Back in April, I wrote about how it was way to soon to freak out about the Red Sox. They started 4-10 against a brutal schedule with a rash of injuries, but that was way to early to give up on an incredibly talented team. I still stand by what I said nearly five months ago.

But things didn’t get better. They got a lot worse. Bobby Valentine could not take control of a clubhouse full of crazy characters, which eventually led to the dumping of Kevin Youkilis for a couple of spare parts. Carl Crawford took much longer to come back from wrist and elbow injuries than expected, then only played 31 games before being shut down with Tommy John Surgery. David Ortiz injured himself running the bases. No starter had an ERA under 4.50.

There is a bright side to this season, though, as strange as it sounds. The Red Sox won’t finish with a great record this year, and they probably won’t be great next year, either. But they’ve freed up around $260 million from the Gonzalez/Crawford/Beckett trade, which opens up all sorts of possibilities.

In the NBA and NFL, teams can tank for a better draft pick. Suffering through a long season is worth it if you end up with Anthony Davis or Andrew Luck. The real reason this works is because being all playoff teams have one thing in common–none of them are in the playoffs (obviously). And if you aren’t in the playoffs, you might as well aim for a great draft pick.

However, in the NBA and NFL, draftees make an immediate impact. Cam Newton improved the Panthers by five games last year, and Cleveland’s winning percentage increased 86 points with Kyrie Irving. But in baseball, on the other hand, we don’t get to see the fruits of each team’s draft immediately.

It’s not that tanking in baseball doesn’t work–the worst teams definitely get the best pick–but the return for one bad season isn’t great. We’re talking about adding one potentially good player three to five years in the future in a sport in which one player does not make a huge difference.

Still, it looks like the Red Sox have gone full-blown-Bobcats on us. David Ortiz and Will Middlebrooks have already been shut down for the year, and who knows, maybe Boston’s brass is being a little too cautious and over-protective of their players. Hell, they even acquired Scott Podsednik twice. And in full consciousness, they batted him third.

No team starts James Loney every day at first base unless they’re trying to lose.

Now I’m not saying they’re purposely tanking, but I’m not saying they’re trying to win. Yeah, it’s a strange team, indeed. Buster Olney even reported on Monday that agents of Red Sox players were upset with how their clients were being utilized.

All of a sudden the Red Sox have the 9th worst record in the league. In other words, the 9th pick in next year’s draft. They’re just 2.5 games ahead of (behind?) the 6th-worst Marlins and just 6.5 games away from the 3rd-worst Twins. With 24 game to go, the Red Sox are in range of some really sweet picks.

Maybe the Red Sox have found a new market deficiency in bottoming out for a year or two, collecting great draft picks. That’s certainly a better plan than the the market deficiency they found this winter: trading off all your shortstops. Or maybe they’re just making the most of a bad situation. They’re not making the playoffs this year, so why not gun for a better draft pick?

Some call it the human factor. I call it human error.

Over and over, we’ve seen games riddled with blown calls by umpires, and it’s not as if there’s nothing we can do about it.

Just in the last few seasons, we’ve had a blown call ruin perfect game, a blown call save a no-hitter, a groundout with the first baseman three feet off the bag, and an extra inning playoff double ruled foul.

It’s infuriating to watch from the stands or the couch and know that a potential game-changing call was wrong. Oftentimes, it’s as if the umpire is the only person in the world who thinks the call was made correctly.

Major League Baseball finally added instant replay in late August of 2008, a move far overdue for the nation’s pastime. I don’t want to say that Bud Selig has been a bad commissioner because of how he’s handled steroid suspensions versus DUI suspensions, but he certainly hasn’t been a very progressive commissioner.

After all, he’s following the worst line of reason around: We’re not making a change because this is the way we’ve always done things.

Change is a good thing. Change has brought us interracial marriage, DVR, and pepperoni P’Zones.

I’m a mathematical guy, so naturally I like things to be precise. I don’t like when picture frames are rotated two degrees too far clockwise, so you can bet I really don’t like it when a second base umpire messes up a stolen base call.

Fifteen years ago, there was an excuse for the lack of instant replay. There weren’t HD cameras, for one. But now, we have nearly a dozen camera angles for every play on some extremely precise cameras. We have the technology at our fingertips, yet Bud Selig has resisted the spoils of modern technology.

One of the main complaints of anti-replay fans is that consulting replay would take too long. As if Red Sox-Yankees marathons weren’t long enough as is, imagine them taking five-minute breaks every inning to check over every other call. Well, that’s not exactly the case. If you caught the Sawx-Yanks game on July 29th, you’d see it a different way.

With no outs and a runner on first in the top of the tenth, Will Middlebrooks came up to bat, squared to bunt. The second pitch of the at-bat was way inside, and as Middlebrooks brought back in his bat, the pitch hit him in the wrist. Unfortunately, the ball deflected straight into home plate umpire, Brian O’Nara.

O’Nara couldn’t make the call, as he laid on the ground in pain. The other umpires were all 100 feet away from home plate, so they didn’t have a good angle. But the umpires huddled up for about five minutes discussing what they thought they had seen. We have access to super slow motion, 1080p video from endless angles, yet baseball has resorted to four men discussing their views from afar. But that’s just the beginning.

Middlebrooks was angry because he was showing off the mark on his wrist made by the ball, but the umpires wouldn’t look. Bobby Valentine, however was even more angry since he got to see the replay in the dugout. Bobby V then spent the next five plus minutes yelling at the umpires before fruitlessly getting ejected.

On that one play alone, the umpires and manager wasted 10 minutes, when a brief look at one instant replay could have correctly sent Middlebrooks to first base.

This game-winning run couldn’t be reviewed because that would obviously ruin the integrity of the game.

With access to instant replay, Major League baseball could cut down the amount of missed calls nearly to zero at the same time as they save time and collateral damage, in the form of ejections.

But what blows the mind most about the current instant replay rules is that the most important play in all of baseball–run scoring plays–cannot be reviewed. Sure, checking if a fan touched a fair ball could significantly alter a game, but there’s nothing more crucial than a play at the plate. After all, you do win games by scoring more runs than the other team.

My rules for instant replay would be very simple. 1) Have a fifth umpire in the press box with access to instant replay. 2) Give each team two challenges per game, and if the play is overturned, they get to keep the challenge. 3) Challenge anything that’s not balls and strikes. 4) Cook for 30 minutes, then let it cool.

And you know what, I’d even be fine with robot umpires behind home plate using K Zone. Maybe then we wouldn’t have blatant miscalls based on payback, such as what sparked Brett Lawrie’s terrific tirade earlier this season.

But have no fear, sports fans, Commissioner Selig is coming to the rescue! Earlier this week he told Mike Lupica he’s confident replay will be expanded to include trapped balls and balls hit down the line… but not before 2013. He also added he would be “very cautious” to make any more changes.

Clearly it’s going to take a new commissioner for MLB join the modern age of technology. And I hope that change comes sooner rather than later because I’d hate to see change spurred on by a playoff game marred by a blown call.

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Also check out my newest article for the Charlotte Observer: Tigers rugby club finds early success.

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.