MLB Geographical Realignment

Shackdaddy · 04-12-2022, 04:05 AM

Next year will be the first time in the history of baseball that every team will play each other in the same season. That was part of the deal between the players and the owners. That means fans of one team can see every other team at least once every two years.

Each team will play 14 games with each team in its division. 56 games. Six games with each team in the other two divisions in the league. 60 games. And 46 interleague games (Three games each with 14 teams in the other league and four games against one team in the other league).

Given that, the terms American League and National League are no longer relevant.

The next logical step to me is geographical realignment of the major leagues. Like the NBA and the NHL.

Here is my proposed major league baseball league structure.

There will be an eastern conference and Western Conference with three divisions in each conference each division consisting of five teams.

Eastern Conference Northeast division: Red Sox, Mets, Yankees, Phillies and Pirates.

Eastern Conference Southeast division: Orioles, Nationals, Braves, Rays and Marlins.

Eastern Conference Mideast division: Blue Jays, Guardians, Reds, Tigers and Twins

Western Conference Midwest division: Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals and Royals.

Western Conference Southwest division: Astros, Rangers, Rockies, D backs and A’s (I am putting Oakland in this division because I predict within the next five years they will be moving to Las Vegas).

Western Conference Pacific division: Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants and Mariners.

This is a win-win. No existing rivalries will be lost like the Red Sox and the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants, Cardinals and Cubs. And rivalries like Cubs and White Sox, Reds and Guardians, Royals and Cardinals will be created because they will be playing 14 games against each other. And they will be in the same division.

That is a win for the fans.

It’s a win for baseball because it creates more interest that baseball desperately needs. It is in third place behind the NFL and the NBA and slipping. And it will reduce the cost of travel.

Another idea:

With the expanded wild card playoffs pushing the baseball season into November. Another change that could be considered just cutting back to schedule from 162 games to 154 games. Which could simply be done by cutting back the number of games with a divisional opponent from 14 to 12.

And with that expand the divisional round of playoffs from from best of five to best of seven.

The bottom line is that MLB’s league structure needs to be brought into the 21st-century.

Any feedback will be appreciated.

cephasjames · 04-12-2022, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

Given that, the terms American League and National League are no longer relevant.

Says who? This must first be proven before anything else in your post could even be considered.

ThatSeventiesGuy · 04-12-2022, 09:23 AM

Huh, I didn’t even know Rob Manfred had an account on this site. Take the Cardinals and Cubs out of the same division, and have the audacity to say “no existing rivalries will be lost”? That’s the kind of pure genius only he could come up with!

David Watts · 04-12-2022, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ThatSeventiesGuy

Huh, I didn’t even know Rob Manfred had an account on this site. Take the Cardinals and Cubs out of the same division, and have the audacity to say “no existing rivalries will be lost”? That’s the kind of pure genius only he could come up with!

Not endorsing this setup at all, but he could probably swap the Twins and Brewers around and things would work better. I do love any setup that puts Toronto and Detroit in the same division. That being said, I would hate looking at standings that had 2 Chicago's and 2 New York's in the same division. I like the AL and NL. I just want the Astro's back in the NL.

BBGiovanni · 04-12-2022, 01:01 PM

Four team divisions are so small as to be useless in baseball and guarantee that (1) too many games happen against just three teams, boring fans and making it duller for players too and (2) yet more unqualified teams will get free passes because they won a "division". Just because the NFL does it isn't a good reason for baseball to do it, and that goes for plenty of other hot ideas the baseball cartel has had over the years. But anyway.

At this point, now that there are no rules differences and (as with Houston and Milwaukee) they messed up the geographic distribution of what were separate baseball circuits, the best thing to do would be to put the whole league in a megadivision and actually play a balanced schedule so the best teams wouldn't be able to beat up on a couple of weak division teams and advance. But owners don't want to pay for the travel expenses (never mind that those would be a rounding error for the oligarchs) and players don't want to do all the crosscountry travel that would be required (again never mind that they used to play balanced schedules in the 70s).

So, the best feasible way to "geographically realign" would be to reorganize into 4 8 team "leagues". That assumes they'll add two teams, which will correct the great error of going to 30 teams in the first place rather than waiting to do 32 when they could.

The American League goes back to being the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles (Browns), White Sox, Tigers, Cleveland, Twins (ex Senators) and now Toronto. History preserved, with a Canadian team added that's always been in the AL.

The National League goes back to being the Cubs, Cards, Pirates, Phillies, Reds, Mets, and Brewers (on the theory that Milwaukee stays an NL town and preserves their recent rivalries with Chicago/STL). As will be clear from the below, an expansion team should go here. Let's say Montreal, which would give the NL a Canadian team too, be popular with fans, make sense, and correct the wrong done to the fans in that city. The NY/PHI/BOS corridor is so big as a media market there's plenty of room there too, I think a New Jersey team could work, or maybe one in CT or Providence or something, but the Mets/Yankees/Phils/Red Sox would never allow it. Sigh. Anyway, just by combining most of the NL Central and East back together you cut travel times and have more than a nod to history.

