Life isn’t fair because there’s too much we can’t control. But when there’s something unfair that we can control, it’s time for a change.

Major League Baseball has had two separate leagues since its inception, and each league was split into East and West divisions starting in 1969. Twenty-five years later, a Central division was added to each league, and a wild card spot allowed a non-division winner into the playoffs for the first time in the league’s history.

Win your division, and you’re in the playoffs. It doesn’t matter the circumstances, just win your division. That’s the way it’s always been, and after all, baseball is a game of tradition.

But what are divisions? They’re just groups of five generally geographically close teams.

Moreover, divisions aren’t equally balanced groups of five teams; they’re just five arbitrarily placed together teams. So to say that a team needs to be better than four other arbitrarily picked teams to make the playoffs would just be unfair.

Most of that “unfairness” is eliminated with the addition of a wild card. In four of the last five seasons, the AL East has been home to two of the three best teams in the American League, but thanks to the Wild Card both teams have qualified for the postseason.

But sometimes teams aren’t so lucky. The best five teams record-wise don’t always get to the playoffs because the divisions are often not equally talented.

If the season ended right now, the Angels, owners of the fifth best record in the AL, would not make the playoffs. Their record is 38-32, but the Indians are leading the AL Central with a 36-32 record, so Cleveland would be the team playing into October.

Sure, we’re not even half way into the 2012 season, but situations like the Angels’ predicament have happened plenty of times before. In fact, they’ve happened not so long ago.

In 2009, the Rangers finished second in the AL West with an 87-75 record, good for fourth best in the AL. But Minnesota and Detroit were locked up at 86-76 atop the AL Central, so they had a one-game playoff to see who would advance to the postseason. Texas was just out of luck.

Basically the same situation played out the year before with the Yankees finishing third in the AL East with an 89-73 record—the fourth best in the AL. Chicago and Minnesota were each 88-74, so Chicago made the playoffs after winning their 163^rd game of the season.

But that wasn’t even the most extreme example of unfairness from that 2008 season.

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the NL West that year with an 84-78 record. Three other National League teams (the 89-win Mets and the 86-win Astros and Cardinals) finished with more victories than the Dodgers. And that’s not even considering the Marlins, who also finished with 84 wins, despite playing one less game.

Naturally, the Dodgers deserved to make they playoffs because they had the best record in a group of five arbitrarily grouped teams.

And worst of all is the 2005 San Diego Padres. They won 82 of their 162 games, but qualified for the postseason because the other four teams in their division could only muster 77, 75, 71, and 67 wins.

San Diego got to feast on the worst division in recent memory, while the NL East saw it’s worst team (Washington) finish 81-81. MLB schedules have each team play 45% of their games against divisional teams—San Diego got a bunch of cupcakes, while the NL East teams spent nearly half their schedule beating themselves up.

Baseball is rearranging their schedule next season when the Astros switch from the NL Central to the AL West. But I suggest that MLB changes the landscape of the league ever further for the 2013 season. I think that they should completely do away with divisions.

Eliminating divisions entirely would do two things to help equity in baseball. One, it would remove the unbalanced schedules that hurts teams in overly-competitive divisions. Two, it makes sure that the teams with the five best records make it to the postseason.

For years, the Toronto Blue Jays have been in a mess of trouble if they wanted to make the postseason. It’s not just that they’re fighting an uphill battle trying to finish the year with a better record the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays. They also have to spend 9 out of every 20 game playing these tough opponents before they play out-of division teams.

Brett Lawrie is really angry because his Blue Jays have a doubly hard time making the playoffs since they're stuck in the AL East.

Some teams, like the 2011 Tigers for example, have that 45% chunk of their schedule against just terrible opposition. After Detroit, no other team in the division had a winning record.

The Tigers played that 45% of their schedule against divisional teams with a dismal .452 winning percentage. I bet Toronto would have killed for that instead of their brutal schedule of teams with a combined .535 winning percentage.

Now that there are fifteen teams in each league, every day will have at least one interleague game. So with that in mind, why not give ever team an even schedule? Each team can play two-thirds of their games against the other fourteen teams in their league with the last third being interleague games. No team faces an unnecessarily hard schedule, and nobody gets a Boise State-style cakewalk schedule.

With balanced schedules and no more divisions, MLB would basically ensure that the the five best teams in each league would make the playoffs. No more 82-win division champs. No more crazy tough schedules.

What’s there to lose? Sure, there will be fewer Red Sox/Yankees games, but that will make each matchup mean more. And yes, there will be longer flights, but teams can have extended road trips to visit geographically close teams in a row (a 12-day road trip against the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, and Twins).

