MLB to expand playoffs to 16 teams for pandemic-shortened 2020 season

Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association have agreed to a 16-team playoff format for the 2020 season, and the agreement is expected to be made official, per a report from Bob Nightengale from USA Today.

The drastically-increased number of teams in the playoffs means that more than half of MLB’s thirty teams will make it to the postseason—assuming baseball gets that far as the country continues to struggle mightily with controlling the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the new format, the first and second place teams from each of MLB’s divisions will make the postseason, accounting for six playoff spots in each league. The last two spots will go to the teams with the first- and second-best records among the rest. The first round of the playoffs will be a best-of-three series before teams advance to the usual best-of-five division series and continue with a normal MLB playoff format from there on out.