Then, acknowledge that basically nobody east of the Mississippi cares what happens to teams west of it. I was amazed when I moved to NY how little most fans know/care about western teams and honestly the time difference is a major reason. Nobody stays up to 10 PM to watch a game from Seattle, and most news stories get written after the East Coast games so the media doesn't pay attention either. And, if you want geographic rivalries, you're more likely to get them with Seattle playing California teams regularly, the Giants/A's playing the Dodgers/Angels regularly, and so on.

So, the Pacific League is: the Giants, Dodgers, Angels, A's, Mariners, Rockies, D-Backs, Padres.The Giants-Dodgers history stays, and regular play among the other teams might wake up the old rivalries that existed in the PCL. Again it corrects an old mistake, when they could have promoted the PCL in whole rather than just hosing Brooklyn and throwing the A's out where the entire rest of the AL had to travel for just one opponent. There's real cultural connection among the cities too, most families have someone in college in another town or once lived in another part of the region, a good excuse to take a short trip to see other ballparks.

That leaves the "other" teams, and they fit pretty nicely into a Southern League. I don't think it takes much imagination to acknowledge that Southern culture is still a thing, and I think that would lead to real geographic rivalry pretty quickly, for teams that don't really have any regular rivals now. Let's start with Washington, who most fans in the other towns probably already hate every time they pay taxes. Next add Atlanta, who I think would quickly become the Yankees of this league that everyone loves to hate but respects because they just never go away. Houston and Texas go along, they basically have no rivals west of the Continental Divide now anyway. Tampa and Miami of course go along, assuming the league will somehow rehabilitate the franchises. Kansas City goes along because they're close enough to Texas, and don't really have any rivals anyway so does anyone really care if they play the Marlins instead of the White Sox regularly? And they're close enough to the other cities that the flights for road trips aren't too long. They need another team, so an expansion team can go in Carolina or Nashville (and/or Tampa can go to one of those).

So, with a couple of new teams and some keystrokes, you awaken a lot of history which was always supposed to be vitally important to baseball. You acknowledge the cultural differences between far west, northeast/midwest (I was always amazed how people on the East coast still thought of Chicago and St. Louis as in the "west"), and south, and probably tap a lot of existing ties between the towns within the regions. At the same time the dreaded travel times/expenses are reduced to the point of irrelevance. The longest trips within these leagues are like KC-Miami or Seattle to Phoenix or Milwaukee to Montreal or Minneapolis to Boston. Those are all basically connecting flights from some now or past airline hub, and they're on charters anyway so it's 2 hours in the air at most. And obviously there are now tons of bus/train trips possible because there's no need to schedule idiotic weeks like NY to Miami to Denver and back to NY to host Phoenix and Milwaukee.

It's also now a billion times easier to make up a rainout/brownout/whatever game without losing an off day within one of those great weeks travelling from Tampa to Boston and then stopping off to play one game in Chicago or whatever.

After decades of fighting against math, having 32 teams in 8 team leagues now also makes "interleague" play simple to schedule, and gives all kinds of ways to do it. Each league could match up each year with a different league for those "interleague" games, home and home. Or just randomize it every year by team rather than by league, or mix and match with the 4 northern teams in the Pacific playing the 4 western teams in the Southern, or whatever.

Or, if there's enough imagination available in the cartel meeting room, even ditch that concept entirely and create rotating tournaments during the season like they have in Eurosoccer, creating 4 or 8 tournaments around the country for new trophies or (gasp) dedicated to a charity, like the All-Star game and the preseason city series used to be. Instead of Jackie Robinson Day, have a Jackie Robinson Invitational at Citi Field each year (or move it around the NL cities). These could even be logically held overseas since all the teams would travel and play for some fixed period of time. Maybe tournament play happens every April as a kind of extended spring training, or August as a kind of break for teams to rest/heal before September.

Playoffs are also easier to figure out, they could render the "regular season" a big long seeding round for the playoffs like they do in college sports, since "everyone" loves that, have September be a long tournament for the league championship. Pennant races could come back as deciding which 4 teams host the first playoff round, a big payday for the owners and a big advantage for the winners.

Or have the top four teams in each league play off in logical fashion to decide which league team goes to the World Series tournament from each league. We've already had the Astros play NL teams in the WS so I don't know how much anyone would care, but it would be easy enough to put the new/old AL and NL on opposite sides of the bracket so most of the original league franchises would only meet in the World Series. Like a lot of this, these kinds of details are easier to think through when you have the basic alignment done soundly in the first place.