And when it all comes down to it, I’d rather have a profitable sports league spend a bit more on travel to have a more fair way to pick playoff teams.

It’s hard to forget Mark Prior. He dominated baseball at the highest level, but he’s now known more so for what could have been.

Check out Wikipedia, and it says that “he is also best known for a string of injuries that halted his major league career.”

Prior was drafted second overall behind Joe Mauer in the 2001 amateur draft, and he received a whopping $10.5 million signing bonus—a record that stood until Stephen Strasburg happened. Prior only needed nine starts in the minors before earning a callup to the Bigs.

And he dominated. Boy, did he dominate.

Prior made 19 starts in his rookie season and posted a 3.32 ERA with 147 strikeouts and just 38 walks in 116.2 innings. His season, though, was cut short when he strained a hamstring while running the bases.

2003 came along, and he put up even more dominating numbers. A 2.43 ERA. 245 strikeouts in 211.1 innings. Just 50 walks and a miniscule 1.10 WHIP. He was named to an All-Star game after just over a full season of big league play.

But Prior didn’t end up playing in the All-Star game. Just before the All-Star Break, he collided with Atlanta’s Marcus Giles, and Prior missed the Mid-Season Classic along with three additional starts.

Although he wouldn’t miss any more starts that season because of injuries, 2003 was the beginning of the end for Prior’s career.

The Cubs won the NL Central, thanks to heavy use of their young pitching duo of Prior and Kerry Wood. And I mean heavy use of Prior and Wood. Prior averaged over 113 pitches per start in the regular season, including 126 pitches per start in September. Come playoff time, Prior averaged 120 pitches per start.

Of course, you know the story of how the 2003 playoffs went. The Cubs were up 8-3… Steve Bartman… 8 run Marlins rally… Florida takes Game 7… blah blah blah.

But after logging so many innings and tossing so many pitches in his second season, Prior never quite looked the same. He made 59 more starts over the next three seasons, but he sported a 4.27 ERA with growing walk rates and shrinking strikeout rates. Not only that, but he faced six different injuries from Achilles to elbow to shoulder to oblique.

Prior’s 2007 campaign ended before it even got off the ground when he had to have shoulder surgery after one minor league start. For the Cubs, that was enough frustration for a century, and they non-tendered him that off-season, granting him free agency.

Prior attempted a comeback with his hometown Padres for the 2008 season, but another shoulder tear ended that fairy tale. Fate wasn’t in his favor for his second attempted return to the majors with San Diego, as he wasn’t healthy enough to throw a single pitch in a game either season.

He again tried comebacks in 2010 and 2011 with the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees, respectively, but he only managed to pitch a combined 24 innings for both minor league systems. The one thing he did manage to do, though, was add a groin injury to his laundry list of maladies.

Mark Prior's starting career is over, but he can still be a valuable reliever.

All of this brings us to Prior today. Coming out of the Pawtucket Red Sox bullpen, he doesn’t have his same blazing fastball, but he can still put on a show.

It’s a small sample size, but Prior is showing some serious promise. In five relief appearances, he’s racked up 15 strikeouts in 6.2 innings with three hits, four walks, and most importantly no earned runs.

With that said, the Red Sox are being extremely cautious, and rightfully so. Prior has been given off three to four days off between relief appearances, and he’s never faced a more than eight batters in an outing.

But this provides hope—not just for Prior, but for pitchers who’ve seen their careers decimated by injuries. Pitchers like Ben Sheets. And pitchers like Jon Garland. It’s unlikely that any of those three former workhorses will ever start more than a few major league games again—although Sheets threw for four teams on June 13^th—but all three could become major leaguers down the road.

Those three are all still relatively young (Prior is 31, Garland 32, and Sheets 33), so they still have something left in the tank. Injuries will prevent them from remaining starting pitchers, but they can still be valuable relievers.

Pitchers like Prior can follow the mold of Alfredo Aceves. No, not the “closer” with the 4.81 ERA from this season, but the Jack of all Trades reliever who could fit into any role from 2011.

Last year, Alfredo Aceves logged 112 innings. He was the team’s mop-up man, one of the most trusted set-up guys, twice earned saves, and even made four spot starts. Whatever the Red Sox needed, he gave them.

Just because pitchers like Prior, Sheets, and Garland haven’t pitched in the majors in years doesn’t mean they’re completely done. All team can use more pitching depth, and nearly every contender seems to be looking for bullpen help at the trade deadline.

With tempered expectations, patience, and caution to injuries, Mark Prior and pitchers of his ilk can still make an impact at the major league level. Just look at how Prior’s former teammate Kerry Wood reinvigorated his career as a reliever in the last six seasons.