The Major League Baseball season started on Monday. In a better world, we might already be a few weeks into the season. You know, a day when baseball’s opening day doesn’t correspond with the National Championship in College Basketball.

After taking over for Bud Selig a few months ago, new commissioner Rob Manfred, has already said that taking a look at the league moving back to a 154 game schedule is not out of the question. The American League moved from 154 to 162 games in 1961 (National League the next year). It corresponded with league growth and probably helped Roger Maris hit 61 home runs that season.

Both the owners and players, now, might have a problem with a shorter season. For owners, it would remove four home games from the schedule. While some teams, like the Marlins, Astros, and Rays might not see much loss from four gates, the higher attendance teams like the Cardinals, Yankees and Dodgers likely would lose a decent chunk of change.

The players would lose 14 service days and we wouldn’t know how to adjust contracts or if they’d be adjusted at all. All of this would have to be collectively bargained, of course, so we’re going to slightly ignore that owners and players might not like some of this. We will suspend reality and believe that everyone is good with making changes to better the game.

Just moving to 154 games is not the way to fix baseball altogether, not to say it’s that broken, but it could use some improvements. Here are nine plausible ways to help the viewership and marketing of the game of baseball by moving and manipulating the Major League Baseball schedule.

Drop the number of games in a season to 154:

Normally contracting the season by eight games would seem like a hard task. Luckily baseball has a fairly easy fix. Interleague. Remove the eight games from the current 20 interleague games that are being played by each team.

(Here is what the Astros 154 game schedule might look like for 2015)

Change the Interleague set up:

Now that the league has knocked out eight games from interleague, how does interleague work with 12 games to play? Each team will play a two-game series against four opposition league teams from the same divisions (i.e. the AL West playing the NL East would play 4 of those teams in interleague play). They will also play a four-game home and home series against their “Interleague Rival.” This doesn’t always make for the best rival (i.e. Houston vs. Colorado and Seattle vs. San Diego) but it does keep the regional interleague battles (i.e. San Francisco vs. Oakland, Miami vs. Tampa Bay) that everyone enjoys alive. That is 12 interleague games. With each league still having 15 teams there will always be an interleague series playing.

Add three scheduled double headers to the schedule

The scheduled double headers used to be a part of baseball scheduling every year. Bring them back. Keep the double headers all on Sundays and against the division. If a team plays two home doubleheaders in 2015 and one road, in 2016 they would play two road doubleheaders and only one home double-header. The division opponent that isn’t scheduled for a doubleheader would have a four-game series scheduled as either the second home four-game series or the second road four-game series. Now teams would still play each division opponent 19 times during the season. These games would just be taken from the current schedule of 19 games.

The three doubleheaders per year also allow the season to keep 18 of the 20 off days that players currently have during the season. So they get eight fewer games, but lose only two off days. This should help with the players probably not wanting to play doubleheaders.

Push up the start of the season:

The season is now 154 games; time to work on when the games are played. March 23 would have been the start date of the 2015 season if this set up were to take place this year. The big fight against pushing the start of the season up two weeks is that the weather wouldn’t be good in some of the colder parts of the country. And while that would be an inconvenience, the counter argument to that is: wouldn’t we rather be having to make up a few games here and there for rain/snow outs in the first month of the season than playing the World Series in winter weather in late October and November?

The second argument is spring training. Pitchers and Catchers normally report the second week of February and position players the next week (Even though it seems like 80% of players are in Arizona or Florida before the official start date). So why not just knock out a week of games and have everyone report on February first. Not a big deal. You play in Florida and Arizona for a reason.

Push up the end of the season to Labor Day:

Starting the season two weeks earlier would push the end of the season to mid-September. Plus the removal of eight games from interleague and three game days moved to double-headers from the schedule and the season that normally would end on October 4th can end on September 7th. Labor Day. A national holiday. The last game for every team is on a day when many Americans have the day off. Imagine the final day of the season starting at 12:30p EST and with the final first pitch of the year being thrown at 7:05 PT. A full day of exciting baseball to help celebrate Labor Day and the NFL hasn’t even kicked off their season. The attention of the entire sports world would be on baseball. And hopefully there would playoff implications.

With 15 teams in each league there would have to be at least one Interleague home and home being played on the last weekend of the season, but the Monday end to the season would allow for most of the series to be the one series that didn’t have a double header in the division. Which means the likelihood of two teams hooking up for a four-game winner take all pennant race series to end the year will be higher. More drama, more excitement, more people watching baseball.

Move The All-Star Game to the 4th of July:

Baseball owns summer. Why not own the best holiday summer has to offer and put Major League Baseball on the center stage during another National holiday? With the season now ending earlier, the All-star game shouldn’t be played just 6 weeks before the end of the season. It needs to be pushed back a bit. Moving the game to the 4th of July also takes away the All-Star game from being played on a random Tuesday every year. The game could be played mid-day (think 3:05ET first pitch) so people will be watching as they are enjoying their pool parties and bar-b-q’s. Tie America’s Pastime with America’s holiday. It’s a perfect fit.

Trade Deadline moved to July 5th:

The Major League Baseball trade deadline is probably the best trade deadline in sports. Most teams know where they stand for the year and the wheeling and dealing is heavy. Right now it is on July 31st (non-waiver) a day when most teams will play. Moving it to July 5th, the day after the All-Star game and an off day, will put the focus on the MLB on a day when nothing else is going on in sports. It also adds some drama to the All-Star game if a player is representing a team, possibly for the last time if he is possibly going to be traded the next day. (Side note: Move the waiver trade deadline from August 30th to July 31st.)

POSTSEASON –

Wild Card Wednesday:

The Wednesday after Labor Day kicks off the MLB Postseason with BOTH Wild Card games being played with staggering start times. (Not going to deal with the expansion of the playoffs. It probably will and arguably should happen, but that will need its own write-up.) As long as the one game series is here let’s feature the games on one day. Make it something to watch. Get people excited for the postseason the day before the NFL regular season begins.

Still October Baseball:

Baseball has always been played in October. The first game ever was played in Hoboken, NJ on October 6th, 1845. The first World Series started on October 1st. But with the season being started earlier and ending earlier the World Series would actually start in September. But, Game 3 would be played on October 3rd. This would guarantee October baseball while keeping the most important games of the year played in better weather.

(Here is the Astros Schedule for 154 game season w/ the postseason schedule factored in:)

Having the postseason earlier also gives baseball a much easier competition time for TV ratings against the most popular sport in America, the NFL. Currently, the postseason starts during week five of the NFL and finishes during week 10, when NFL teams are working to try and establish their place as a playoff team. Also, the NFL tends to see a rise in viewership as the season progresses. If the start of the MLB Postseason is before the NFL Season actually starts the focus is heavy on baseball while the NFL is working the early part of the season. Having postseason baseball compete against weeks 1-4 of the NFL seems like a much better proposition than competing against weeks 5-10. The schedule can be maneuvered so that post season games are not held on many Thursdays or Mondays as to avoid going head to head prime time with nationally televised NFL Games.

I said I wasn’t going to talk about it, but real quick:

BONUS: Playoff Expansion –

Moving the whole season up and having the postseason start in early September and end in early October allows for the inevitable playoff expansion to add another team or two (one more series) without worrying at all about pushing the World Series back in to early November.

Baseball has a chance to be really aggressive with their schedule to take advantage of being the only game in town for a big chunk of the year. Baseball has a chance to be radical and sometimes radical pays off.