Extra wild cards coming to MLB playoffs

GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Major League Baseball, after month-long negotiations with the players union, will finalize the 2012 postseason format as soon as Thursday, expanding the playoffs by two teams.

"We'll have an answer in the next couple of days,'' Michael Weiner, executive director of the Major League Players Association, told USA TODAY on Wednesday.

The expanded format was approved for 2013 in November, but Commissioner Bud Selig strongly pushed for the extra wild-card round to begin this year. The difficulty was trying to squeeze in the one-game, wild-card round playoff game, with the regular-season and World Series schedules already finalized.

It will be MLB's first playoff expansion since 1995, adding a second wild-card team from each league. The winner of the one-game playoff between the two wild-card entrants will face the team with the league's best record in the Division Series. The expansion is designed in part to place a greater reward to the six division winners. The St. Louis Cardinals were the fifth wild-card team to win the World Series since 1997, while 10 wild-card teams have won pennants. Division winners will avoid the one-game playoff in the new format.

"I really think it's good,'' Los Angeles Angels veteran pitcher Dan Haren said. "It would actually reward the team with the best record, and that team gets to play the wild card.''

Chicago White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko says he favors adding a wild card "as long as the travel for that and the following series can be done right."

"You don't want to have teams flying through the night to play a game they're not prepared for. So as long as they can get it right to where everybody seems to have a fighting chance, it's a good thing."

The new postseason format will eliminate the rule that teams from the same division can no longer face one another in the first round. In fact, three teams could quality for the playoffs from the same division.

"I think we're all hopeful,'' said Toronto Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos. "Either way, it gives everybody more opportunity, but it's still that much more important to win the American League East.''

Both the union and MLB have voiced a preference for adding extra wild cards in 2012, but have been negotiating details for integrating off days into this year's format.

Contributing: Seth Livingstone from Clearwater, Fla.; Jorge L. Ortiz from Glendale, Ariz. 

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