By RONALD BLUM AP Baseball Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball proposed to shorten the regular season to 154 games from 162 starting in 2029 and to expand the Division Series to best-of-seven in a plan given to players during collective bargaining Thursday.
Owners also proposed adding nine additional days off to the current postseason format, extending it to a maximum 42 days in a move that would give top starting pitchers potential to appear more often.
MLB would allow higher-seeded teams in the first two rounds of the postseason to pick their opponents beginning next year and would make most regular-season Mondays a day off for the vast majority of teams starting in 2029 except for those in up to two nationally broadcast games.
Cutting regular-season games would reduce the opportunity for players to set season and career records.
“Returning to a 154-game schedule would allow us to introduce a weekly off day, which is good for player health, while also creating a new national broadcast window to showcase our most exciting teams and players,” MLB spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement.
The players’ association said it will review the plan and will respond at the bargaining table.
Baseball’s five-year labor contract expires Dec. 1, and management is expected to lock out players in a confrontation that could delay or wipe out the 2027 season. MLB proposed a salary cap, which the union has vowed to never accept, along with limits on contract values and length.
“Unfortunately, the league once again made clear that all of its proposals are contingent on players’ agreement to a salary cap, a system that guts player rights and compensation, as well as its other anti-player proposals,” the union said in a statement.
MLB’s regular season currently schedules 162 games over 187 days, and the new format would play the 154 games over 180 in most years.
MLB would keep the Wild Card Series at best-of-three at the ballpark of the higher-seeded team, add an extra day off between Games 1 and 2 and stagger series starts. There would be only two games scheduled on each of the first three days rather than the current format of up to four games per day.
No. 3 seeds could select after the regular season whether to host No. 5 or No. 6 in the Wild Card Series, and the No. 1 seeds could pick which wild-card winner to play in the Division Series.
Each best-of-seven series would be played over 11 days instead of nine, adding off days before Games 5 and 7 in addition to the travel days before Games 3 and 6. MLB would stop scheduling early round postseason games in afternoons after some teams have struggled to fill stadiums in those slots.
Management made a “pick your opponent” proposal in 2022 bargaining as part of a 14-team playoff plan players didn’t agree to.
“A shorter regular season unlocks making October even better for our fans — with fewer weekday afternoon games, a longer Division Series and more opportunities to see the game’s best pitchers on the biggest stage,” Caplin said. “And allowing the top seeds to select their opponents in the first two rounds would create compelling storylines, intensify existing rivalries and create new ones.”
As part of the proposal, each team would be scheduled for four day-night doubleheaders, one against each division rival.
Minor league schedules have included days off on Mondays since 2021.
Big league clubs would be scheduled for Monday games on national holidays, when many typically draw large crowds. Teams that play Mondays would be scheduled to have Thursday off.
MLB said player salaries would not be adjusted to reflect fewer games and bonus provision thresholds — like those that pay players for games played — would be adjusted to reflect the shortened schedule.
The National and American Leagues adopted 154-game schedules in 1904 that had every team in each eight-team circuit playing all opponents 22 times.
The AL switched to a 162-game schedule when it expanded to 10 teams for 1961 and the National League followed suit the next year.
The LCS started in 1969 and were best-of-five through 1984, then expanded to best-of-seven.
Division Series have been best-of-five since their inception for annual use in 1995. Wild card games started with the expansion of the playoffs from eight to 10 teams in 2012 and became best-of-three Wild Card Series when the postseason increased to 12 clubs in 2022.
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