{"id":399846,"date":"2026-01-10T20:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T20:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399846\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T20:39:08","slug":"party-like-its-1981-why-a-split-season-is-the-way-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/399846\/","title":{"rendered":"Party Like It\u2019s 1981! Why A \u201cSplit Season\u201d Is The Way To Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tucked quietly into a Rob Manfred presser about \u201cwe\u2019ve talked about some things internally, nothing imminent though\u2026\u201d<\/a> are notions of an in-season tournament a la NBA and a split season a la MLB 1981.<\/p>\n

The in-season tournament is a terribad idea that will probably never gain traction anyway, but a split season format? I\u2019ve been beating that drum for years so today I will outline why I think it would enhance MLB. Many of you are probably too young to remember 1981\u2019s split season, but it\u2019s used in the minors so you might have some familiarity with the concept through MiLB.<\/p>\n

How Does A \u201cSplit Season\u201d Work?<\/p>\n

The season is split into two halves, in this case a \u201c1st half\u201d and \u201c2nd half\u201d of 81 games. The winner of the division\u2019s 1st half and the winner of the division\u2019s 2nd half will play each other in a brief (one game? best of 3?) showdown for the division title. If the same team wins both halves they earn a bye for that preliminary round.<\/p>\n

With this model, you could move the All-Star break up to be the break in the two halves, i.e., after 81 games. April-June is the 1st half, followed by the All-Star break, July-September is the 2nd half.<\/p>\n

You could also move the trading deadline to be the end of the All-Star break so that there are no more \u201c2 month rentals\u201d but rather opportunities to fortify your team for the 2nd half. This makes the All-Star break a significant few days: it includes all the festivities around the All-Star game, it marks the deadline for trade acquisitions, and it brings another \u201cOpening Day\u201d.<\/p>\n

Post-Season Format In A Split Season<\/p>\n

Thanks to the watering down of the post-season with not one, not two, but now three wild card teams, a split season offers the same starting point as the current system: 12 teams, 6 in each league.<\/p>\n

A simple and logical format would be for the 1st half\/2nd half round to reduce the field to 3 division winners in each league. \u201cA,\u201d holding the best record, gets a bye while \u201cB\u201d and \u201cC\u201d duke it out for the right to play \u201cA\u201d in the LCS.<\/p>\n

You have incentive to win both halves as gets you a bye in the preliminary round and you have incentive to hold the best record amongst the division winners because it gets you a bye in the preliminary LCS round.<\/p>\n

Addressing The \u201cInequities\u201d Concern<\/p>\n

There is room for injustice in a split season. In theory a team could have the best record over all 162 games but still fail to win either half and be excluded from the post-season. This happened to the Cincinnati Reds in 1981, but in reality it would be an infrequent occurrence as it takes a pretty perfect storm to hold the best record but be unable to claim either half.<\/p>\n

In fact, far more inequity occurs under the current system. Wild card teams compete against one another for berths while playing entirely different schedules due to each team playing 13 games against division rivals and only about half that against opponents in other divisions. So while inequities are common in the current format they would be the occasional exception in a \u201csplit season\u201d format.<\/p>\n

Why A \u201cSplit Season\u201d Is A Great Model<\/p>\n

Much work has been done to try to discourage teams from \u201ctanking\u201d. Mostly the result has been screwing with the A\u2019s while teams continue to tank.<\/p>\n

What a split season does, which is great for fan engagement as well as discouraging tanking, is it intrinsically makes each team a potential contender on July 1st, and not buried or bereft of hope before August 1st at the earliest. No longer does a 6-16 start or a .400 winning percentage on May 15th relegate a team and a fan base to \u201cplaying out the string\u201d for months.<\/p>\n

A middling team like the 2025 Royals or Giants have great hope, last place teams like the Angels or Pirates get that glimmer of possibility, and bottom feeders like the White Sox and Rockies at least get to reset 0 games out and try again.<\/p>\n

The glimmer of hope that any team can get hot over an 81 game stretch, that a young team might turn the corner and improve greatly from May to August, that a key trade during the All-Star break could jump start the 2nd half, keeps most every team relevant deep into the summer.<\/p>\n

A shining example would be your 2025 A\u2019s, whose season was defined by an inexplicable 1-20 stretch that started in May and effectively ensured the team would not contend the rest of the way. No matter how well they played o how much improvement they showed, there was going to be no way they could overcome the hole dug over a strange 3 week stretch. That same A\u2019s team would have been a legitimate contender for the 2nd half crown had such a crown existed.<\/p>\n

A split season also removes from the playoff formula the \u201cwild card\u201d which is a highly flawed concept in an unbalanced schedule, giving each team at least a level playing field of competing for playoff spots with teams who face the same basic schedule.<\/p>\n

As with any model, there are downsides that can be raised in rebuttal. Probably the biggest concern would be that baseball prides itself on being a marathon and not a sprint in which a large sample determines who is worthy of the post-season. (This notion has, in fairness, already been greatly watered down by introducing 6 wild card teams and a chance to sneak in with 83 wins as the Reds did last season.<\/p>\n

An 81 game sample is significantly different from a 162 game sample and allows more opportunities for a mediocre team to \u201cget hot for a bit\u201d and ride it to the playoffs. This is pretty much what happened with the 1981 A\u2019s who opened the season a stunning 11-0 and 17-1.<\/p>\n

When the strike hit the A\u2019s were already beginning to fade and in fact their record, following their 17-1 start, was only 47-44. But they had banked enough wins in their first 18 games that by the time the strike hit they still won the 1st half and they didn\u2019t need to win the 2nd half in order to make the post-season. So a team that won almost all of its first 18 games and then sank into mediocrity for exactly 2\/3 of a season was awarded a post-season berth.<\/p>\n

Another potential concern might be moving the All-Star break up to the end of June, which would require players to be selected with even less of the season completed \u2014 though it\u2019s worth noting that a split season and the All-Star break don\u2019t have to coincide, it\u2019s just cleaner.<\/p>\n

To me the pros of a split season model far outweigh the cons and for years I have wondered why MLB, which uses the format in the minors, hasn\u2019t seen this as a far smarter and fairer way to maintain fan interest and post-season opportunities compared to adding wild cards to try to meet those goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked quietly into a Rob Manfred presser about \u201cwe\u2019ve talked about some things internally, nothing imminent though\u2026\u201d are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[170488,179462,257,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-399846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-as-commentary-and-analysis","9":"tag-as-news","10":"tag-general","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}