MLB handed the players’ union a proposal on Thursday that would reshape both ends of the calendar. The regular season would shrink from 162 games to 154 starting in 2029, and the Division Series would grow from best-of-five to best-of-seven. Evan Drellich of The Athletic, Mark Feinsand of MLB.com and the AP’s Ronald Blum all reported the details.
Eight fewer regular season games in exchange for up to eight more playoff games, plus a brand new national TV window. The league is not hiding what this is about.
What Is Actually in the Proposal
The 154-game schedule would be built around a weekly off day, with Mondays dark for almost everybody except one or two teams in an exclusive national broadcast slot. Teams that do play Monday would get Thursday off. Each club would play four split doubleheaders, one against every division rival.
MLB insists there would be no downward salary adjustment, with bonus and option thresholds scaled proportionally. The regular season would finish a week earlier, which is the point: it buys room for a longer October. A World Series Game 7 would land two days later than it does now.
The Division Series expansion would stretch each series from nine days to 11, with off days before Games 5 and 7 and travel days before Games 3 and 6. The field stays at 12 teams, and the top two seeds in each league keep their first-round byes.
The strangest piece is the opponent selection. The No. 3 seed would get to choose whether to host the No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the Wild Card round, and the No. 1 seed would pick which Wild Card winner it faces in the Division Series. The Athletic and the AP report that part could arrive as early as 2027, while the schedule cut and the longer Division Series are targeted for 2029.
For context on how big a change that is, the Division Series has been best-of-five since 1995. The 154-game schedule is not new ground either. Baseball played it for most of the stretch from 1904 to 1960.
None of This Happens Without the Cap Fight
Here is the part that decides everything. The current collective bargaining agreement expires December 1, a lockout is widely expected if there is no deal, and MLB wants a salary cap system that would pay players a fixed percentage of league revenue.
The MLBPA has already framed the schedule proposal as a package deal, saying the league’s offers are contingent on players agreeing to a cap, which the union described as “a system that guts player rights and compensation.” The union has said for years it will never accept one.
MLB’s public pitch is health and entertainment. Spokesman Glen Caplin said returning to 154 games “would allow us to introduce a weekly off day, which is good for player health,” and the league argued a shorter season “unlocks making October even better for our fans.”
The baseball ideas here are mostly good. A best-of-seven Division Series stops punishing 100-win teams for a bad weekend, and a weekly off day is overdue. Letting the No. 1 seed pick its opponent is a gimmick, but a fun one.
The problem is that none of it is on the table by itself. These are the sweeteners attached to a cap, and the union is not going to trade its economic system for a nicer bracket. Expect the schedule talk to keep making headlines while the actual fight stays exactly where it has been.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.