Realignment of Baseball

With pitchers and catchers reporting this weekend, baseball is back in full swing. Before I even get to steroids, I wanted to bring up the lack of salary cap in baseball. Lets be honest. Baseball is making hand over fist right now and has been for some time. As a private business, they are doing exceptionally well. With that being said, it really is unfair to think that a small market team like the pittsburgh pirates have any chance of competing year in and year out with a team from Chicago or New York. Last year the Yankees payroll was $209m payroll and the Florida Marlins has a $21m payroll. Now, Tampa Bay had a $43m payroll and they were much more successfull, obviously, than the Yankees. The problem is that the small market team has a much smaller window to be successful. Once the playoffs are set, anything can happen. In a short series, the best team may not win.

Here is what I propose. Keep the AL and NL seperate but each yeah divide the divisions up by total payroll. You want to spend a lot of money. Fine. I agree that you should. If you have it, spend it. The only advantage you get is that the highest payroll division has four teams.

Here is how last year's AL divisions broken down.

AL East --------------AL Central -------------AL West
Tampa Bay---------- Chicago -----------------California
Boston--------------- Minnesota --------------Texas
New York ------------Cleveland --------------Oakland
Toronto --------------Kansas City------------ Seattle
Baltimore ------------Detroit

Here is how last year's AL divisions would have broken down according to me.

AL Macro------------AL Middle ----------AL Micro
Red Sox -------------California -----------Tampa Bay
Chicago --------------Toronto ------------Minnesota
New York -----------Cleveland -----------Kansas City
Detroit --------------Texas ---------------Oakland
----------------------Seattle --------------Baltimore

Now, I see this as a much more fair way of doing it. Bud Selig has already smeared baseball in so many ways. Why not help balance the payroll issue everyone is crying about?

Just an idea.

Editor's note: These divisions would be determined on an annual basis. Each year, teams would be re-assessed by their payroll.