8-Team Tournament with two 4-team pools. Every team plays 3 straight days (so 4 total games per day split between Dodger and Angel Stadiums). Group Winners and Runner Ups play in Semi-Finals after an off day then Bronze and Gold Medal games the next day. You could knock out that whole tournament in 6 days. Realistically, you could get it down to 4 days if you eliminate the off day and have the Group Winners go straight to the Gold Final and the Runner Ups straight to the Bronze Final.
Ideally it would be a longer tournament, but either way, there's no reason for MLB and MLBPA not to do this.
Kenny, your plan 6-day plan is what they did in 1984. I like an off day after the pool play, and separating the two medal games. This means your Game 1 pool play starter can start the Gold Medal game. It would be fascinating if they did the whole thing in 4 days. Then you’d have to decide to save your best starter for the Gold Medal game or not. But I also kinda like the College World Series double elimination model. It depends how many tickets the Olympics want to sell for baseball and how long MLB is willing to pause the season. But you are right: it can very easily be done.
Yeah, with the two pools/semifinals/finals model, an 8-team tournament gets you 12 pool games, two semifinals, and two medal finals for 16 total games. CWS-style double-elimination with a single gold final and single bronze final is 14-16 games.
One downside of pool play is it could result in dead rubbers and complicated tiebreakers whereas the double-elimination bracket basically guarantees every game has meaningful stakes. It would just take a bit longer and two teams would only get to play two games. Winning team that went the distance would play 7 games vs. 5 if pool play.
I think you can do a CWS-style bracket with two games per day at two stadiums and without having any team have to play twice in one day in 6 days. I think that's the play if they can do it.
8-Team Tournament with two 4-team pools. Every team plays 3 straight days (so 4 total games per day split between Dodger and Angel Stadiums). Group Winners and Runner Ups play in Semi-Finals after an off day then Bronze and Gold Medal games the next day. You could knock out that whole tournament in 6 days. Realistically, you could get it down to 4 days if you eliminate the off day and have the Group Winners go straight to the Gold Final and the Runner Ups straight to the Bronze Final.
Ideally it would be a longer tournament, but either way, there's no reason for MLB and MLBPA not to do this.
Kenny, your plan 6-day plan is what they did in 1984. I like an off day after the pool play, and separating the two medal games. This means your Game 1 pool play starter can start the Gold Medal game. It would be fascinating if they did the whole thing in 4 days. Then you’d have to decide to save your best starter for the Gold Medal game or not. But I also kinda like the College World Series double elimination model. It depends how many tickets the Olympics want to sell for baseball and how long MLB is willing to pause the season. But you are right: it can very easily be done.
Yeah, with the two pools/semifinals/finals model, an 8-team tournament gets you 12 pool games, two semifinals, and two medal finals for 16 total games. CWS-style double-elimination with a single gold final and single bronze final is 14-16 games.
One downside of pool play is it could result in dead rubbers and complicated tiebreakers whereas the double-elimination bracket basically guarantees every game has meaningful stakes. It would just take a bit longer and two teams would only get to play two games. Winning team that went the distance would play 7 games vs. 5 if pool play.
I think you can do a CWS-style bracket with two games per day at two stadiums and without having any team have to play twice in one day in 6 days. I think that's the play if they can do it.
Great piece. I think we should be going to a 154-game schedule either way and the way you've outlined how to get two weeks makes a ton of sense IMO.
I think you're right that within baseball we often think about everything that could go wrong instead of everything that could go right.
Literally just shorten the season and take a break like the WNBA and the MLS. Long term investment in something like this for the fans is worth it.
MLB never does anything logical or fun (they would actually KILL the game if they could short-term profit off of it) so don't expect it to happen.
Ugh. I feel your skepticism. Gonna try to manifest baseball finally doing the right thing.