Major League Baseball's expanded playoff proposal, as part of a new collective bargaining agreement between owners and players, includes the ability for division winners to pick their wild-card opponent, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.
The format would call for 14 teams -- seven from each league -- to make the playoffs, four more than currently play in the postseason. The three division winners in each league would be joined by four wild-card teams to make up the playoff field. Here's how it would work:
• The team with the best record in each league would get a bye into the best-of-five division series.
• The remaining two division winners would get to pick their wild-card opponent from the bottom three wild-card teams. The division winner with the second-best record would pick first, then the No. 3 seed in the league would pick its opponent from the final two wild-card teams. The wild-card team with the best record would play the wild-card team that wasn't picked by a division winner.
• Once matchups are set, the higher-seeded teams would host all three games in a best-of-three wild-card round.
• Winners in the wild-card round would advance to the division series and the playoffs would continue as they have in the past.
One concern with the proposed format is the time off for the top seeds while the wild-card round proceeds, hence teams hosting all three wild-card games in consecutive days.