Daily Options Report

OK, we're never going to fix the NHL. They're not shrinking the league or the season or ticket prices any time soon.

Plus it's getting nice out, time to fix MLB. Tom Verducci of SI relays some ideas in the "bandied about" stage.

When baseball commissioner Bud Selig named a 14-person "special committee for on-field matters" four months ago, he promised that all topics would be in play and "there are no sacred cows." The committee already has made good on Selig's promise by discussing a radical form of "floating" realignment in which teams would not be fixed to a division, but free to change divisions from year-to-year based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not.

The concept gained strong support among committee members, many of whom believe there are non-economic avenues that should be explored to improve competitive balance, similar to the NFL's former use of scheduling to help parity (in which weaker teams were awarded a weaker schedule the next season).

As with most issues of competitive balance, floating realignment involves finding a work-around to the Boston-New York axis of power in the AL East. In the 15 seasons during which the wild-card system has been in use, the Red Sox and Yankees have accounted for 38 percent of all AL postseason berths. The league has never conducted playoffs without the Red Sox or Yankees since that format began -- and in eight of those 15 years both teams made the playoffs. Since 2003 the Sox and Yankees have won at least 95 games 11 times in 14 combined seasons.

One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.

Sounds like an awesome concept actually. Look at the Blue Jays, were they any worse than the Twins over the past decade? Likely not. Yet nowhere close to the playoffs. Or the Orioles now, who look on the right track, but where's it going to get them? At best they're likely the Blue Jays of the next decade, will get decent but 85-90 wins will get them nowhere.

I usually would say not to touch it, all these things even out. This one's not evening out. And a salary cap's just not workable, you can't get there from here. Unless you just unilaterally take the Yankee revenues, would make no sense to have them only pay out a fraction of what they rake in. So rotate teams around, it's as good a thought as any.

One big thorn though, how do you actually do that? If you throw all low payroll teams in one division, you're essentially inviting teams to cut and slash their way to mediocre talent that can then go compete in a bad division. But throwing in a team mailing it in, like this year's Indians, with AL East wolves, makes no sense. Yankees and Sox playing 18 each against the Indians/Jays/Royals basically lets them start setting their playoff rotations in June.

So any serious revamping likely has to start with doing the one simple thing they'll never do, split the Yankees and the Red Sox. The 3 West Coast teams have to stay in the same division as each other in any format, so let's start with a West of Angels/A's/Mariners, the Yankees in 1 AL Division and the Red Sox in the other. Throw an NL team in, let's say the Brewers and we have a 15 team league. Rotate the Brewers and the other 9 teams between the 2 AL West slots and the 8 spots in the Yankees and Red Sox divisions. Change the format of interleague play so you canactually  have 15 teams in each league. And as long as you're changing interleague, stop making the Mets play the Yankees 6 times each season, it's not a novelty any more. Also, balance the schedules, if nothing else it better divides the gates for Yankee and Red Sox road games.

How about this, we pair up the 10 teams so each one has a designated rival who will always be in their division. How about Rangers/Royals, Brewers/Twins, Rays/Orioles, White Sox/Tigers and Jays/Indians? The first two pairs alternate years in the AL West, the other 3 pairs will rotate between the Yankee Division and the Sox Division along with 1 other pair.