[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

You seem like you're awfully dismissive of counterpoints. I think the fact that top 3 markets in the country (plus number 13 and to some extent number 6) benefit from having two teams playing on entirely different schedules is kind of a big deal. Baseball doesn't have the enforced parity that the other major leagues have but one thing that helps to cut into that is that they have multiple teams in these markets to cut into the revenue. The Yankees (and Dodgers) are still huge but if the Yankees were the only team in the market, they'd be much, much larger and would likely dominate the league the way that a Manchester United dominated the EPL in the 90s and 2000s (and of course, it stands to note that even though London absolutely swamps the rest of England in terms of population, a London team is not at the top of everything every year because there are last I checked 6 London based teams in the top 2 levels). If schedules are made more boring in those cities to "save travel money" (again, an absolutely ridiculous thing to worry about), fans are going to tune out in those places and possibly stop supporting secondary teams. You might think that's a good thing but... it's kind of not, not if you want some sense of ability for teams to compete with the Yankees and Dodgers without the crapshoot of a short playoff series.

I mean, honestly I think realignment is OK-ish if you keep those city schedules the way they are. Chicago as a city is very, very split in its loyalty - North Siders root for the Cubs, South Siders root for the Sox, and that's it. LA doesn't really have that split and people will go to see the current hotness. There's certainly room for a cool rivalry in the Windy City, even if it's not historical at all. You just can't have it at the expense of losing the Chicago-St. Louis rivalry, which might be the most contentious rivalry in all of baseball (people might point to Boston-Yankees but that's a very one-sided rivalry - Boston hates the Yanks (as does everyone else in the country who isn't a jerkbag) but Yankees fans barely even care about the Bosox, especially when they aren't contending).

Personally I like the idea in theory but...

1. People need to can this 8 team division trash. It's a terrible idea and it leads directly to mid and lower table teams have no skin in the game. The fact that the Mariners can hope for division titles when the massive markets they play with - Dallas, Houston, and LA are top 6 by metro area if not necessarily by baseball fandom - are rebuilding is bad enough but if the best-case scenario is having to compete with the A's and Rockies and Twins and Royals during those small windows, you're going to see a lot of teams just kind of dropping out and taking advantage of revenue sharing.

2. The existing rivalries need to be kept, even at the cost of making divisions "look right". This has to be non-negotiable. Even if the White Sox wind up in a "Northern" division with Milwaukee and Minnesota and Detroit and Toronto where the Cubs are together with St. Louis and Kansas City and Denver, that's preferable to splitting up the Cubs and Cardinals. The same goes for the Dodgers/Giants, Red Sox/Yankees (sure), Mets/Phillies, Braves/all those NL fanbases that hate the Braves, etc. Personally I feel like the M's and A's and M's and Angels are rivalries but I'm not sure they feel the same way.

3. I guess the biggest reason why I personally dislike the idea is that you flat-out can't split California until/unless one of the California teams actually moves. Like, what if the A's move to Riverside instead of Las Vegas (Riverside is a far, far larger and as yet untapped market)? And since there are 5 teams there right now, either you make a 6 team West Coast Division and include Seattle (which means someone else gets 4 teams) or else Seattle has to do what they did in the "Northwest" Division in the NBA, which is to say travel even further on average than they currently do (at least the NBA had/has the Blazers). I've seen M's fans broach this as a way to cut down on travel time (which, the Mariners are a team that is definitely hurt by that, not costs so much as they get worn out by playing longer trips than anyone else in baseball). That doesn't happen unless they get to play the California teams.

I guess this feels like a decent idea... in a decade or so, when the league's expanded again a time or two and we're set with a mix of 5 and 6 team divisions anyway.

Regarding the The Chicago Cubs St. Louis Cardinals rivalry. Starting next year they are only going to play 14 games against each other instead of 19 no matter what. I know I’m repeating myself but this is part of the agreement between the players and the owners. I was not in the room when that agreement was signed.

So why not create new rivalries? How can that possibly hurt the fans or the game of baseball on a national basis Explain that to me in detail.

Regarding teams like the Braves who are hated by everybody. Every major league fan will get a chance to hate the Braves in person at least once every other year.

And I’m not being dismissive of the four markets that have two teams. Which by the way will be three within five years because the A’s will be moving to Las Vegas. The ballpark in Oakland is an outmoded dump. And the city is not willing to build a new ballpark for the Oakland A’s.

Roughly 75% a major league baseball games are not played in the two team markets. In five years it will be 80%. Majority rules.

The Oakland A’s are a small market team playing in a big market area. They invented Moneyball.


The game has to change to remain relevant in the 21st-century. Other than the changes to the game of the field. Geographic realignment is the best way to do that. Unlike the rule changes this is something that cannot be experimented in the minors to see how it might work.

MLB has to try to do everything they can to remain relevant especially to the younger fans. They are the future of the game. Not me.

You are right. I am dismissive of the status quo if it is not working. That’s why the owners and players agreed to have more inter-league games. That was not my decision. It is going to happen next year, like it or not. Go with the flow.

Baseball is so unique among the other major professional team sports in so many ways that normally to list them I would be writing for a week. That doesn’t mean that baseball can’t learn things from the other sports as far as league structure and other business matters. And adopt some of those ideas into the game.

I am 67 years old, yet I am more creative with new ideas than 90% of the people who post on this forum. Including the Hall of Famer’s.