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Quick Hits: Expansion, Braves, Left Field, Royals, Moore

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In the past, expansion has helped Major League Baseball dig out from financial peril and inject new money into the industry, but despite the significant financial uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic, expansion is not on the table, writes the Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal. News spread of the commissioner’s pessimistic view on expansion when the Phillies signed Dave Dombrowski to run their baseball ops department. Dombrowski had been working with the Nashville group for potential expansion before commissioner Rob Manfred informed them of a new timeline. Expansion can solve short-term financial problems because of the significant franchise fees paid by incoming franchises. In this case, those fees could be $1 billion or more. For the owners, however, the short-term influx of money comes with the long-term losses that come with spreading the overall revenue pie to another two teams. Commissioner Manfred also wants to see stadium issues resolved in Oakland and Tampa Bay before beginning the expansion process.

  • The Braves are looking for a left fielder, per MLB Insider Jon Morosi (via Twitter). Presumably, Atlanta would target a short-term investment rather than making a splashier move like, say, bringing back Marcell Ozuna. Ronald Acuna Jr., Ender Inciarte, and Cristian Pache make for an elite defensive alignment, and prospect Drew Waters is on his way. Nick Markakis could certainly find his way back if he wants to keep playing. If their aim is to to find a right-handed bat to spell Inciarte against southpaws, Adam Duvall could return, or Kevin Pillar, Albert Almora Jr. and Cameron Maybin are free agents with experience playing for a contender. If the Braves are looking for a more regular producer in order to give Pache and/or Waters more development time, Joc Pederson could fill the power void left by Ozuna’s departure. Speculatively speaking, Ryan Braun would make for an interesting fit if he decides to play outside Milwaukee. Not to be forgotten, Austin Riley has played some outfield during his short Major League career, but Atlanta expects Riley to lay claim to the hot corner in 2021. That would change if they were to add DJ LeMahieu, but despite their reported interest, such a union seems like a long shot.
  • Royals Senior VP of Baseball Ops and General Manager Dayton Moore will be inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall Of Fame later in January, per Alex Lewis of the Athletic (via Twitter). Moore is entering his 15th season in 2021 as the GM of the Royals. He was named Executive of the Year by MLB in both 2014 and 2015 for his role as the architect of back-to-back pennant-winning clubs in Kansas City. Those playoff teams are the only Royals teams to make the playoffs since they won the World Series in 1985. He was inducted into the Kansas Hall of Fame in 2014.

MLB Planning For Fan Attendance In 2021

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Commissioner Rob Manfred took a judicious approach to allowing fans into stadiums in 2020, and it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t the right strategy. MLB didn’t allow fans into stadiums until the Championship Series, and even then they limited entries. With rigorous testing and strict protocols, MLB went 54 days without a positive test before Justin Turner tested positive for COVID-19 during game six of the World Series. The NFL, in their struggle to contain the virus, is proving the significance of MLB’s achievement in that regard.

There’s a new plan for next season, however. Commissioner Manfred believes that the lack of live baseball diminished interest in the sport and affected revenues beyond the obvious loss of ticket sales. Specifically, MLB estimates that 40% of their overall revenue ties directly to the presence of fans at live games, per the Athletic’s Evan Drellich. Even in a limited capacity, fans at ballgames in 2021 could help keep audience engaged throughout the season and into its endgame: the playoffs.

Drellich provides some Nielson ratings to quantify the drop in postseason viewership. Both the Championship Series and the World Series saw ~30% drop in viewership from the previous season.

Of course, there are many challenges ahead for Commissioner Manfred and MLB. Cases of coronavirus are at an all-time high, and though the winter has long been projected to be particularly rough, the current rate of infection in places that Wisconsin is worse than expected. Whether the nation can get control of the situation before March and April remains very much unclear. Manfred does note that the allowance of fan attendance can only move forward with approval from local health officials.

