Improving Competitive Balance

Nihilist in Golf Pants, in a post on appeasement, writes of a way to improve competitive balance in the American League Central this year:

9. Ten wins must be knocked off the Detroit Tiger’s record so as to make the American League Central race interesting.

I'd also propose taking wins, say 5, from the second place team, currently the White Sox, as well.  And to be Robin Hoodish, give those wins to the last and next-to-last place teams (the Royals and the Indians).

The standings before sharing wins (after completion of all play on July 23rd):

                                                           

	W	L	PCT	GB
Detroit	66	32	0.6734694	0
Chicago Sox	59	38	0.6082474	6.5
Minnesota	56	41	0.5773196	9.5
Cleveland	43	54	0.443299	22.5
Kansas City	34	64	0.3469388	32

The standings after sharing wins (a total of 15 wins were redistributed from the Tigers and the Sox.  I arbitrarily gave 8 to the Royals and 7 to the Indians):

                                                           

	W	L	PCT	GB
Minnesota	56	41	0.5773196	0
Detroit	56	42	0.5714286	0.5
Chicago Sox	54	43	0.556701	2
Cleveland	50	47	0.5154639	6
Kansas City	42	56	0.4285714	14.5

The Royals would still stink, but, boy, how the system would change incentives.  Every general manager is going to think twice before signing a player because that player's expected "win shares" are going, in part, to competing teams.  While it would make the league more competitive in a relative sense, imagine the effect on the aboslute level of competition.

Note this win redistribution, in principle, works like a progressive income redistribution system.