CPBL To Announce 6th Expansion Team
The sixth CPBL expansion team is happening! On February 10, the CPBL commissioner revealed the league is going to announce the sixth CPBL expansion team by the end of February.
“No matter which conglomerates end up becoming the sixth team, we are grateful to both Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Steel Group,” said the CPBL commissioner Tsai Chi-Chang.
As of today, Chunghwa Telecom and Taiwan Steel Group are the front runners to be the expansion team. Both companies had expressed interest publically and had met up with the league.
The commissioner told the media he hopes to finalise everything before June, so the new expansion team can participate in the 2022 mid-season draft.
Expansion Team Timeline
Based on the current CPBL expansion regulations, the sixth expansion team timeline is as follows:
2022: The expansion team would participate in the mid-season with additional draft slots. At the end of the year, there will be an expansion draft.
2023: The expansion team need to spend their first season playing in the CPBL minor league. They will be given additional draft slots in the mid-season draft. There will be an expansion draft at the end of the year.
2024: The expansion team will make their CPBL major league debut.
The best thing about another expansion team for the CPBL bottom line and the fans is likely expanded play-offs. If it was up to me, I think that I would have four teams make the play-offs each season, so that there can be two rounds of play-offs. I would have the two (or one) half-season winners automatically make the play-offs and the remaining two or three teams make it based on best full-season records.
The team that wins a half-season and has the best record would play the fourth best team, and the second and third best teams would play. I think it would be worth considering some kind of advantage for the best team in the first round, like an automatic one-game advantage (as they do in NPB) or more home games. However, assuming that the first round series are best three-out-of-five, it doesn’t really make sense to reduce the number of games (and ticket sales) in order to give the best team an automatic one-game advantage. Might make sense for a best four-out-of-seven series, though.