(I am not a huge fan of asking playoff-related questions, but that’s mostly all that’s happening in MLB, so here we are.)
The Tigers did an exciting thing by hammering the Mariners yesterday, forcing a decisive Game 5. However, because that requires a change of venue back to Seattle, there’s an off-day before said critical contest will happen. There are also off days for each other change in venue, not to mention between rounds and the random scheduling-oriented off day in the NLDS to suit MLB’s scheduling purposes.
MLB’s marketing materials and stratagems have been obsessed with featuring the best players, especially starting pitchers, for a while. Off days make it possible to throw your dominant starters more often in a short series. The same goes for relievers, and has been indicated via studies for a while, results in a situation where teams want to, and can, use largely their few “trusted” relievers given the built-in rest days.
A series without off-days would test roster strength and depth a bit more. That’s probably at odds with what MLB wants to showcase in the playoffs, but would at least add a bit more continuity between the regular season and the playoff tournament.
To me, this foible seems like a lesser issue than all the other issues with the current playoff format. My main gripe, even though I only follow the postseason in passing, is that even though I’m a huge fan of delayed gratification, it’s just kind of boring. Having to wait for a decisive game, having weird scheduled no-game days while the tournament is running, having the schedule flip-flop between which series are and aren’t on… having the tournament take way longer than it needs to just to play four rounds, all of those are things I dislike about it. But maybe if I cared more, I’d appreciate the tension and the brief respite from the tension.