Assuming civilization and cartel baseball continue to exist for the foreseeable future, a lot of local interest and new rivalries would be formed, regular season games will be less boring because one isn't seeing the same 3-4 opponents constantly, and all kinds of flexibility comes from putting the 32 teams in 4 8 team leagues that are really different from one another without flushing what's left of baseball's good history down the toilet to be like every other sport-because baseball is different and should be.

BBGiovanni · 04-12-2022, 01:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Watts

Not endorsing this setup at all, but he could probably swap the Twins and Brewers around and things would work better. I do love any setup that puts Toronto and Detroit in the same division. That being said, I would hate looking at standings that had 2 Chicago's and 2 New York's in the same division. I like the AL and NL. I just want the Astro's back in the NL.

See above, I got you covered (mostly)

Leo_The_Lip · 04-12-2022, 01:41 PM

May as well draw teams out of a hat at the beginning of each season to randomly create divisions. As many fans will be happy/unhappy that way and no one will waste money on 'realignment consultants.'

Tiger Fan · 04-12-2022, 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

Four team divisions are so small as to be useless in baseball and guarantee that (1) too many games happen against just three teams, boring fans and making it duller for players too and (2) yet more unqualified teams will get free passes because they won a "division". Just because the NFL does it isn't a good reason for baseball to do it, and that goes for plenty of other hot ideas the baseball cartel has had over the years. But anyway.

At this point, now that there are no rules differences and (as with Houston and Milwaukee) they messed up the geographic distribution of what were separate baseball circuits, the best thing to do would be to put the whole league in a megadivision and actually play a balanced schedule so the best teams wouldn't be able to beat up on a couple of weak division teams and advance. But owners don't want to pay for the travel expenses (never mind that those would be a rounding error for the oligarchs) and players don't want to do all the crosscountry travel that would be required (again never mind that they used to play balanced schedules in the 70s).

So, the best feasible way to "geographically realign" would be to reorganize into 4 8 team "leagues". That assumes they'll add two teams, which will correct the great error of going to 30 teams in the first place rather than waiting to do 32 when they could.

The American League goes back to being the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles (Browns), White Sox, Tigers, Cleveland, Twins (ex Senators) and now Toronto. History preserved, with a Canadian team added that's always been in the AL.

The National League goes back to being the Cubs, Cards, Pirates, Phillies, Reds, Mets, and Brewers (on the theory that Milwaukee stays an NL town and preserves their recent rivalries with Chicago/STL). As will be clear from the below, an expansion team should go here. Let's say Montreal, which would give the NL a Canadian team too, be popular with fans, make sense, and correct the wrong done to the fans in that city. The NY/PHI/BOS corridor is so big as a media market there's plenty of room there too, I think a New Jersey team could work, or maybe one in CT or Providence or something, but the Mets/Yankees/Phils/Red Sox would never allow it. Sigh. Anyway, just by combining most of the NL Central and East back together you cut travel times and have more than a nod to history.

Then, acknowledge that basically nobody east of the Mississippi cares what happens to teams west of it. I was amazed when I moved to NY how little most fans know/care about western teams and honestly the time difference is a major reason. Nobody stays up to 10 PM to watch a game from Seattle, and most news stories get written after the East Coast games so the media doesn't pay attention either. And, if you want geographic rivalries, you're more likely to get them with Seattle playing California teams regularly, the Giants/A's playing the Dodgers/Angels regularly, and so on.

So, the Pacific League is: the Giants, Dodgers, Angels, A's, Mariners, Rockies, D-Backs, Padres.The Giants-Dodgers history stays, and regular play among the other teams might wake up the old rivalries that existed in the PCL. Again it corrects an old mistake, when they could have promoted the PCL in whole rather than just hosing Brooklyn and throwing the A's out where the entire rest of the AL had to travel for just one opponent. There's real cultural connection among the cities too, most families have someone in college in another town or once lived in another part of the region, a good excuse to take a short trip to see other ballparks.

That leaves the "other" teams, and they fit pretty nicely into a Southern League. I don't think it takes much imagination to acknowledge that Southern culture is still a thing, and I think that would lead to real geographic rivalry pretty quickly, for teams that don't really have any regular rivals now. Let's start with Washington, who most fans in the other towns probably already hate every time they pay taxes. Next add Atlanta, who I think would quickly become the Yankees of this league that everyone loves to hate but respects because they just never go away. Houston and Texas go along, they basically have no rivals west of the Continental Divide now anyway. Tampa and Miami of course go along, assuming the league will somehow rehabilitate the franchises. Kansas City goes along because they're close enough to Texas, and don't really have any rivals anyway so does anyone really care if they play the Marlins instead of the White Sox regularly? And they're close enough to the other cities that the flights for road trips aren't too long. They need another team, so an expansion team can go in Carolina or Nashville (and/or Tampa can go to one of those).

