The best way to fix this is to make it so you play even more games within your division, thus making it harder for this to happen. Perhaps remove interleague play, or make it so all games against non-divisional teams are just one home or one away series each year. Thus everyone outside the AL East sees the Yankees every other year while NL'ers see them once every 6 years.

Outside of that, and more likely to happen, is an expansion of the playoffs to 16 teams (as is accepted in most other sports) thus making it so if a sub-500 wins a division they have a much harder road to the finals than they do today. Or just get rid of divisions and have all 14-16 teams (depending on league) in one division.

From the results so far we can tell John Stuart Mill is not a Bauxite.

We could go back to 2 divisions of 7-8 teams which would lessen the chance of a dud winner. Have 2 wild cards with the winner of each division facing a wildcard team. I still can't fathom how Detroit and Cleveland are not in the East anyway. :/

Oops. I meant to vote for the second option, but instead voted for the third one. Byes are dumb. Sub-par teams making the playoffs is even dumber.

Kind of a ridiculous question. But, the thing with the unbalanced schedule is that the teams that finish number one, no matter what their record, are the best team in that division, proven.

With a balanced schedule, the Red Sox could not win one game against the Yankees and still finish ahead of them in the AL East. Having the unbalanced schedule prevents that at least.

KR, I went in and changed your vote to reflect what you meant to do.

So, if a first place sub .500 team was refused the playoffs for a second wild card team, would it still be called winning the pennant?