If you ask me for my opinion, and I guess you kind of did since you are reading this article, then I will tell you that the best movies are the ones where you know what is going to happen, yet you watch over and over again, hoping for something different. When you watch Gladiator or Braveheart, you know the hero is going to die at the end, but when it comes to the end of the movie you are sitting there with the smallest hope that maybe this time the hero will escape their fate and live. I guess that is the best way I can sum up what it feels like to be a Pittsburgh Pirates fan at the start of a new baseball season. I’ve seen this movie before, I know the hero dies in the end, yet at the start of each season I am hoping for a different result.

Now if you want to get technical about this, the Pirates do have a chance at being successful each season. You also have a chance at taking a trip to Vegas, laying your life savings on double zero, and retiring early. Let’s be realistic here. If you’re a fan of the Devil Rays, Pirates, Royals, Orioles, Nationals, or any other team with a small payroll, the reality is that you have no shot at competing in the majors today.

One of the problems with baseball today is that the league is built for the big market teams. The New York Yankees have made the post season every year since 1995. The New York Mets and Los Angeles Angels have only seen three losing seasons since 1997. The Boston Red Sox have not seen a losing season since 1997. Bud Selig will boast about the parity in baseball, citing the seven different World Series winners in the past eight seasons. However, the battle is not winning in the playoffs. The battle comes from getting to the playoffs.

Since the year 2000, only 18 teams have been division winners. The AL East has been dominated by two teams, the Yankees and Red Sox. The AL and NL West are the only two divisions to see all but one team win the division. As for the rest of the league, 40 percent of MLB teams have not won their division in the last eight seasons. Baseball helps these teams out with the Wild Card, but how effective is that? Of the 16 Wild Card winners in the last eight seasons, only three teams come from the remaining 40 percent, which means that 30 percent of the league has missed the playoffs in the last eight seasons.

Looking ahead to this season, not much will change. The Yankees and Red Sox will battle it out for the AL East. The loser will probably claim the Wild Card. The Tigers may actually win the AL Central, but that should come as no surprise, since they are spending over $125 million this season. In other words, you could combine the payrolls of the Pirates, Nationals, Marlins, and Devil Rays last season, and get the same as the Tigers this year. The bad news is that the Tigers probably will have the fifth highest payroll in the league this season.

As for the rest of the league, the Angels will win the AL West, the Mets or Phillies will ride their big priced stars to the NL East title, the Cubs will win the Central, and the NL West will be an open race, although we can count the Giants out of the hunt from day one. How can I be so certain of this? I’ve seen this movie before. The teams with the big payrolls win, and the teams like the Pirates have no shot.

I could give you a list of ways that baseball could change the game to bring true parity to the league. Unfortunately none of these methods are realistic. I could say that baseball needs to split their revenue equally, but that would only hurt the good teams like the Yankees and Red Sox, and help the teams like the Pirates and Royals. I could mention a salary cap or non-guaranteed contracts, but the players union would never agree to that, and Bud Selig doesn’t sound like a commissioner who is looking to go to the efforts needed to make these types of changes.

Since the year 2000, 12 of 30 teams have gone without a division win. Three of those teams have made it to the playoffs through the Wild Card spot. The wild card has marginally helped the 40 percent of the league that has stood no chance in their division race, but a third of the league is still irrelevant, has been for most of the decade, and things don’t appear to be changing. The only realistic way to give teams a fair shot, and keep the owners and players union happy, is to expand the playoffs.

Right now baseball has three division winners and one wild card winner. Even with the wild card spot, you have the same teams making the playoffs. The past few seasons the wild card winner in the American League has usually been the loser of the AL East battle between the Yankees and Red Sox. To allow more teams a chance, baseball should expand the playoffs to the division winners, and the next three best teams. Give the top two division winners a bye, and have the rest of the teams face off in an extra round.

Under the current system it would almost be impossible for a team like the Devil Rays to make the playoffs. Even if Evan Longoria is the real deal, Scott Kazmir stays healthy, and James Shields follows up on his amazing season, the Devil Rays will come no where close to the Red Sox and Yankees. By adding two more playoff teams in each league, the scenario could exist where the other three teams in the AL East actually have something to play for.

As we look to a new season of baseball, fans of small market teams like the Pirates are looking at their season as a fresh start, and hoping that this time around the hero actually lives in the end. Unfortunately teams like the Pirates contending for the playoffs is about as likely as William Wallace escaping the English and leading Scotland to freedom at the end of Braveheart. There may be little hope for the fans of these teams, but that doesn’t stop the hope that one day baseball will do something to change the game and give the other 40 percent of the league something to play for.