As we all know the AL East is going to be loaded in 2009, with three teams that have the talent to win over 95 games, what's everyone's thoughts on what this will do to the discussion of a new playoff system? If that #3 team is the Yankee's or Red Sox (lets all hope) with say 94 or 95 wins, will the media pick up and run with it?

I think before you could start talking about a new format the leagues would have to be balanced, with one team switching from the NL to AL or adding 2 expansion teams to the AL. At that point I liked RJ's idea about creating 2 divisions in each league, East and West, each division winner (4 total) would be garaunteed a homefield-advantage playoff spot, and then there would be 2 or even 4 wildcard seed's in each League.

Obviously quite a bit would have to be changed for something like this to work, but I have the feeling someone in the AL East this year is going to be denied a playoff spot despite a great year.