Dispense with division races and make it a balanced schedule. Make it like the NBA and NHL where the top teams in the conference (or in this case, league) go to the playoffs. To expand the playoffs, you have the top four teams go, where one plays four and two plays three. It gets rid of division races, which have been compromised by the wild card anyway. That way it would be like the old days, except of course then it was only the top team from each league that went to the post season. In case of ties, use head to head records or one game playoffs, where necessary.
So to correct the problems posed by having second-place teams win the World Series, you propose offering fourth-place teams this chance? Yeah, that makes sense.