 2020, then recent history suggests we'll probably have at least one tiebreaker and will surely have some highly unanticipated playoff qualifiers. We saw some of this with the 82-game scenarios, but whittling it down to 50 invites even more madness into the process. 

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https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/with-50-game-mlb-season-possible-heres-a-look-at-how-a-short-schedule-can-lead-to-playoff-madness/

2020-06-08 18:17:18Z
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