So, with a couple of new teams and some keystrokes, you awaken a lot of history which was always supposed to be vitally important to baseball. You acknowledge the cultural differences between far west, northeast/midwest (I was always amazed how people on the East coast still thought of Chicago and St. Louis as in the "west"), and south, and probably tap a lot of existing ties between the towns within the regions. At the same time the dreaded travel times/expenses are reduced to the point of irrelevance. The longest trips within these leagues are like KC-Miami or Seattle to Phoenix or Milwaukee to Montreal or Minneapolis to Boston. Those are all basically connecting flights from some now or past airline hub, and they're on charters anyway so it's 2 hours in the air at most. And obviously there are now tons of bus/train trips possible because there's no need to schedule idiotic weeks like NY to Miami to Denver and back to NY to host Phoenix and Milwaukee.

It's also now a billion times easier to make up a rainout/brownout/whatever game without losing an off day within one of those great weeks travelling from Tampa to Boston and then stopping off to play one game in Chicago or whatever.

After decades of fighting against math, having 32 teams in 8 team leagues now also makes "interleague" play simple to schedule, and gives all kinds of ways to do it. Each league could match up each year with a different league for those "interleague" games, home and home. Or just randomize it every year by team rather than by league, or mix and match with the 4 northern teams in the Pacific playing the 4 western teams in the Southern, or whatever.

Or, if there's enough imagination available in the cartel meeting room, even ditch that concept entirely and create rotating tournaments during the season like they have in Eurosoccer, creating 4 or 8 tournaments around the country for new trophies or (gasp) dedicated to a charity, like the All-Star game and the preseason city series used to be. Instead of Jackie Robinson Day, have a Jackie Robinson Invitational at Citi Field each year (or move it around the NL cities). These could even be logically held overseas since all the teams would travel and play for some fixed period of time. Maybe tournament play happens every April as a kind of extended spring training, or August as a kind of break for teams to rest/heal before September.

Playoffs are also easier to figure out, they could render the "regular season" a big long seeding round for the playoffs like they do in college sports, since "everyone" loves that, have September be a long tournament for the league championship. Pennant races could come back as deciding which 4 teams host the first playoff round, a big payday for the owners and a big advantage for the winners.

Or have the top four teams in each league play off in logical fashion to decide which league team goes to the World Series tournament from each league. We've already had the Astros play NL teams in the WS so I don't know how much anyone would care, but it would be easy enough to put the new/old AL and NL on opposite sides of the bracket so most of the original league franchises would only meet in the World Series. Like a lot of this, these kinds of details are easier to think through when you have the basic alignment done soundly in the first place.

Assuming civilization and cartel baseball continue to exist for the foreseeable future, a lot of local interest and new rivalries would be formed, regular season games will be less boring because one isn't seeing the same 3-4 opponents constantly, and all kinds of flexibility comes from putting the 32 teams in 4 8 team leagues that are really different from one another without flushing what's left of baseball's good history down the toilet to be like every other sport-because baseball is different and should be.

This is outstanding and makes perfect sense which, unfortunately, only serves to confirm MLB would never do it.

kq76 · 04-12-2022, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

Four team divisions...

No one mentioned 4 team divisions. The OP has 5 teams in each division. EDIT: Yeah, I figured he'd put 4 as many people do when posting their expansion/re-alignment ideas, but no, he has 5.

Many won't like it, of course, but I have no doubt that significant geographical alignment is coming soon. And my guess is it will look more like Shackdaddy's than Giovanni's. Maybe they'll go with the former and then with the latter after expansion.

low · 04-12-2022, 02:22 PM

Four 4-team divisions in each league would work if you shortened the season, which I would be in favor of. If MLB wanted to be worse, then they would be just like the NBA and NHL. I can't take any sport seriously when 50% or more teams make the "playoffs."

But seriously, OP, no. And as a Brewers fan, I always want to be in the same division as the Cubs and Cardinals.

Clovidequano Dovatha · 04-12-2022, 03:00 PM

But then we can't have certain World Series rematches, if certain teams are not in certain leagues, low. I personally think the Brewers should have always stayed in the American League, and the Astros in the National League, and if I were the Commissioner, that's where I would have always kept them, if I could.

The World Series from 1982 was a very good series, I think. We won, but I think a large part of what allowed us to win was the Brewers missing Rollie Fingers, in truth. That really hurt your team considerably, I think. Your Brewers were good, and they even came back against the Angels in that year's ALCS when they were a game away from being eliminated, actually.

If Fingers had been available for the Series, your team probably would have won in six, I think, more or less. Not saying the players that played in his place weren't good, of course, but I believe at least one of them allowed us to score runs that Fingers and others might have kept from scoring, if not more than one of them.