They will have the experience of the 2020 season to help them along, of course. The couple of breakouts early in the season helped MLB to narrow their focus to containing the spread of the virus while simply allowing for changes to the schedule. Regional play also helped contain outbreaks for MLB, though it’s unclear right now if a similar approach would be taken over a full season – or even if MLB plans on having a “full” 162-game season in 2021.

Rob Manfred Discusses MLB’s Revenue Losses

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Talk of revenue losses throughout the sport has been prominent since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, but commissioner Rob Manfred put some more concrete numbers on the concept this week. In an interview with Barry M. Bloom for Sportico, Manfred claimed that the league’s 30 teams have amassed a collective $8.3 billion in debt and will post anywhere from $2.8 to $3.0 billion in combined operational losses.

Manfred’s comments come at a time when many clubs throughout the league have made sweeping layoffs to both business-side and baseball operations employees. The Athletic’s Alex Coffey reported last week that the A’s, for instance, are preparing to lay off upwards of 150 employees who were furloughed throughout much of the 2020 season. They’re far from the only club making such broad-ranging cuts, although Oakland certainly figures to be on the more extreme end of the spectrum.

Evan Drellich of The Athletic wrote yesterday that a league official claimed Major League Baseball’s EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — showed a loss of $2.7 billion but also noted that with the league’s books closed, such numbers can’t be independently verified. A league official claimed to Drellich, perhaps more dubiously, that even under normal conditions the league would have expected $10 billion in revenue against $10.2 billion of expenses — a rather eye-opening and frankly questionable assertion when considering last year’s widely reported $10.7 billion of revenue for MLB.

In that sense, the claims put forth by Manfred and the unnamed league official(s) who spoke to Drellich on the condition of anonymity call back to the ugly standoff between MLB and the MLBPA during return-to-play negotiations, wherein the players repeatedly called for ownership to open its books and provide quantitative evidence of the extent of the damage they were facing. Detractors will surely question the veracity of the league’s figures, which Drellich notes do not account for “ancillary” revenue streams like stakes in regional sports networks.

Regardless, there’s no doubting that revenue losses felt by clubs in the absence of fans is enormous. The job cuts throughout the sport are but one way for ownership to soften the blow, but the most direct means of correcting course for owners is expected to be via club payroll. For months we’ve heard expectations of a bloated group of non-tendered players and a tepid market for free agents. To that end, Bloom notes that some club executives have already signaled that they won’t be able to commit salary to players this winter.

Some clubs will surely still spend money. The purported $2.8 to $3 billion in operating losses isn’t necessarily divided evenly among the league’s 30 clubs, and tolerance for loss varies from owner to owner (or ownership group to ownership group). Still, on a macro level it’s wise to anticipate large-scale reductions in team payrolls.

Most concerning for players, remaining club employees and the health of the sport is the potential for additional revenue losses in 2021. While the obvious hope is that fans will be back in the park for a full 162-game slate next season, that’s wholly dependent on the status of the coronavirus and the associated public health guidelines in place. To this point there’s no clear timeline on when a vaccine will be produced, approved, scaled and distributed such that clubs could expect business as usual. And while Manfred has previously taken an optimistic tone on that front, he struck a different chord in speaking with Bloom this week.

“[I]t’s going to be difficult for the industry to weather another year where we don’t have fans in the ballpark and have other limitations on how much we can’t play and how we can play,” Manfred told Bloom. “…It’s absolutely certain, I know, that we’re going to have to have conversations with the MLBPA about what 2021 is going to look like. It’s difficult to foresee a situation right now where everything’s just normal.”

Rob Manfred Discusses Rule Changes, Playoff Expansion

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OCT. 23: Manfred told Dan Patrick “all of the COVID-related rule changes,” including extra innings, the universal DH and seven-inning doubleheaders, are likely to “return to the status quo, absent an agreement with the players association” in 2021. Of course, a lack of a universal DH could have an effect on quite a few free agents, including Nelson Cruz. Meanwhile, Manfred once again did admit he would like to expand the playoffs, but not necessarily to 16 teams.

