Tony Plate - Mets Sale to Cohen Falls Through

The proposed sale of the Mets to Steve Cohen in which he agreed to purchase eighty percent of the team for 2.6 billion, unfortunately fell through. The problem was that Cohen grew concerned about not having control over the direction of the franchise and you can’t blame him. If your going to invest that much money into a team you would expect team control over the direction.

 Some might have thought that if Cohen would have been able to purchase the team, he may have turned to free agency to sign a few big-name players to improve the team which is what the Mets have not been doing that much of in recent years. The Wilpons can’t say much due to confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. They just want to focus on the future and not in the past. They hope to find another potential buyer soon.

In other baseball news, Major League Baseball is considering an overhaul to the playoff system. The new system would include fourteen playoff teams, three division winners and four wild card teams. The team with the best record in each league would automatically advance to the division series leaving the remaining six teams to play in a wild card round.

There would be a selection Sunday type show in which the two division winners not receiving a bye to the division series would get to choose their opponent in the wild card round from the bottom three wild card teams. That would be a best of three series all of which would be played at the team’s home stadium.

 The other division winner would pick from the remaining two teams and the top wild card team would host the other wild card team that wasn’t selected. Changes to the playoff system would need to be collectively bargained and the proposal is a long way off from coming to a reality. It would be one of the biggest changes to the game in recent memory.

In my opinion, being able to pick your playoff opponent would be very unusual. It would be such a gimmick which is something I would not agree with.  I would rather leave the playoff format the way it is except just make the opening wildcard round a best of three series with the first game played at the park of the team with the inferior record, then the last two games at the stadium of the team with the superior record.