The Great Baseball Realignment Opus

Major League Baseball's current alignment and scheduling plan is a problem. The league seems to have acknowledged as much internally based on the SI.com report last week that Bud Selig's special rules committee is considering a "radical" realignment plan.

The full details of the plan are currently unclear, but the basic idea is that divisions and leagues would become vaguely fluid on a year-to-year basis to prevent three good teams from being trapped in the same division -- the way the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees are right now -- for an extended period of time.

As crazy as this plan might seem at first glance, it does go a ways toward addressing the biggest current problems with baseball's division and playoff structure. As currently constructed, each team plays a heavily unbalanced schedule weighted towards the 18 games played with division opponents. Unfortunately, the talent isn't evenly spread across the divisions and so some teams play a much more difficult schedule than others.

This creates at least two major problems. The first has played itself out in the American League East over the past two seasons; the Yankees, Rays, and Red Sox have all had excellent teams the last two years, but have only two playoff spots to share between them. The Rays may well have been a better team than the Twins last year, but they had no real chance of making the playoffs.

In the National League, three of the last four wild-card teams have been trounced in the first round. Because they played such widely varying schedules in very different divisions, it's impossible to say that 2009 Rockies or 2008 Brewers were better teams than the 2009 Marlins or 2008 Mets, respectively, even though they finished with better records. With talent more evenly distributed across divisions, these sorts of hypotheticals wouldn't necessarily have to be unanswerable.

But the floating realignment plan raises its own set of questions. How do teams become eligible for realignment? How are the divisions chosen? What happens to teams in the Western time zone, who can't be aligned as easily due to the rule that prevents teams from playing division games more than two time zones away from their home stadium? Most importantly, if one of the stated goals is to keep the Yankees and Red Sox in the same division, does anything actually change?

How far would floating realignment go to fix the league's problems? Over the next few thousand words, I'll try to answer those questions by exploring a handful of realistic (and not so realistic) potential solutions.

Floating Realignment

This is the plan recommended by Selig's special committee. The idea allows baseball to keep its current divisional structure and unbalanced schedules, but could at least make steps toward balancing divisions to try to prevent things like three excellent teams ending up in one division while other divisions don't have any.

But how would that work? Selig's plan is woefully short on details, so I've worked out a set of guidelines for my own floating realignment plan.

1.) No rivalry is sacred. That means the Yankees and Red Sox. Locking them into the same division every year makes it nearly impossible to balance anything.

2.) If the NL and AL are going to remain mostly separate, then league jumping should be kept to a minimum.

3.) After each season ends, the three best records from each league cannot be placed into the same division in the following season.

4.) The team with the best record in the AL is rewarded by being placed into the four-team division.

5.) The two teams with the best records in the NL are rewarded by being placed in the five-team divisions, but the team with the worst record in the NL is placed in the six-team division.

6.) From there, teams are divided up so that each division will have approximately the same winning percentage. Geography will be considered, but will not be an overriding factor.

Using the 2009 standings, we might draw up 2010 divisions that look like this:

AL East: Yankees (103-59), Tigers (86-77), White Sox (79-83), Orioles (67-98)
AL Central: Red Sox (95-67), Twins (87-76), Rays (84-78), Blue Jays (75-87), Indians (65-97)
AL West: Angels (97-65), Rangers (87-75), Mariners (85-77), A's (75-87), Royals (65-87)
NL East: Phillies (93-69), Marlins (87-75), Brewers (80-82), Mets (70-92), Pirates (62-99)
NL Central: Rockies (92-70), Cardinals (91-71), Braves (86-76), Cubs (83-78), Astros (74-88), Nationals (59-103)
NL West: Dodgers (95-67), Giants (88-74), Reds (78-84), Padres (75-87), Diamondbacks (70-92)

Each division has close to an overall .500 record except the two East divisions. The AL East is well over .500 and really hard to balance without putting three creampuffs in with the Yankees. The NL East is well below .500, but we'll consider the Mets' talent potential and ignore the rash of injuries they faced in 2009 enough to balance that out.