OCT. 22: Commissioner Rob Manfred hopes that a couple of 2020’s changes will stay as long-term additions to the MLB season, per Ronald Blum of the Associated Press. Manfred spoke in favor of an “expanded playoff format,” though he was careful to say that the 16-team format from this year might be a bridge too far.

Manfred would aim for something between the standard 10-team format at this year’s 16-teamer. He has previously advocated for a 14-team postseason, which would reward the top team in each league with a bye through the first round, with the bottom-6 playoff teams facing off in an elimination round much like this year’s Wild Card format to create the 4-team Divisional match-ups in each league.

Manfred is also in favor of keeping the man-on-second extra innings rule. Blum notes that the longest games this season were a pair of 13-inning affairs. The rule certainly drove more action in extra innings, and though eliminating the couple of marathon-type extra innings games would seem to be a small victory in the grand scheme of things, MLB can check that box, it would seem.

Once the season ends, Manfred will be back to the laborious process of negotiation with Head of the Players’ Union Tony Clark. It won’t be a total back-to-the-drawing-board situation, but given the temporary nature of this season, the changes that were made will need to be re-addressed this winter.

Latest On Potential Playoff Expansion

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To help compensate for the sport’s massive pandemic-driven revenue losses, MLB and the MLB Players Association agreed on a 16-team playoff field with a first-round, three-game wild card series for the 2020 season. That agreement covered this year only, but Commissioner Rob Manfred made headlines a few weeks ago when he said he was “a fan of the expanded playoffs” and hoped to keep them around permanently.

Rather than maintain the 16-team field, though, the league’s preference is to adopt a 14-team format, per Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic. Under such a system, the team with the best record in each league could potentially receive a first-round bye.

Rosenthal casts doubt on whether that idea would be acceptable to the MLBPA, which fears adding playoff teams could disincentivize clubs from aggressively pursuing roster upgrades. That concern spurred the MLBPA to reject MLB’s push for a 2021 playoff expansion during the parties’ first round of talks this summer. The Players Association also expressed reservation about the physical toll an extra playoff round could take on some players, per Rosenthal.

Typically, players receive a share of gate revenues during the playoffs. This year, with no fans in attendance (until the NLCS), the parties agreed players would receive a $50MM bonus pool from the league’s television revenues in exchange for expansion. That’s a small percentage of the league’s $1 billion estimate for TV revenues this fall, Rosenthal points out. Estimated revenues will further increase over the next decade thanks to the league’s recent broadcasting deals with Turner and Fox.

Also complicating matters is the generally icy relationship between players and owners, Rosenthal notes. The sides were unable to agree on return-to-play measures following weeks of back-and-forth this summer, pushing Manfred to impose a 60-game schedule. The parties’ subsequent agreement on playoff expansion may have eased tensions somewhat, but there’s still a general expectation of acrimony between the two sides moving forward, particularly with the current collective bargaining agreement expiring in December 2021. Potential long-term playoff expansion will surely be a big talking point over the coming months, but the parties seemingly have plenty of work to do to push that over the edge.

MLB Designates Three Independent Leagues As Official “Partner Leagues”

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Sept. 25: Both the American Association and the Frontier League have indeed been introduced as formal “partner leagues” as well, MLB has announced. The league’s press release indicates that both will “collaborate with MLB on initiatives to provide organized baseball to communities throughout the United States and Canada.”

“We welcome the American Association and Frontier Leagues as Partner Leagues, and look forward to working with them toward our shared goal of expanding the geographic reach of baseball,” Sword said in a new statement.

Sept. 23: Major League Baseball on Wednesday announced that the independent Atlantic League has been officially designated as MLB’s first “partner league.” As a partner league, the Atlantic League will “meet regularly with MLB to discuss joint marketing and promotional opportunities, including the leagues’ shared goal of providing baseball to communities throughout the United States,” per the press release announcing the partnership.

