Kind of difficult to comment on recent history when there's been just one season that would be semi close as a comp to your suggestion. I never claimed that 162 game schedule (BTW I'm not stuck on 162) would prevent it. It is my opinion that if you add more teams to the playoff picture and drastically reduce the regular season schedule there is a greater opportunity for more than 6 teams to have the best six records in either division. I'll be happy to let any math experts here look into it and If I'm wrong, that's fine. This isn't a hill that I'm going to die on, it's an opinion. FWIW, I'm not seeing a whole lot of folks saying that nothing about the game should change. What I am seeing is a lot of discussion about various levels of change. From universal DH, to playoff formats, to banning the shift, length of game, extra innings, added double headers, length of schedule, service time and compensation issues, etc... I think we'd be hard pressed to find anyone who's not open to some sort of change.Recent history doesn’t bear this out. What is it about 162 games that would prevent this? Also, what does being the best over the course of a 162-game season even get you in today’s MLB?
I don’t know, it’s very weird to watch this conversation where some people in this thread are arguing that baseball is losing fans left and right and others are then arguing that nothing about the game should change. I don’t know that expanded playoffs would bring young fans in and casual fans back, but it’s an idea.