Just read this interesting take in the National Journal. Realign the six divisions via payroll size. The "plan is radical, yet very American -- it embraces the thing both sides in the dispute claim to be wanting to protect: their right to a free-market solution.
The biggest complaint in baseball is that big-market teams like the NY Yankees have an unfair advantage in their own division (let alone all of baseball) in competing with small-market teams like Tampa Bay. Well, then let's realign the six divisions via payroll size.
It could be done by individual league or for baseball as a whole. We prefer throwing all the teams in one pot and realigning the divisions because it would (hopefully) force the elimination of the DH -- the single stupidest addition to baseball since, well, Bud Selig.
We'd still favor dividing up the teams by six divisions and would still favor sending eight teams to the playoffs. But in this system, the eight playoff teams would be drawn from the six division winners plus the two best records among non-division winners (a la the current wild card). It should be noted that the salary figures are based on team payrolls at the start of this season -- courtesy of AP.
A-Class (5 top payrolls)
N.Y. Yankees $125,928,583
Boston 108,366,060
Texas 105,302,124
Arizona 102,820,000
Los Angeles 94,850,952
B-Class (6-10 payrolls)
New York Mets $94,633,593
Atlanta 93,470,367
Seattle 80,282,668
Cleveland 78,909,448
San Francisco 78,299,835
C-Class (11-15 payrolls)
Toronto $76,864,333
Chicago Cubs 75,690,833
St. Louis 74,098,267
Houston 63,448,417
Anaheim 61,721,667
D-Class (16-20 payrolls)
Baltimore $60,493,487
Philadelphia 57,955,000
Chicago White Sox 57,052,833
Colorado 56,851,043
Detroit 55,048,000
D-Class (21-25 payrolls)
Milwaukee $50,287,833
Kansas City 47,257,000
Cincinnati 45,050,390
Pittsburgh 42,323,598
Florida 41,979,917
E-Class (26-30 payrolls)
San Diego $41,425,000
Minnesota 40,225,000
Oakland 39,679,746
Montreal 38,670,500
Tampa Bay 34,380,000
Like the current rules, we envision unbalanced schedules that required teams to play their divisional opponents 19 times. After that, we'd have teams play at least one series with every other team outside of their division, with regional/traditional rivals playing more. This means every team would play the big-drawing teams of that year, which would smaller markets either sell tickets or up their TV ratings -- both mean money to those teams' bottom lines.
As you can see, these divisions would make for much more interesting pennant races. Shouldn't the Yankees face real competition all year long from teams with equal payrolls? Yankees-Diamondbacks-Dodgers-Red Sox would be a great divisional race this year.
In the B-Class, imagine Atlanta and Seattle fighting it out. In the C-Class, Cardinals-Astros-Angels would be a dog fight. And then there's the D-Class: a division of mostly have-nots in the baseball world, and yet all those decent markets would find themselves in a potential playoff race. The D-Class would give hope to fans in baseball-tradition-rich cities like Pittsburgh and Cincy. Finally, the E-Class would feature a fantastic duel between the A's and Twins.
The beauty of this system is that the divisions could change every year; general managers would strategize about which division they'd want to compete in. Maybe a Texas wouldn't have paid the obscene amount of money they paid for Alex Rodriguez had they realized the signing would put them in the A-Class division.
The fact that teams like the Tigers and White Sox would be rewarded for their frugal ways by competing in divisions with like-minded clubs would keep costs down. Then again, if a club wants to help their ticket revenue by joining a division with more marketable teams (say Sammy Sosa and the Cubs?), then they could simply up their payroll.
But the most important part of this plan is that it would keep more teams "in it" every year. And once the playoffs start, anything can happen; we've seen that before, especially in football. And the more teams that are "in it," the better for the sport as a whole, and the better for those bottom lines.