It probably didn't hurt that McGee did well in the Series, along with Porter and others, as well. In any case, the Series was hard-fought, for sure. And I think in some cases, we were fortunate to get important hits and all when we needed them, too.

Your team had a good team for a number of years, it seems, but unfortunately, you guys couldn't get back to the Series afterwards. You still haven't been back to the Series since, in either league, as well.

Talk more later, as time allows and all, then, I'm sure. CD out.

BBGiovanni · 04-12-2022, 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kq76

No one mentioned 4 team divisions. The OP has 5 teams in each division. EDIT: Yeah, I figured he'd put 4 as many people do when posting their expansion/re-alignment ideas, but no, he has 5.

Fair enough and my bad, but I think we've had plenty of evidence that 5 team divisions let too many weak sisters get a pass into the DS. And 3 divisions of odd teams keeps the current scheduling nightmares in place.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

This is outstanding and makes perfect sense which, unfortunately, only serves to confirm MLB would never do it.

Hooray! I think it would be a compromise that solves enough problems without creating new ones, as you say making it even less likely.

Syd Thrift · 04-12-2022, 03:24 PM

I realize that the history of baseball was 8 team leagues but I feel like 8 is too many. 5 or 6 feels about right; enough for a couple teams to be rebuilding without gifting a division title to an 82 game winner (although the Mets won the NL East one year with 83 wins in the 70s and of course the Twins won the WS in '87 on 85 wins so it can still happen) but not so big that some teams feel like the best they can ever hope for is a distant 3rd. 7 is probably too many as well, much as I enjoyed the AL divisions of my youth. 8 back in the day was "doable" only because roughly half the teams in any given year were no-hopers and many of those teams were perennially that way, especially in the AL.

I'd be somewhat amenable to a realignment, being a fan of the team with the worst travel schedule in all of baseball, but I'm not a huge fan of the "hey, let's break up the Cubs and Cardinals so that they can play the White Sox" stuff. I feel like any kind of realignment like this really needs to take traditional rivalries into account. The Yankees and Red Sox need to be together, as do the Cubs and Cards, Giants and Dodgers, Angels and their own butts because they have the face of a butt, and so on.

calvin12 · 04-12-2022, 04:37 PM

They, or any league, won't do it, but I'd prefer realignment based on North south rather than east west. A huge issue for baseball is no one on the east coast or central basically ever sees west coast teams since the games are all so late. It keeps stars out there from being as popular as they should be. It also allows the eastern teams have much easier travel as those teams tend to be located closer and the west coast teams have a much greater travel burden even for division games. Make everyone has the same travel by having 4 divisions, call then what you want but have the 8 most northern teams across the continent in a division. then the next north 8 and so on until you get to the 8 southern teams. The only exceptions wold be to make sure that there was full east west coverage. This balances travel and exposes west coast players to the eastern half of the country way more by increasing the games they play out east. Clearly I don't care about the player complaints of the difficulty of travel, they aren't taking trains anymore.

jumpSeat · 04-12-2022, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by calvin12

A huge issue for baseball is no one on the east coast or central basically ever sees west coast teams since the games are all so late.

Absolutely, and I'm all for balanced travel, but if you align east-west as you're suggesting, don't you think east coast fans will squawk about having so many more of their games starting at 10pm?

joefromchicago · 04-12-2022, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

And rivalries like Cubs and White Sox, Indians and Guardians, Royals and Cardinals will be enhanced because they will be playing 14 games against each other instead of four or six games per season. That is a win for the fans.

Well, no (although I like your idea of the Guardians and the Indians having a rivalry - a metaphysical one, no doubt

). As a Cubs fan, I've never really understood the idea that the Cubs and White Sox have a rivalry. Maybe that's a bigger deal for the Southsiders, but the White Sox will never take the place of the Cardinals as the Cubs' main foe (sorry Brewers, you too).

And the fans would definitely lose under that arrangement. Right now, I can pretty much see a major-league ball game almost any day of the week during the season - either the Cubs or the Sox are usually playing at home, but seldom are both clubs on the road at the same time. That would definitely change under an alignment that put the two teams in the same division.

And then, as a final note, the dream of an all-Chicago world series would be impossible. Nope, count me as a vote against.

Syd Thrift · 04-12-2022, 11:35 PM

An L Train series would be pretty cool, although it would also require the Cubs and White Sox to be good at the same time…

ThatSeventiesGuy · 04-13-2022, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tiger Fan

This is outstanding and makes perfect sense which, unfortunately, only serves to confirm MLB would never do it.

Agreed 100%. I always do the "four divisions of 8 teams each" thing when I expand the majors.

Shackdaddy · 04-13-2022, 02:10 AM

What are you talking about I have the Cardinals and the Cubs in the same division along with the Twins White Sox and Royals. You might want to take another look at my post.

