Bud Selig

Spring training is getting closer. Top players have switched teams and fans patiently wait for America's favorite past time to get started. 

There's a lot of buzz going on right now as some recent deals have occurred. Clubs are signing key players and some are losing them.

Let's take a look in to how these deals affect certain teams. As well as the latest rumors in the Major League Baseball world.

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Realignment is a fascinating idea, but one that I believe will lose out to another adjustment: playoff expansion. 

Expansion will drive more revenue to the game and keep the fans enthralled for an extended period. 

Realignment is entertaining when you think about it. Then again, an extended playoff system seems more justifiable at this point. Extending the playoffs with a wild card team worked before, and it will work again. 

There are a few scenarios to this new situation.

Turn back your clocks a little over a year ago to the 2009 American League Divisional Series between the Yankees and the Twins. The Yankees had home field advantage and were heavily favored. They swept the series three games to none, but largely thanks to a disturbing phenomenon down the left field line at Yankee Stadium.

The baseball world got their wish: the New York Yankees are not in the World Series and parity played its part.

The San Francisco Giants with their 11th ranked payroll ($96,277,833), play host to the 25th ranked Texas Rangers ($64,810,570). 

It is great to see new blood in the playoffs; however the ratings do not support that fact.  Game 1 pulled in a rating of 8.9 (approx 15 million viewers).   

Major League Baseball wants its playoff cake.

And to eat it, too.

Commissioner Bud Selig, The Man Who Destroyed Division Races As We Used to Know Them, is at it again. Selig wants more playoff teams, and he wants them now—as early as next season.

The players union has indicated that more postseason teams in 2012 might be amenable.

Jose Guillen, a midseason pickup by the National League champion San Francisco Giants, has been linked to a federal performance-enhancing drug investigation, The New York Times reported on Thursday.

By Dr. Louis Marmon

Baseball has loads of issues. The bats shatter and impale baserunners. The games are too long, and so is the season. Since when is the World Series supposed to be played in November?

Commissioner Bud Selig has said that baseball is studying possibilities to expand the postseason field from the current eight team format, to a ten team field beginning as soon as next season, this according to a report in the Chicago Tribune. 

The current format, which has been in place since 1994, only allows the three division winners from the East, Central, and West to get in along with a wild card team. 

I don't claim to have watched every game this postseason, due to the unfortunate  condition of having things to do during the day. And yet, somehow, I've managed to see many, many blown calls. This is rather alarming, seeing as MLB lacks any process to review these mistakes. 

In a perfect world, according to my most favorable teams they divisions would annually end something like this:

American League East: Baltimore Tampa Toronto Boston and New York

American League Central Minnesota Kansas City Detroit Chicago White Sox, Cleveland

American League West: Texas Oakland Los Angeles, Seattle

National League East: Florida, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Atlanta

National League Central: Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Chicago, Houston, St. Louis