Fanciful ideas

Mike Lebowitz of the Jerusalem Post is tired of meaningless September baseball games between the Milwaukee Brewers and the Pittsburgh Pirates. He suggests a promotion and relegation system akin to those of European football to make games at the bottom of the table late in the season meaningful:

Perpetually mediocre and bad teams in the great soccer leagues of Europe live in fear of the word 'relegation.' In simple terms, this rule basically states that if a team is so bad and falls so far behind in the standings, the team gets demoted to a lesser league. Applied to baseball, a relegated team would be forced to play the following season in Triple A, which is quite possibly where a 100-loss ball club belongs.

Cute idea. It would be great to bring Major League Baseball to Triple-A cities without the trauma of relocating the Expos or inventing new expansion teams. It's too bad baseball's Minor Leagues depend on their relationships as development organisations for one of the major league franchises for their economic survival. Unless they are radically restructured, the Minor Leagues cannot be anything like the lower divisions of the European football leagues. Imagine if a first division football team were staffed entirely by players on loan from a single Premiership club. That is effectively the status of the Triple-A teams in baseball. Why would the New York Yankees allow players under contract with them playing for the Columbus Clippers play against the parent club at the Major League level?