Shackdaddy · 04-13-2022, 02:16 AM

The American and National League have not been separate entities since 1999. I’m sure you are aware of this. And now the MLB is going to have a schedule that is more like the NBA and the NHL where every team plays each other. This is an excellent opportunity to realign the two leagues. If you still want to call them that.

Incidentally thank you for all the things you’ve created to make oh OOTP baseball a much more enjoyable game.

04-12-2022, 04:05 AM	#1
Shackdaddy Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Mesa,AZ Posts: 86 Blog Entries: 3	MLB Geographical Realignment Next year will be the first time in the history of baseball that every team will play each other in the same season. That was part of the deal between the players and the owners. That means fans of one team can see every other team at least once every two years. Each team will play 14 games with each team in its division. 56 games. Six games with each team in the other two divisions in the league. 60 games. And 46 interleague games (Three games each with 14 teams in the other league and four games against one team in the other league). Given that, the terms American League and National League are no longer relevant. The next logical step to me is geographical realignment of the major leagues. Like the NBA and the NHL. Here is my proposed major league baseball league structure. There will be an eastern conference and Western Conference with three divisions in each conference each division consisting of five teams. Eastern Conference Northeast division: Red Sox, Mets, Yankees, Phillies and Pirates. Eastern Conference Southeast division: Orioles, Nationals, Braves, Rays and Marlins. Eastern Conference Mideast division: Blue Jays, Guardians, Reds, Tigers and Twins Western Conference Midwest division: Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals and Royals. Western Conference Southwest division: Astros, Rangers, Rockies, D backs and A’s (I am putting Oakland in this division because I predict within the next five years they will be moving to Las Vegas). Western Conference Pacific division: Padres, Angels, Dodgers, Giants and Mariners. This is a win-win. No existing rivalries will be lost like the Red Sox and the Yankees, Dodgers and Giants, Cardinals and Cubs. And rivalries like Cubs and White Sox, Reds and Guardians, Royals and Cardinals will be created because they will be playing 14 games against each other. And they will be in the same division. That is a win for the fans. It’s a win for baseball because it creates more interest that baseball desperately needs. It is in third place behind the NFL and the NBA and slipping. And it will reduce the cost of travel. Another idea: With the expanded wild card playoffs pushing the baseball season into November. Another change that could be considered just cutting back to schedule from 162 games to 154 games. Which could simply be done by cutting back the number of games with a divisional opponent from 14 to 12. And with that expand the divisional round of playoffs from from best of five to best of seven. The bottom line is that MLB’s league structure needs to be brought into the 21st-century. Any feedback will be appreciated. Last edited by Shackdaddy; 04-13-2022 at 06:02 AM.

04-12-2022, 09:23 AM	#3
ThatSeventiesGuy Hall Of Famer Join Date: Mar 2013 Location: Midland, MI Posts: 3,424	Huh, I didn’t even know Rob Manfred had an account on this site. Take the Cardinals and Cubs out of the same division, and have the audacity to say “no existing rivalries will be lost”? That’s the kind of pure genius only he could come up with! __________________ https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...00&postcount=1 Last edited by ThatSeventiesGuy; 04-12-2022 at 09:26 AM.

