Spring Training is underway.  Hope springs eternal.  That is unless you are a fan of the Cleveland Indians, Washington Nationals, San Diego Padres, or any of the other half dozen hapless MLB teams.  How long has it been since the Kansas City Royals or the Pittsburgh Pirates have had a Spring they could be optimistic about?  Decades.  Unfortunately, that’s the sad reality you’re confronted with when one team has a $200 million payroll and another team has a payroll of less than a $40 million.  So what is the solution?

According to Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, Bud Selig’s special baseball committee is considering radical realignment plans in an attempt to address baseball’s lack of parity.  Under the plan that is being mentioned,  from year-to-year a team such as Tampa Bay could float from one division to another in order to try to gain a competitive advantage.  While I am opposed to this specific plan, I do agree that something needs to be done in order to combat the lack of parity in Major League Baseball.

Obviously, there will NOT be a salary cap coming to MLB any time soon.    The players’ union would never accept it and the big market teams have already given up as much as they are willing to give up.  So any suggestion to even up the talent pool is nothing more than a pipe dream.  Therefore, the only way to create at least the illusion of parity is to steal a page from the NFL.  Major League Baseball needs to use an unbalanced schedule in order to create a sense of parity.

What I propose is that the top two teams from each division from the previous season should play additional games against the top two teams from the other divisions, the third and fourth place teams should play additional games against the other third and fourth place teams, and the fifth place teams (and the one sixth place team) should also play additional games against one another. 

Let me specifically use the New York Yankees as an example to demonstrate how this would work.  Under this plan, the Yankees would play 12 games each against the other 4 teams in the AL East (as opposed to the 18 games currently), 12 games each against the top two teams from the AL Central and the AL West, 6 games each against the remaining 5 AL teams, and for their interleague schedule they would play 6 games apiece against each of the top two teams from NL East, Central, and West.   

Based upon the results of last season season, what you would end up with as  the 2010 schedule would be the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels, Rangers, Twins, Tigers, Dodgers, Rockies, Cardinals, Cubs, Phillies, and Marlins each playing 84 of their 162 games against one another.  Additionally, the Rays, Jays, White Sox, Indians, Mariners, A’s, Braves, Mets, Brewers, Reds, Giants, and Padres would each play 84 of their 162 games against one another.  And finally, with their fifth place schedules, the Pirates, Royals, Orioles, Nationals, Astros, and Diamondbacks would play 66 of their 162 games against one another.

Would this system be totally fair to the top teams?  Probably not.  But it would be no less fair than the Orioles being forced to compete equally against the Yankees despite having a payroll that is one third the size.  Sports have a history of rewarding mediocracy in order to attempt to create parity.   That’s why the worst team is awarded the top draft choice each year.  Without hope for the bottom teams, the whole league suffers. 

This plan may not be completely fair to the top teams, but it would create parity.  And parity would generate league-wide excitement.  And league-wide excitement is something that would be of benefit to all.

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

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