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Are you familiar with the history of baseball? There has always been a competitive edge for certain teams over others. Look at the standings, year in and year out during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s ans 1960s when free agency was not imagined. In the later period of those years, there was an entry level draft, as there is today.

The Washington Senators were perennial losers. So were the St. Louis Browns. So were the Chicago Cubs (last pennant 1945/last World Championship 1908). So were the Chicago White Sox (pennants only in 1919: "the Black Sox" and in 1959 since their last World Championship in 1917) The Red Sox: last Championship: 1918. The Philadelphia Phillies: One championship since 1915. One could go on and on.

Solution: Terminate a minimum of ten franchises and distribute their players by reverse order draft with worst survivors drafting first. That eliminates 250 major league player jobs in one fell swoop for those obsessed with players' salaries. Supply and demand will take care of lowering the salaries. If the terminated teams are such money losers, surely the owners would be glad to fold without compensation or for very little compensation? Right? Pitching will tighten up considerably. Baseball will go back to being baseball rather than homerun derby when modestly competent major leaguers will have no scrubeenie pitchers to feed on.

You are right that baseball is unlike manufacturing widgets. Baseball is an art. Ther players are the artists. The owners are mere middlemen, often ignorant of the game they are ruining, who survive in their localities only by virtue of the anti-trust exemption. Without the players, baseball is finished. That is why the players always win at the negotiating table and why the football players and basketball players were very foolish to facilitate gambling interests by accepting salary caps and artificially contrived "competitive balance."

There was no free agency and little salary (Mickey Mantle: $125K per year) when, during 1949-1964, rooting for the New York Yankees was like rooting for US Steel (which was also very strong in those days). Fourteen pennants in sixteen years and nine World Championships. Most who have a problem with player salaries nonetheless seem to regard those years as a golden age. If you scrap ten franchises in cities having no business calling themselves major league

I don't think you can go back into the past for a solution. It's true that there were perennial losers in the first century of baseball, and fans still went to see the games. However, ticket prices were low, and there were not anywhere near as many competing entertainment options.

I just don't think baseball can survive as a major sport if it does not address the competitive balance issue. Fans today, for a number of reasons, are more fickle, and will not support perennial losers.

That would be sad, because baseball is an important part of our culture.

I think a good revenue sharing program, and moving a couple of franchises (Montreal -> Portland, Tampa Bay -> Washington) could help to address some of the problems.

Another thing baseball needs to do is to make sure kids can see baseball on TV or hear it on radio. MLB needs to stop nickel-and-diming out-of-market fans, and put more games on TV.