I’m not going to be the stereotypical American and say, “We are the best!” because that would be… well, stereotypical American thinking.
The American Sports leagues can probably learn a thing or two from Europe’s top Football leagues. I’m not saying that this idea should be implemented, I’m just throwing it out there: regulation.
Regulation — where the bottom three teams from the top league are moved down to the second league in exchange for the top three teams in the second-tier league. This happens yearly in top leagues such as Serie A of Italy, the German Bundesliga and the Barclay’s Premier League in England. Basically almost every top European league.
Obviously baseball would run into problems seeing as the second “rung” of professional baseball in the States is AAA whose teams are owned and operated by the Major League teams. But say that AAA clubs weren’t owned by MLB. This would create and promote a sense of competition and urgency.
It’s every team’s goal to win the World Series. That’s a reality for about 10 teams, an outside shot for maybe four or five more and a pipe dream for the rest. The teams at the bottom have to step it up in order to be competitive to avoid the humiliation of being demoted in favor of Scranton-Wilkes or Salt Lake City. Take the Pirates, for example. The Pirates would have been in AAA ages ago had American sports run the same way. They’d have torn up the high Minors and would have been back in the Majors with a sense of confidence, one that was probably lost after their countless losing seasons in a row.