But is it better than what we currently have? It does break up the AL East axis of power, which makes the playoff race in the American League fairer. There were three divisions in 2009 that had three teams with 85-plus wins -- the NL East, the NL West, and the AL West. This realignment relieves that a bit by reducing the number to two (now the NL Central and the AL West), but it's impossible to reduce it further because every other division has two teams with 85-plus wins.

The problem, of course, is that with an unbalanced schedule teams will naturally stratify themselves within their divisions, and so it's incredibly hard to judge them against teams from other divisions by any criteria at all. Most of it comes down to a judgment call, which is fine for a thought experiment but probably won't fly for teams who have playoff spots on the line. Think the Braves will be happy about moving to a division with the Rockies and Cardinals? The Tigers and White Sox probably wouldn't be pleased to see the Yankees replace the Twins as their primary competition. The Yankees, meanwhile, could fall asleep in August and probably still win 125 games in that division.

PROS: When the power balance refuses to shift itself, floating realignment can push it along, evening the playing field in the divisions and for the wild-card race.

CONS: It keeps the unbalanced schedule and the unbalanced leagues. Simply put, you can try to make the divisions even all you want, but there will always be factors out of your control. The unbalanced schedule and leagues are inherently unfair.

VERDICT: Floating realignment would improve things slightly, but this seems like an awful lot of moving and shaking for a solution that still has its share of major problems.

Eliminate the Wild Card

One possible way to keep the unbalanced schedule but even the playing field a bit is to do away with the wild card and create four even divisions in each league, with each division champ earning a playoff spot. Because each league will need an even number of teams, this would require the expansion of the American League by two teams and some general realignment, but in the end it might look something like this:

AL East: Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Orioles
AL South: Rays, Royals, Rangers, Charlotte (Expansion team No. 1)
AL Central: Twins, Indians, Tigers, White Sox
AL West: Angels, Mariners, A's, Las Vegas (Expansion team No. 2)
NL East: Phillies, Mets, Pirates, Reds
NL South: Marlins, Braves, Astros, Nationals
NL Central: Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Rockies
NL West: Dodgers, Giants, Diamondbacks, Padres

PROS: In this case, balancing the schedule within the division would be fairly easy, thus each playoff team would have clinched a playoff spot by winning something which is at least quantifiable. With only one playoff spot available for each division, September could be loaded up with divisional play to ratchet up the intensity of the pennant races.

CONS: Holding playoff spots strictly to each division doesn't solve any of the concerns that Selig's committee currently has regarding a concentration of talented teams in one division. That's the whole reason we're having this discussion in the first place. In fact, it exacerbates those issues. With this setup, the AL East and South could very well have runners-up better than the AL Central champion. Also, this plan requires expansion, and, as a Pirate fan, I've sat though enough Pirates-Nationals games to know that the talent pool is stretched thin enough already.

VERDICT: This isn't perfect, but it's not an awful solution. The league eventually balances itself out after expansion. Two more teams might seem like a stretch now, but less than 20 years ago the league only had 26 teams and we've made the jump to 30 pretty comfortably.

Balance the Schedule

If the biggest problem with the above plan is that divisions are being treated like disparate entities (when there's clearly some overlap and that overlap usually gives us an idea of when a mistake is being made), then why not balance the schedule on a league-wide scale. Eliminate divisions and interleague play entirely and leave a 16-team National League and a 16-team American League where teams play each other 10 times during the season and the top four teams in each league make the playoffs. Now we're getting closer to a perfectly even playing field; with no crossover between leagues, the leagues can be completely self-contained. Every team in each league would have then played on the level, and the four best teams would end up in the playoffs.

PROS: If you're looking for fairness, this is pretty much the definition of it.

CONS: Unbalancing the schedule does destroy regional rivalries (then again, then that never stopped the league from realigning in the past) and it might make travel a little trickier since East Coast teams would have to fly west for two series against each West Coast counterpart and vice versa.