There was already an existing relationship between MLB and the Atlantic League, which has in recent years been a testing ground for experimental MLB rules such as the extra-innings runner on second base, pitch clocks, larger bases and even automated strike zones. Today’s agreement not only expands that relationship but extends the arrangement through the 2023 season.

“We are excited to extend our relationship with the Atlantic League, which provides us a unique means to push the sport forward,” MLB executive vice president of baseball economics and operations Morgan Sword said in a statement within the release. “The Atlantic League clubs and players have been great partners to us as we jointly test ways to make our game even more interesting and engaging to fans.”

The Athletic’s Evan Drellich reported this morning that MLB had been pursuing agreements not only with the Atlantic League but also with other high-profile independent leagues, including the American Association and the Frontier League. Minor league team owners who spoke with Drellich expressed trepidation that such partnerships could be used as leverage by MLB in ongoing talks with MiLB about a new Professional Baseball Agreement between the two parties.

It’s also possible that some clubs that are cut in the inevitable, broad-reaching contraction of the lower-level minor leagues could land in the Atlantic League or other newly appointed “partner leagues,” per Drellich. A timeline on additional agreements with the American Association, Frontier League or other indie circuits isn’t clear, but the PBA between Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball expires next week.

Manfred Hopes To Make Expanded Playoff Format Permanent

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The 2020 MLB season looks like nothing we’ve ever seen in the sport’s century-plus history. A 60-game schedule with 28-man rosters, frequent seven-inning doubleheaders, a universal DH and runners magically manifesting on the bases in extra innings have all been chalked up as necessities to get through a pandemic-shortened season that had a limited ramp-up period and was set to take place in a span of just 67 days. This year’s 16-team playoff field was implemented as a means to help curb some of the broad-reaching revenue losses that have hit all 30 clubs.

Unsurprisingly, however, it seems as though MLB is mulling the permanent implementation of some of these aspects. Speaking at an online event hosted by Hofstra University this week, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he hopes to make the expanded postseason format permanent, adding that he believes the opposition to the universal DH is waning and stating that the extra-inning rule has been received better than he anticipated (YouTube link to the entire 71-minute appearance).

“I’m a fan of the expanded playoffs,” Manfred said of this year’s 16-team field. “…I think getting back to that three-game series in the first round is a positive change. I think the initial round could have the kind of appeal you see in the early couple days in the NCAA tournament. It’s going to be crazy — just a lot of baseball in a compressed period of time. We’re going to have a bracket, obviously. People love brackets and love picking who’s going to come through those brackets. I think there’s a lot to commend it. It is one of those changes that I hope becomes a permanent part of our landscape.”

Nothing is set in stone on that front just yet, but the concept of an expanded playoff structure had been discussed and was generally supported by the “overwhelming majority” of owners prior to this year’s implementation, per Manfred.

Postseason expansion has indeed been floated speculatively in the past, although pushing all the way to 16 teams was an even more radical jump than ownership initially sought in return-to-play negotiations. Back in March, the league was reportedly looking at a 14-team structure, although that presumably would’ve served as a gateway to the 16-team format that is now in place. It’s also odd to tie the three-game Wild Card series to postseason expansion, as the league could simply have pushed the existing, sudden-death Wild Card Game into a three-game series without adding more teams to the field.

The league can spin the reasoning however it chooses, positioning the broadened structure as a win for fans — that surely is the case in many instances — but the ultimate goal is the greatly increased revenue associated with extra postseason play. With or without fans in attendance, adding six teams to the field will cause television revenue to soar. It’s been reported that this year’s expansion could generate $200-300MM in additional television revenue, and the potential for broadened gate revenue in subsequent seasons only creates further incentive for teams to endorse the larger field.

Manfred wasn’t so straightforward with his own personal endorsement of the universal designated hitter, but he strongly implied that he feels the on-field product is enhanced by the DH in the National League.

