If the recent report that Major League Baseball is considering realigning itself into two 15-team leagues and possibly stripping away its divisions comes to fruition, the league might as well hand the ballplayers pucks and a hoop, too, because baseball will have lost its playoff identity and joined the NHL and NBA in their free-for-all postseason entrance.
In such a reorganization, as was first reported by ESPN.com, one team would move from the 16-team National League to the 14-team American League to even them at 15 apiece. This move carries some benefits, such as balancing each club's shot at a league pennant at 1-in-15.
But one additional proviso under consideration -- to scrap the divisions altogether -- would be doing the sport a great disservice. The report suggested that the top five teams in each league would make the playoffs (though it didn't specify the new postseason format), which roughly mirrors another recently discussed idea of simply adding a second wild card team to the current format, which admits the three division winners plus one wild card.
