Baseball NEEDS to do something

I was looking at the standings today, and a few things occurred to me:

There are FOUR teams with records over .560 in the American League East. Including the Blue Jays, which is kind of funny, because they will be as many games below .500 by this time next month. Similarly, there are FOUR teams in the National League West that are playing over .529 and the NL East has four teams over 500.

The Texas Rangers are in first place in their division with a record that is .529

Ergo, if the playoffs started today, the Rangers would make, get their asses kicked by the Rays, and two teams in the AL who are better than they are won't even make the playoffs and at least two in the NL that are better.

So, do I have the solution? No - I just identify problems. Here are some others. The current formula (which was amended in 1996 post strike) has 8 playoff teams out of 30 teams in the MLB. Some teams stop trying halfway through July because they are already out of it, and frankly, it looks like Baltimore has already stopped trying this year. Of course, that is because they get shelled by the four great teams in their division.

What if more teams made the playoffs? What if they started earlier.

Well, the MLB would say, that will crystallize all records by shortening the season.

A) So what?
B) Or, you can include playoff games in records - and adjust the other ones post-facto

As a Yankee fan, this is a great idea :)

As a fan of baseball, it just makes sense - you can keep the divisions AND have an expanded playoffs - just do it by record (like the NHL) guaranteeing the first place team in each division and then have 5 wild cards based on record. There are no ties in baseball, so it should be pretty easy to figure out. In the case of identical records, head to head record counts, and if they are still tied - a 1 game playoff.

We need more baseball that matters. The past-time is often quite stupid by early September, and sometimes most teams don't even field good teams! They are just ripping off their fans who pay good money for tickets.

In an unrelated matter - the NL central has six teams in it, including Houston. The AL West has four, including Texas. Why don't we just flip Houston into the the AL, and create a great rivalry.