“I think that playing with the designated hitter every day, the best I could tell you right now, has softened the opposition to the DH in the National League,” said Manfred. “The experience of doing it, the offense that it injects into the game, the way it makes it more exciting — I’m not sure it’s going to last, but I do think it has definitely changed some minds in the National League, which is obviously where the opposition to having a single set of rules has been centered over the years.”

Regarding the most radical rule change in 2020, Manfred suggested that placing a runner on second base in extra innings not only has a chance to stick beyond 2020 but has been well-received to this point. The concept has been polarizing, at best, among fans on social media — MLBTR readers were against it four-to-one back in June, though that was of course before seeing it put into practice — and has also been panned by some players.

“The extra-inning rule has been more positively received than I would have expected,” said the commissioner. “I told people, I said publicly before Covid, that I didn’t see this rule coming to the Major Leagues. I think it has a chance now. It’s been good. People see it as a strategic rule. It’s a whole different thought process that goes into handling the extra innings. I think it’s a good thing.”

Not every rule change is likely to stay in place. Manfred cast doubt on whether seven-inning doubleheaders would remain in place beyond the 2020 season, characterizing the traditional nine-inning length of games as something that isn’t likely to be altered on a permanent basis.

Looking further down the road, Manfred again touched on the topic of expansion to 32 teams. The commissioner has long been a proponent of adding two new teams to the league but acknowledged that the Covid-19 pandemic — the revenue losses and the time dedicated to navigating a season amid it — have likely pushed expansion down the road a ways.

“Expansion makes great sense for baseball, just based on the math,” said Manfred. “Fours work way better than fives. We have five-team divisions right now, 15 teams in each league. Those fives are rough when you go to make a schedule. … Getting to 32 [teams] is a really appealing idea from a schedule format perspective.”

Manfred didn’t delve into potential sites for new teams, though he did go back to a previously stated belief that international expansion beyond the U.S. and Canada would be good for the game’s growth, citing Mexico’s existing baseball culture as a “great opportunity” for the league to explore at some point.

Eventual changes to the rulebook, the structure of the season and the very composition of the league have long felt inevitable, but it’s certainly notable that the league has implemented this many changes to the 2020 season with the looming expiration of the 2016-21 collective bargaining agreement. The impending negotiations on a new CBA undoubtedly played a role in the MLBPA’s decision to only agree to expanded playoffs in 2020, as the expanded format can now be a point of leverage in future negotiations rather than the status quo heading into those talks.

Even if some of the league’s desired changes for the 2021 season don’t come to fruition on the heels of this year’s experimental campaign, don’t be surprised if (or when) they are once again major talking points as MLB and the MLBPA again come to the negotiating table in a year’s time.

Latest On Mets Video Incident, Apologies From Brodie Van Wagenen & Mets Ownership

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While Mets and Marlins players took part in a moving on-field statement before deciding to postpone tonight’s game, a bizarre incident was taking place behind the scenes that resulted in public statements being issued by, separately, Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen, Mets CEO and owner Fred Wilpon, his son and Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, and league commissioner Rob Manfred.

Less than two hours prior to game time, when it was still publicly unclear whether or not the teams would play, a video featuring Van Wagenen making some off-the-record comments was accidentally streamed to the Mets’ official website.  Van Wagenen said that the Mets weren’t going to play, and expressed incredulity at an apparent suggestion from Manfred’s office via Jeff Wilpon that the Mets and Marlins make their protest as planned but then return to the field an hour later to play the game.  “And I said, ’Jeff, that’s not happening. These guys are not playing.’….But that’s Rob’s instinct and Rob…at the leadership level, he doesn’t get it.  He just doesn’t get it,” Van Wagenen said on the video.

