Tony DeMarco

As the NBA lockout drags on with damaging ramifications, Major League Baseball's period of labor peace keeps on delivering.

No change comes without resistance, and elements of what's about to unfold in MLB aren't perfect. But there's little arguing that what's to come will be win-win.

Here's what's in store and some likely ramifications:

Two more wild cards will be added to the postseason mix, possibly as soon as 2012. The plus side is obvious: Players and owners want more playoff teams (i.e. more revenue) and 10 playoff teams from 30 franchises isn't stretching credibility, as do NBA and NHL playoffs that often include sub-.500 teams.

But most importantly will be a renewed emphasis on teams winning their divisions. The new format will have the two wild cards in each league playing (most likely) a one-game elimination while the three division winners can regroup for a couple of days before the divisional round.

That will make it tougher to advance as a wild card than under the current system, in which a handful of wild cards have won the World Series, including the St. Louis Cardinals last month. Getting to the playoffs is good, but nobody wants to face a one-game play-in. Win your division, and you avoid that.

The potential drawback is the remarkable finish we saw this year wouldn't have been so remarkable under the 10-team system. The Red Sox and Braves would have avoided historic collapses and limped into the postseason as second wild cards, removing much of the drama from Rays' and Cardinals' stretch runs.

The Astros will move to the American League, likely by 2013, as part of a series of major schedule and division-format changes — the result being all 30 teams having a fairer chance to reach the postseason. Not only is the players union on board, but after hearing complaints and concerns from their membership in recent years, they are the driving force.

Two 15-team leagues, each with three five-team divisions, has been the ideal scenario for quite awhile. But the roadblock had been resistance against more interleague play. In fact, until the last year, you heard more insider chatter about the possibility of less interleague play, not more. The new system would have to include at least one interleague game on days when all 30 teams are playing.

But players' complaints about inequities in division sizes and relative strengths, as well as in interleague scheduling, finally brought a reversal in thinking. The trick, of course, was getting an NL team to switch leagues — something nobody really wants to do.

Were there possibilities besides the Astros? Sure. How about Milwaukee back to the AL? Or Colorado or Arizona switching leagues, and Houston moving to the NL West? After all, those latter two franchises only have existed since 1993 and 1998, respectively, as opposed to the Astros' 50-year history.

But somebody had to switch, and there was a franchise for sale in the NL's six-team division. How convenient. So the Astros' sale from Drayton McLane to the group headed by Jim Crane made them the logical team to jump, even though a Houston Chronicle online poll had 76 percent of respondents against it.

So the NL won't have a franchise in Texas — the closest team being the Cardinals — and Astros fans adjust to life with the designated hitter and without double switches.

But they will stay up later to watch more late-starting intradivision games from Anaheim, Oakland and Seattle. That hurts television ratings and revenues, something the Rangers have complained about for decades. But the Rangers have shown winning can trump that and will be kicking off their own regional network in a couple of seasons.

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At least for the short term, while the Astros rebuild, their move to the AL West should help the Rangers and Los Angeles Angels on the field. With another non-contender in their division, the Rangers and Angels will post better intradivision records, making a wild-card berth more likely for the second-place AL West team.

The Rangers also will get better attendance hosting the Astros more often each season. Thats a legitimate rivalry and will only grow stronger and help replace those lost by the Astros' move, namely those with the Cardinals, Dodgers and Cubs.

As for the schedule, what likely will result is a breakdown of 72 intradivision games (18 against each division rival), 60 games against teams in your league's other two divisions (six games apiece vs. 10 teams), and 30 interleague games — an increase from the 15-18 played in the current format.

But what likely will decrease is the number of geographic rivalry games (just one series instead of the current home-and-home series setup) due to the inequities that result: For one, the Mets having to play the Yankees six times each season, while the Nationals get six against the Orioles.

This won't be a return to the perfectly balanced schedule that always existed prior to interleague play's institution in 1995. Before that, it was very simple and equitable: You played everybody in your league the same amount of times. But this will be a step in that direction.