Interesting thought experiment, but as is often the problem in North American sports, it hurts small market teams. What free agent is going to willingly join a small market team out of the champions league that has less capital to expend than large market teams. You end up with a negative feedback loop in which small market teams have an even tougher time affording to compete or incentivizing free agents to join. This is already a problem and a structure like this (namely, the 3-5 year qualification period) only compounds it. If a smaller market team hasn't had any qualifying seasons in 5 years it essentially pits them into purgatory.
Personally, I'd like to see the season shortened (in # of games) to give each game a more outsized impact. Give teams a bit more rest to enable shorter rotations (star pitchers get more game time) and expand the playoffs slightly (via play-in games) to lessen the soul crushing nature of missing the playoffs by a single game after a grueling 162 game season. Not that any of these ideas are novel or perfect, but it's clear baseball has engagement issues that are not improving any time soon.
Personally, I'd like to see the season shortened (in # of games) to give each game a more outsized impact. Give teams a bit more rest to enable shorter rotations (star pitchers get more game time) and expand the playoffs slightly (via play-in games) to lessen the soul crushing nature of missing the playoffs by a single game after a grueling 162 game season. Not that any of these ideas are novel or perfect, but it's clear baseball has engagement issues that are not improving any time soon.