Details about how the video was mistakenly uploaded (or perhaps leaked, as Newsday’s Tim Healey noted that the 70-minute video was blank other than a few minutes that included Van Wagenen’s comments) remain scarce, though they naturally sent a storm of controversy around the baseball world.  Shortly after the Mets and Marlins left the field, the general manager released a statement saying he erred in thinking the idea came from Manfred.  Van Wagenen’s full statement:

“Jeff Wilpon called Commissioner Manfred this afternoon to notify him that our players voted not to play.  They discussed the challenges of rescheduling the game. Jeff proposed an idea of playing the game an hour later.  I misunderstood that this was the Commissioner’s idea.  In actuality, this was Jeff’s suggestion.  The players had already made their decision so I felt the suggestion was not helpful.  My frustration with the Commissioner was wrong and unfounded.  I apologize to the Commissioner for my disrespectful comments and poor judgement in inaccurately describing the contents of his private conversation with Jeff Wilpon.”

In a later interview with the New York Post and other media outlets, Van Wagenen expanded on his apology to include the Mets players.  “This conversation is about the players making a statement,” Van Wagenen said.  “This conversation is about recognizing the pain and the anguish that black people are experiencing every day in this country.  The fact that I’ve put myself and this organization in the conversation in a way that takes away from the real point, I’m disappointed in myself…and I accept responsibility for that.”

For his part, Manfred released his own statement later, with the Commissioner stating:

“Over the past two days, players on a number of Clubs have decided not to play games.  I have said both publicly and privately that I respect those decisions and support the need to address social injustice.  I have not attempted in any way to prevent players from expressing themselves by not playing, nor have I suggested any alternative form of protest to any Club personnel or any player.  Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.“

Adding to the surreal nature of the hot mic incident were a pair of statements from the Wilpons, which each included misspellings of Van Wagenen’s first name.

From Fred Wilpon: “I am very stressed and disappointed to learn tonight that our General Manager, Brodie Van Wagenen, made disrespectful and inaccurate comments about our Commissioner, a long-time close friend of mine.  I hold Rob in the highest regard and in no way are Brody’s remarks reflective of my views or the organization’s. Rob continues to be a great leader of Major League Baseball.  I apologize for any harm this incident has caused Rob.”

From Jeff Wilpon: “To clear up any misunderstandings, it was my suggestion to potentially look into playing the game later because of scheduling issues.  Brody’s misunderstanding of a private conversation was and is inexcusable.  We fully respect our players and the Marlins players decision to not play tonight and appreciate the sincerity of all those who wish to draw attention to social injustices and racial inequalities that must be addressed.  The entire Mets organization remains committed to creating meaningful change in our society.”

This situation has only intensified speculation that Van Wagenen’s days in the GM role may be numbered, even with New York still in the NL wild card race with a 13-16 record.  Van Wagenen’s contract runs through the 2022 season, though his future is thought to be uncertain given that the Wilpon family is preparing to sell the franchise (final bids are due by Monday) and a new ownership group might very well prefer to make its own pick for the general manager job.  The Mets had a solid 86-76 record in 2019, Van Wagenen’s first season running the Mets’ front office, but his tenure has been marked with the off-the-field drama that has come to define the team under the Wilpons’ ownership.

Rob Manfred On MLB’s Latest Coronavirus Issues

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COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into Major League Baseball’s plans throughout the past few months, and Monday was no different. The Marlins-Orioles and Yankees-Phillies games were both postponed because of the outbreak affecting the Miami club, which has seen 11 of the 33 players on its 30-man roster and three-man taxi squad test positive. The Marlins-O’s matchup on Tuesday will also be pushed back as a result, but commissioner Rob Manfred expressed confidence Monday that the 60-game season will still be able to take place.

“We think we can keep people safe and continue to play,” Manfred said (per Bryan Hoch of MLB.com and Bill Shakin of the Los Angeles Times), adding that the league hasn’t seriously considering shutting down the season at this point. For MLB to do that, it would require one of its teams “losing a number of players that rendered it completely non-competitive,” Manfred stated. 

