Baseball Playoff System

Firstly, I've received a number of requests to stop using the word "az," so I'm gonna start using the word "so" again. There, happy? Sheesh.

Anyway, the rest of this post will be about sports, so anyone who's not interested in reading is free to skedaddle. Although, I don't quite understand how anyone can adamantly refuse to go to Shea Stadium because he or she hates the Mets and loves the Yankees too much, and still also dislike reading about baseball. But that's neither here nor there.

The point of this post is to point out the flaws in the baseball playoff system and to suggest possible options. Now, as everyone knows I am a staunch supporter of revisionist baseball theory, so the idea of doing things a certain way just because that's the way they've always been done makes me feel uchy (just as an aside, I had two separate girls use the adjectives "uchy" and "ichy" over the past two days. Wouldn't it have been great if one of them used the adverb instead? Like "uchily" or "ichily." What?). So right now the plan is to scrap the whole playoff system. Here's why the current system is not good:

1. Too small sample size: Each team plays 162 games over six months to get into the playoffs, and yet that can all end in a matter of three days. How can you get an accurate measure of which of two teams is superior in a best of seven (a best of five series, lo kol she'kein! Al achas kama v'kama) series? Over such a short stretch it is well within the realm of possibility that a guy like Alex Rodriguez can strike out ten times in a row and a guy like Kaz Matsui can hit five homers and have a .750 OBP.

2. Wrong teams make it: How is it fair that the team with the best record in the division will make the playoffs while a second or third place team with a far superior record will not? Take last year for example: the eventual world champion St. Louis Cardinals got into the playoffs by winning the NL Central division with an 83-78 record. However, the Toronto Blue Jays (87-75), Boston Red Sox (86-76), Chicago White Sox (90-72), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (89-73), and Philadelphia Phillies (85-77) did not. That simply makes no logical sense.

3. The league that wins the All-Star Game gets home-field advantage in the World Series. Nothing more needs to be said here; this rule is certifiably incomprehensible.

Here are a few options I've considered:
(Disclaimer: I understand that these suggestions do not have the fans' best interests at heart; I'm just trying to preserve the integrity of the game; I'm not trying to just make a few bucks.)

Option 1 (boring but safe): Revert back to the old system of having only the winner of each league advance to the World Series. However, instead of having just a seven game series, have a 21 game series! The reason I chose 21 is that under the current system the World Series winner must win a total of eleven games. I feel like 21 games are enough to sufficiently determine the superior team.

Option 2 (awesomer yet vastly more complicated): Construct a Round Robin tournament in which the top four teams from each league play two games against each of the other seven teams in the tournament, one at each home field. The team from each league with the best record in the Round Robin advance to the World Series. If there are ties for best record, set up a one game playoff at a neutral stadium to determine the winner. The World Series will be a seven game series like we have now except with the following provisos, termed "Proviso Alpha" and "Proviso Beta" (I will use the characters "a" and "b" for short):
a. All seven games will be played at a neutral stadium just like the Super Bowl.
b. In order to accurately assess the performance of each team, there will be no fewer than four different starting pitchers for each baseball squadron. Another words, each team must name a different starter for each of the first four games of the series. And to make sure that there's no funny business, we will forbid any starter from appearing in any subsequent game as a reliever.

Okay, that was my brain storm of the day. I think there are still a few more details to add, but that's the general gist. I'd be really interested in hearing other ideas.