04-12-2022, 01:01 PM	#5
BBGiovanni All Star Starter Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Republic of California Posts: 1,850	Four team divisions are so small as to be useless in baseball and guarantee that (1) too many games happen against just three teams, boring fans and making it duller for players too and (2) yet more unqualified teams will get free passes because they won a "division". Just because the NFL does it isn't a good reason for baseball to do it, and that goes for plenty of other hot ideas the baseball cartel has had over the years. But anyway. At this point, now that there are no rules differences and (as with Houston and Milwaukee) they messed up the geographic distribution of what were separate baseball circuits, the best thing to do would be to put the whole league in a megadivision and actually play a balanced schedule so the best teams wouldn't be able to beat up on a couple of weak division teams and advance. But owners don't want to pay for the travel expenses (never mind that those would be a rounding error for the oligarchs) and players don't want to do all the crosscountry travel that would be required (again never mind that they used to play balanced schedules in the 70s). So, the best feasible way to "geographically realign" would be to reorganize into 4 8 team "leagues". That assumes they'll add two teams, which will correct the great error of going to 30 teams in the first place rather than waiting to do 32 when they could. The American League goes back to being the Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles (Browns), White Sox, Tigers, Cleveland, Twins (ex Senators) and now Toronto. History preserved, with a Canadian team added that's always been in the AL. The National League goes back to being the Cubs, Cards, Pirates, Phillies, Reds, Mets, and Brewers (on the theory that Milwaukee stays an NL town and preserves their recent rivalries with Chicago/STL). As will be clear from the below, an expansion team should go here. Let's say Montreal, which would give the NL a Canadian team too, be popular with fans, make sense, and correct the wrong done to the fans in that city. The NY/PHI/BOS corridor is so big as a media market there's plenty of room there too, I think a New Jersey team could work, or maybe one in CT or Providence or something, but the Mets/Yankees/Phils/Red Sox would never allow it. Sigh. Anyway, just by combining most of the NL Central and East back together you cut travel times and have more than a nod to history. Then, acknowledge that basically nobody east of the Mississippi cares what happens to teams west of it. I was amazed when I moved to NY how little most fans know/care about western teams and honestly the time difference is a major reason. Nobody stays up to 10 PM to watch a game from Seattle, and most news stories get written after the East Coast games so the media doesn't pay attention either. And, if you want geographic rivalries, you're more likely to get them with Seattle playing California teams regularly, the Giants/A's playing the Dodgers/Angels regularly, and so on. So, the Pacific League is: the Giants, Dodgers, Angels, A's, Mariners, Rockies, D-Backs, Padres.The Giants-Dodgers history stays, and regular play among the other teams might wake up the old rivalries that existed in the PCL. Again it corrects an old mistake, when they could have promoted the PCL in whole rather than just hosing Brooklyn and throwing the A's out where the entire rest of the AL had to travel for just one opponent. There's real cultural connection among the cities too, most families have someone in college in another town or once lived in another part of the region, a good excuse to take a short trip to see other ballparks. That leaves the "other" teams, and they fit pretty nicely into a Southern League. I don't think it takes much imagination to acknowledge that Southern culture is still a thing, and I think that would lead to real geographic rivalry pretty quickly, for teams that don't really have any regular rivals now. Let's start with Washington, who most fans in the other towns probably already hate every time they pay taxes. Next add Atlanta, who I think would quickly become the Yankees of this league that everyone loves to hate but respects because they just never go away. Houston and Texas go along, they basically have no rivals west of the Continental Divide now anyway. Tampa and Miami of course go along, assuming the league will somehow rehabilitate the franchises. Kansas City goes along because they're close enough to Texas, and don't really have any rivals anyway so does anyone really care if they play the Marlins instead of the White Sox regularly? And they're close enough to the other cities that the flights for road trips aren't too long. They need another team, so an expansion team can go in Carolina or Nashville (and/or Tampa can go to one of those). So, with a couple of new teams and some keystrokes, you awaken a lot of history which was always supposed to be vitally important to baseball. You acknowledge the cultural differences between far west, northeast/midwest (I was always amazed how people on the East coast still thought of Chicago and St. Louis as in the "west"), and south, and probably tap a lot of existing ties between the towns within the regions. At the same time the dreaded travel times/expenses are reduced to the point of irrelevance. The longest trips within these leagues are like KC-Miami or Seattle to Phoenix or Milwaukee to Montreal or Minneapolis to Boston. Those are all basically connecting flights from some now or past airline hub, and they're on charters anyway so it's 2 hours in the air at most. And obviously there are now tons of bus/train trips possible because there's no need to schedule idiotic weeks like NY to Miami to Denver and back to NY to host Phoenix and Milwaukee. It's also now a billion times easier to make up a rainout/brownout/whatever game without losing an off day within one of those great weeks travelling from Tampa to Boston and then stopping off to play one game in Chicago or whatever. After decades of fighting against math, having 32 teams in 8 team leagues now also makes "interleague" play simple to schedule, and gives all kinds of ways to do it. Each league could match up each year with a different league for those "interleague" games, home and home. Or just randomize it every year by team rather than by league, or mix and match with the 4 northern teams in the Pacific playing the 4 western teams in the Southern, or whatever. Or, if there's enough imagination available in the cartel meeting room, even ditch that concept entirely and create rotating tournaments during the season like they have in Eurosoccer, creating 4 or 8 tournaments around the country for new trophies or (gasp) dedicated to a charity, like the All-Star game and the preseason city series used to be. Instead of Jackie Robinson Day, have a Jackie Robinson Invitational at Citi Field each year (or move it around the NL cities). These could even be logically held overseas since all the teams would travel and play for some fixed period of time. Maybe tournament play happens every April as a kind of extended spring training, or August as a kind of break for teams to rest/heal before September. Playoffs are also easier to figure out, they could render the "regular season" a big long seeding round for the playoffs like they do in college sports, since "everyone" loves that, have September be a long tournament for the league championship. Pennant races could come back as deciding which 4 teams host the first playoff round, a big payday for the owners and a big advantage for the winners. Or have the top four teams in each league play off in logical fashion to decide which league team goes to the World Series tournament from each league. We've already had the Astros play NL teams in the WS so I don't know how much anyone would care, but it would be easy enough to put the new/old AL and NL on opposite sides of the bracket so most of the original league franchises would only meet in the World Series. Like a lot of this, these kinds of details are easier to think through when you have the basic alignment done soundly in the first place. Assuming civilization and cartel baseball continue to exist for the foreseeable future, a lot of local interest and new rivalries would be formed, regular season games will be less boring because one isn't seeing the same 3-4 opponents constantly, and all kinds of flexibility comes from putting the 32 teams in 4 8 team leagues that are really different from one another without flushing what's left of baseball's good history down the toilet to be like every other sport-because baseball is different and should be. __________________ Let's Go (San Jose) Giants, Let's Go Mets! Current Project: WBAT/AABBA: Organized Base Ball And the "New Normal" World Baseball Aid Tournament 2023 trophy round underway!

