Should playoff series have off-days?

"MLB's marketing materials and stratagems have been obsessed with featuring the best players, especially starting pitchers, for a while. Off days make it possible to throw your dominant starters more often in a short series. The same goes for relievers, and has been indicated via studies for a while, results in a situation where teams want to, and can, use largely their few "trusted" relievers given the built-in rest days."

"To me, this foible seems like a lesser issue than all the other issues with the current playoff format. My main gripe, even though I only follow the postseason in passing, is that even though I'm a huge fan of delayed gratification, it's just kind of boring. Having to wait for a decisive game, having weird scheduled no-game days while the tournament is running, having the schedule flip-flop between which series are and aren't on..."

Playoff scheduling includes frequent off-days tied to venue changes and broader scheduling choices, creating rest opportunities between games. Those off-days allow teams to deploy dominant starting pitchers more often in short series, and enable repeated use of a small group of trusted relievers because built-in rest reduces overuse risk. The result is reduced need to rely on overall roster depth, favoring top-end talent. Eliminating off-days would increase emphasis on roster strength and continuity with the regular season, but would conflict with MLB's desire to showcase star players. Lengthy schedules and intermittent no-game days also lengthen the postseason and reduce momentum.

Read at Battery Power