VERDICT: This is probably my favorite solution of the group. I'd be happier with dropping two teams instead of adding two to make the leagues even, but we've seen where the contraction road ends. This sort of realignment doesn't tinker with things too much, it pays a lot of tribute to tradition by keeping the leagues and the rivalries that come with them (hey, it's more traditional than the divisions we have now, which have only been around for 40 years), and it's really, really fair. But it's not going to happen. And if we're going to spend time on things that won't happen, why not get really ridiculous?

The English Model

So far, none of the realignment plans we've discussed have done anything to address baseball's huge competitive imbalance. Everything from floating division tables to balanced schedules still throws the mega-money Yankees and Red Sox in with both the successful smaller-market clubs like the Twins and Rays and the doormats like the Pirates and Royals. One idea that's regularly bandied about in casual conversation is a relegation/promotion system similar to the one used in Europe's domestic soccer leagues.

The idea, for those unfamiliar, is that the teams that fare poorly are relegated to a lower league where they have a better chance to rebuild themselves, while the teams that succeed in the lower leagues are promoted to the top level to try their hand against the elite talents. In baseball, though, this is more complicated than it seems.

Each Major League Baseball team is a franchise, not a club, which means that they're all entitled to a spot in Major League Baseball. In other words, you couldn't send them to the Pacific Coast League if they have a bad season.

This renders a system similar to the one in, for example, England -- where League Two promotes into League One, League One promotes into the Championship, and the Championship promotes into the Premiership and any team can, with good or poor enough performances, theoretically play in four different leagues over four years -- relatively impossible. The legal wrangling required to get the owners of teams that would be in danger of relegation to agree to this would be untenable.

What could be possible (and only in the sense that it's more likely for a giant asteroid to crash into the Earth than it is for Mars to crash into the Earth) is instead of dividing baseball into the National League and American League, they instead are partitioned into what is essentially an A League and a B League based on past performance. Using the 2009 results as a guide, the 2010 leagues could look like this:

League A: Yankees, Angels, Dodgers, Red Sox, Phillies, Rockies, Cardinals, Giants, Rangers, Marlins, Twins, Braves, Tigers, Mariners, Rays, Cubs

League B: Brewers, White Sox, Reds, Blue Jays, A's, Padres, Astros, Mets, Diamondbacks, Royals, Indians, Orioles, Pirates, Nationals

A few usual suspects, most notably Manchester United, dominate the English Premier League

The tricky part here comes in determining how to declare a champion, because, as major league teams, the teams in League B all have a right to try and claim the World Series championship.

There are a couple ways to do this. One might be to simply pick three playoff teams from League A and one from League B, giving the League B regular season champ the ability to play for the World Series. Another would be to hold a year-long tournament, similar to the Football Association's Carling Cup or FA Cup, in which every team is entered. Games could be played on weekends in home and home or best-of-three fashion to give even the worst teams a chance at playing some meaningful games. The winner of the tournament is crowned World Series champion, while the team with the best record in League A would be crowned Major League Baseball champion, or something of the sort.

The plan does have its drawbacks, though. Spots in League A would be more desirable, as the league would contain more glamorous opponents, better advertising opportunities, and maybe even (in the long run) more TV revenue. That could potentially encourage teams to aim for mediocrity in League A rather than attempt a true rebuilding plan and risk being relegated to League B. Baseball fans complain about competitive imbalance, but the same four teams almost always finish in the top four slots in the English Premier League every year. The best players want to play for the most glamorous teams on the biggest stage. By taking away that stage and making it clear that the teams aren't equal in the eyes of the league, what chance does Milwaukee or Cleveland or Pittsburgh have of ever luring an impact free agent?

PROS: This system rewards good play and punishes bad play, adds meaning to games played by teams out of the running for a title, but risking relegation and encourages small-market clubs to do more than just live off of MLB welfare.

CONS: It may end up rewarding mediocrity in the top league and helping the rich get richer while completely marginalizing small-market teams. It's far too radical for the owners to ever consider and possibly radical enough that to alienate the public at large.

VERDICT: It will never happen, but it's fun to dream about.