04-12-2022, 01:41 PM	#7
Leo_The_Lip All Star Starter Join Date: Nov 2009 Posts: 1,778	May as well draw teams out of a hat at the beginning of each season to randomly create divisions. As many fans will be happy/unhappy that way and no one will waste money on 'realignment consultants.' __________________ "My name will live forever" - Anonymous

04-12-2022, 02:22 PM	#10
low Hall Of Famer Join Date: May 2010 Location: Wisconsin, USA Posts: 5,914	Four 4-team divisions in each league would work if you shortened the season, which I would be in favor of. If MLB wanted to be worse, then they would be just like the NBA and NHL. I can't take any sport seriously when 50% or more teams make the "playoffs." But seriously, OP, no. And as a Brewers fan, I always want to be in the same division as the Cubs and Cardinals. __________________ My fictional team logos and uniforms Last edited by low; 04-12-2022 at 02:23 PM.

04-12-2022, 03:00 PM	#11
Clovidequano Dovatha Hall Of Famer Join Date: Feb 2018 Location: Somewhere in the United States of America on God's Earth Posts: 7,005	But then we can't have certain World Series rematches, if certain teams are not in certain leagues, low. I personally think the Brewers should have always stayed in the American League, and the Astros in the National League, and if I were the Commissioner, that's where I would have always kept them, if I could. The World Series from 1982 was a very good series, I think. We won, but I think a large part of what allowed us to win was the Brewers missing Rollie Fingers, in truth. That really hurt your team considerably, I think. Your Brewers were good, and they even came back against the Angels in that year's ALCS when they were a game away from being eliminated, actually. If Fingers had been available for the Series, your team probably would have won in six, I think, more or less. Not saying the players that played in his place weren't good, of course, but I believe at least one of them allowed us to score runs that Fingers and others might have kept from scoring, if not more than one of them. It probably didn't hurt that McGee did well in the Series, along with Porter and others, as well. In any case, the Series was hard-fought, for sure. And I think in some cases, we were fortunate to get important hits and all when we needed them, too. Your team had a good team for a number of years, it seems, but unfortunately, you guys couldn't get back to the Series afterwards. You still haven't been back to the Series since, in either league, as well. Talk more later, as time allows and all, then, I'm sure. CD out. __________________ Some Favorite Bible Verses: Proverbs 16:7 KJV Romans 12:18 KJV Philippians 2:1-11 KJV DeviantArt: https://www.deviantart.com/clovidequano-dovatha GBA: https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=316515 EC's IPA: https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=158631 Updates to my various threads may be delayed or sporadic, and requests may still be some time away, while I continue working on LUtD and G&K:THOS. CD out.

04-12-2022, 04:37 PM	#14
calvin12 Bat Boy Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 7	They, or any league, won't do it, but I'd prefer realignment based on North south rather than east west. A huge issue for baseball is no one on the east coast or central basically ever sees west coast teams since the games are all so late. It keeps stars out there from being as popular as they should be. It also allows the eastern teams have much easier travel as those teams tend to be located closer and the west coast teams have a much greater travel burden even for division games. Make everyone has the same travel by having 4 divisions, call then what you want but have the 8 most northern teams across the continent in a division. then the next north 8 and so on until you get to the 8 southern teams. The only exceptions wold be to make sure that there was full east west coverage. This balances travel and exposes west coast players to the eastern half of the country way more by increasing the games they play out east. Clearly I don't care about the player complaints of the difficulty of travel, they aren't taking trains anymore.

04-13-2022, 02:10 AM	#19
Shackdaddy Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Mesa,AZ Posts: 86 Blog Entries: 3	What are you talking about I have the Cardinals and the Cubs in the same division along with the Twins White Sox and Royals. You might want to take another look at my post.

04-13-2022, 02:16 AM	#20
Shackdaddy Minors (Single A) Join Date: Jul 2013 Location: Mesa,AZ Posts: 86 Blog Entries: 3	The American and National League have not been separate entities since 1999. I’m sure you are aware of this. And now the MLB is going to have a schedule that is more like the NBA and the NHL where every team plays each other. This is an excellent opportunity to realign the two leagues. If you still want to call them that. Incidentally thank you for all the things you’ve created to make oh OOTP baseball a much more enjoyable game.