How to Fix the Baseball Playoffs: Emulate the NFL

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig recently formed a 14-person advisory committee to brainstorm ideas for realignment. And boy, did they brainstorm:

[O]ne proposal gaining "strong support" is a concept referred to as "floating realignment."

Aimed to increase competitive balance, and lessen the dominance of the Yankees and Red Sox, the idea is to allow teams to be, in Verducci's words, "free to change divisions from year-to-year based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not."

That's pretty radical stuff. The example used by Verducci involved the Indians, who are in a rebuilding phase and also struggling financially, voluntarily moving to the AL East to gain the revenue benefit of 18 home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox. Currently, they get eight.

Meanwhile, a team like the Rays or Orioles, facing the ordeal of competing annually (and often futilely) against the mighty Yankees and Red Sox, could switch over to the AL Central for a season and have, at least theoretically, a better chance of making the playoffs.

One proviso is that no team could join a division more than two time zones outside its own. Keep in mind that this is merely a proposal and very preliminary. But apparently this could even entail teams switching leagues, the numbers of teams in each division changing from year to year, and possibly having interleague games throughout the season in some years if each league winds up with 15 teams.

Holy cow! Obviously such a proposal has its problems. As Bill Simmons pointed out on a recent podcast, this gives owners of small market teams an incentive to tank so they can switch to the AL East and get the financial reward of playing against the Sox and Yankees. But at least the Committee is thinking outside of the box.

Here’s my half-baked proposal: split each league into two divisions. Six teams from each league compete for their respective league championship. Those six teams consist of the two division winners and four wild cards. The two division winners get homefield advantage and a first-round bye. The four wild-cards play in the first round, and the two winners advance to play the two division winners. Then things proceed normally. The two second-round winners play each other for the league championship, and the league champion plays in the World Series.

This proposal is inspired by pro football. The NBA and NHL let too many teams into the playoffs—it’s hard to care about the regular season when half the league makes the playoffs. On the other hand, baseball lets in just four teams. That’s too little. The NFL gets it just right. Six teams per conference, with the top two seeds in each getting first-round byes. Six teams per conference strikes the right balance in letting in the really good teams while still ensuring that making the playoffs is an actual accomplishment. And I love the fact that the top two seeds get first-round byes. It makes regular season games that much more meaningful.

So why not just adopt the NFL approach wholesale? Realign each baseball league into four divisions, like football, and send the division winners plus two wild cards to the playoffs? Because baseball can’t support four divisions. First, MLB have to expand by about four teams to fill out the divisions, and baseball doesn't need more crappy teams in marginal media markets. Second, having four divisions would make existing divisional inequities worse. Thanks to the salary cap, the balance of power in the NFL is always shifting. But in baseball, powerhouses like the Sox and Yankees outspend their rivals year after year. Pity the poor suckers stuck in a four-team AL East. Having two divisions and four wild cards lessens the pain.

Another advantage to having just two division winners and four wildcards is that power imbalances between the divisions matter less. If one division really sucks, the other division can send three or even four wildcards to the playoffs. Why reward mediocrity?

The most obvious downside to the two-division plan is that it would lessen the number of games between traditional rivals. Because the Sox and Yankees would share their division with more teams, they would presumably play fewer games against each other. But there must be a workaround. Maybe MLB could remedy this by increasing the percentage of games played within each division.

Problem… solved! You’re welcome, Bud Selig. Feel free to show your appreciation by cutting me a big fat check. Actually, what the heck—just cut out the middleman and send it directly to the law school. That tuition isn't going to pay itself. Thanks!