Somewhat tangential to this discussion is the American obsession with "playoffs." In most other countries, league play and any tournament or playoff is separate. I'm not saying that I support this, but at this point, with a 16-team playoff, you're essentially creating a tournament in which the top 50% of the teams are eligible. No longer is it really a playoff between the very top teams of different leagues. I'm just not sure you can have both scenarios.
If you look at the season as a 162 game tournament in which the team at the top wins, well then there's no reason for further games. You would want a balanced schedule of course, and this is what happens in most "leagues" in all team sports around the world. Then, there is a separate tournament involving even more teams that works somewhat similarly to our playoff system in the States. None of this is new for many of you, but it's almost as if our attempt to combine two different ideas into one is going to backfire a bit. The season was meant to show over a large sample size who is the best team, second best, third best, etc. If all it needs to do is separate the top half from the bottom half, we surely don't need so many games, as evidenced by the lack of attention given to NBA and NHL regular seasons that don't feature marquee match-ups. Sure seeding matters a bit as does home/away (outside a bubble), but is that worth months of games?
Anyway, I'm not sure a solution, but a hybrid tournament/season approach seems to be getting the worst of both worlds, the "grind" of a league winner becomes less important if you just need to fall in the top 50%, and a tournament with so many teams will feature teams that aren't really that good, reducing the appeal of the best playing the best. I personally like the "grind" aspect of a league winner, but you lose game 7s or elimination games to a certain extent. 162 games is a lot, and I wonder how much the 154-162 game season was built initially on a barnstorming mentality to collect gate-receipts that just isn't necessary anymore with TV revenues being far more important. Obviously any change to that would be drastic and would essentially change the sport, but if we keep expanding the playoffs, then we really run the risk of the regular season just becoming a statistics generator.
Thought Experiment-style Proposal that Would Never Happen:
Imagine mimicking a European-style basketball/soccer season. You would have a fully balanced season between all the teams. Each team plays the other team for a 2 game series home and home over the course of the year = 116 games (I think). You would play 4 games a week for 29 weeks, every Wednesday and Thursday and Saturday and Sunday, and at the end of the season you had a winner. The top 16 teams would then be eligible for the "tournament" the following season, making teams have to sustain good play and keep players. The tournament would be played alongside the regular season on Friday evenings. You would have around 25 weeks to play with, so about 25 possible games. The first round would be 3 games, second round 5, and last two rounds 7. Once you're out, you're out and you play fewer games. It would allow teams to run out their ace (if that position still existed...) every Friday if they wanted in the tournament, but at the cost of being able to use him in the "league." You'd have "must-see" baseball all season long. On Friday evenings! Hell we could have a Redzone baseball channel!
It'd be a hot mess and totally change the sport. I don't think I'd like it, but it was fun to think about for a few minutes...