Playoffs? You Wanna Talk About Playoffs?

It's unbelievable, isn't it? Here we are, less than a week away from opening day in Major League Baseball, and I wanna talk about playoffs. No, not the kind of playoffs that are actually coming up anytime soon (i.e. NBA or NHL), but baseball playoffs. As that first pitch draws nearer and nearer, I am starting to get that itch. I can't wait for the "Touch 'Em All" and "Web Gem" segments to start rolling and the hot dogs to start grilling. In preparation for the season, I have done very little in terms of researching what is going on around the league or what teams/players are poised to perform well. The thing I have done, however, is to do to a little bit of listening to some talk on potential rule changes.

As anyone who knows us could tell you, we love our podcasts and we especially love us some Bill Simmons and his B.S. Report. As of late, there has been some discussion of these possible rule changes and it has got me to thinking. I would LOVE to see MLB change up it's alignment and make the playoffs both longer and more interesting.

Recently, the commissioner implemented a new committee to meet and begin thinking "outside the box" in regards to possible changes to the league. One rumor that has been floating around (you'll see the pun in a moment) is that of "floating" divisions (see, there ya go). So what would that mean?

Well, in theory it would mean that teams are not anchored into any set division. Those top teams that both win and bring in a ton of revenue (think Yankees/Red Sox) would stay where they are, but those teams that finish lower in the standings in terms of both wins and revenues would be moved to a different division accordingly.

This would, for example, help teams like Tampa Bay, Baltimore and Toronto, who may be building a great team, but just cannot manage to win their division with the emense amounts of money available to the Yankees and Red Sox. These "second-tier" teams would be moved to different divisions after the season, in theory, giving them a better opportunity to make the post-season.

While this all sounds great, I think you are really messing with the wrong thing here. Why move teams into different divisions and mess with scheduling? Why not simply change the divisional alignment so that instead of three divisions and a Wild Card, you have two divisions in each league?

For simplicity's sake, let's look at how this could play out in the NL. The NL Central currently has six teams - the Cardinals, Cubs, Brewers, Astros, Reds and Pirates. All other divisions in baseball have five teams, with the exception of the AL West, which has four (kinda makes you wonder why the hell they haven't already evened them out).

So we take the six NL Central teams and we throw three of them east and three west. Obviously, we would like to keep St. Louis and Chicago in the same division for the sake of the rivalry. So we go St. Louis, Chicago and Houston to the NL West and Cincy, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee to the NL East. Now you are looking at eight teams in the east and eight in the west.

As far as the AL, you take KC, Minnesota and Chicago west (remember, there are only four in the west today) and you send Detroit and Cleveland east. That, again, puts eight in each division (amazing how that works). Come playoff time, you let the top team in each division have a bye in the first round. In addition, the 2nd and 3rd best team in each division would make the playoffs. That means you have six playoff teams in both the NL and AL.

I know, I know, it sounds crazy, but let's roll with this. We give the top two teams (#1 in each division) a bye in the first round. The #2s play each other and the #3s, or "wild cards", play each other. Both of these would be three-game series, kind of like the playoff we currently have in the event of a tie for the Wild Card. It's like a play-in for the playoffs. The winner of the "wild card" game would then get to take on the #1 overall in the league and the winner of the #2s would play the other divisional winner - essentially the exact same format we have in our current playoffs. So we end up with the same playoffs, we just add a very short play-in round and give the top two teams a reward for their regular season performance.

Not only do we end up with a little more excitement at the end of the season in terms of playoffs, but MLB ends up with more TV and ticket revenue and we have effectively eliminated the issue of the mid-market teams like Toronto, Baltimore and Tampa Bay not being able to make the playoffs because of the two big bullies on the block. Every year, each of those teams would have an opportunity to get in and in any given year, all three could make it.

Now, I understand this probably isn't perfect, but if you're telling me the league has an "outside the box" committee and they are considering moving teams to new divisions EVERY year, I say this might be a better solution. So let us know what you think. Is this completely crazy, or would you be ok with the idea. In an interesting side note, we would love to hear from you Cub fans as to whether or not you really think this would help your chances at all. I know it's been a long time and maybe this is exactly what you need to get that curse off your back. On the other hand, maybe there's nothing in this world that can do that. Your thoughts?