Whether the Marlins are “non-competitive” in their current state isn’t fully clear, as the identities of their players who tested positive aren’t known right now. They certainly appear to be at a disadvantage, though. The Fish were scheduled to play the Orioles in Miami, but the two could instead square off in Baltimore on Wednesday if the Marlins’ coronavirus tests yield the desired results, according to Manfred (via Shaikin). Manfred expects that the latest results from Miami and Philadelphia (which hosted the Marlins over the weekend) will come in Monday night, and the league will issue an update Tuesday, Hoch tweets.

It’s hard to call this anything but a terrible outcome for MLB, whose season just kicked off and looks less certain than ever to finish, but Manfred’s taking an optimistic approach for the time being. He insisted (via Jordan McPherson of the Miami Herald) that this is not “a nightmare situation” for the sport.

MLB Playoff Field Expands To 16 Teams For 2020 Season

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6:58pm: MLB has officially announced the 16-team playoff format and best-of-three Wild Card Series for 2020.

4:36pm: The league’s owners have ratified the agreement, Sherman tweets. Sixteen teams will make the playoffs this season.

3:27pm: ESPN’s Buster Olney reports that the top two teams in each division will qualify for the postseason under this format. The seventh and eighth teams in each league will be chosen based on the best overall records of the remaining teams. The Athletic’s Jayson Stark adds that all three first-round games of a series would be played at the higher seed’s home park, thus eliminating the need for a travel day.

3:00pm: Just hours before the first pitch of the 2020 season, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association have reached an agreement on an expanded postseason field. ESPN’s Marly Rivera reports that the union has agreed to the proposal, which now needs only to be ratified by the owners. Joel Sherman of the New York Post suggests that will indeed happen (Twitter link), and USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweets that there’ll be 16 teams as well as a best-of-three first round series (rather than a sudden-death Wild Card setting). The agreement covers only the 2020 season, per both Rivera and Sherman.

The postseason expansion comes with a $50MM player pool for the players, Nightengale further reports. That’s particularly notable given that in a traditional season, player postseason shares are derived solely from gate revenue and not from television ratings. Previous estimates on additional television revenue in an expanded postseason field suggested between $200-300MM could be generated by expanding to 16 teams, and ownership has agreed to share some of that windfall with the players’ side.

The potential ramifications here are broad reaching. It’s easy to envision this serving as a litmus test of sorts for future postseason expansion. The league has previously sought to push to 14 to 16 teams due to that considerable added revenue — the aforementioned revenue boost referenced only television money — and introducing it as a sort of experiment in an already anomalous season is perhaps a more palatable way of normalizing the change.

From a team vantage point, the impact this has on the trade deadline could be enormous. There have been plenty of questions regarding just how much clubs will be willing to surrender in order to acquire rental players in a 60-game season — particularly if the likeliest postseason scenario included a sudden-death Wild Card game. Now, clubs will at least be assured of a three-game series. Paired with the expanded number of fringe contenders a six-team expansion of the field, that could embolden some teams to be more aggressive buyers.

The greater number of postseason clubs not only widens the field of potential buyers but also narrows how many teams will be pure sellers. That could serve to up the demand for the trade assets on the few teams who are committed to selling off pieces. And it could lead to some dramatic last-minute decisions for teams that are on the cusp. Today’s brand of methodical, analytical GMs don’t make the emotional and even irrational plunges into transactions that once proliferated deadline season, but there’s a good chance we’ll again see some creative swaps of unexpected players. Complicated three-team trades have become prominent in recent years, and a radical change to the playoff format should only encourage creativity.

And what of the teams with trade candidates who have multiple seasons of club control remaining? At a time when clubs are reluctant to part with high-end talent to acquire 30-some games of a rental, a player controlled into 2021, 2022 or beyond becomes eminently more appealing. Matthew Boyd, Caleb Smith, Jon Gray, Francisco Lindor, Nolan Arenado and other controllable names who’ve been kicked about the rumor circuit in recent years will again be in demand. Depending on the status of those players’ teams at the halfway point of the season, the motivation to make a deal could increase. It’s worth reminding that only players in a team’s 60-man pool can be traded, so there are some clear restrictions in play, but the ripple effect here could be considerable.

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