MLB Geographical Realignment

[Shackdaddy]

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.

On second thought I agree with you. I will switch the Twins and Brewers. Even though geographically Milwaukee is Southeast of Minneapolis they are better rivals for the White Sox, Cubs and Cardinals than the Twins. I will change my original post to reflect that.

As far as the American League and National League goes they have not been separate entities since 1999.

They are both under Major League Baseball. There is no difference between the leagues as they are now playing under the same rules.

What the schedule will be starting in 2023 is more like the NBA and the NHL in that all teams will be playing every other team in the major leagues in the same season for the first time in MLB history.

That dictates that the league structure match. East and west. Not AL and NL.

I am quite certain you will get used to seeing two New York’s in the standings along with two Chicago’s and two Los Angeles.

[Shackdaddy]

[QUOTE=cephasjames;4881615]Says who? This must first be proven before anything else in your post could even be considered.[/

Says MLB players and owners, that’s who.

1. The American League and National League have not been separate entities since 1999. It is all MLB. Just like the NFL, NBA and NHL.

2. Starting in 2023 the number of inter-league games per team are increasing from 20 to 46. Every team will be playing every other team in the major leagues in the same season for the first time in MLB history. That means that except for Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and the Bay Area which have two teams, fans in all major league cities will have a chance to see every team in person at least once every other year.

This is not my idea. This is part of the recent agreement made between the owners and the players. If you don’t believe me just Google it.

There has been so much debate and focus on the rule changes that this major change is hardly talked about at all. Which is why I am bringing it up here. I have ideas for additional rule changes, but I will save them for another time.

3. The league schedule will be more like the NBA and the NHL. There will be 42 three game series, 8 four game series and 2 two game series for each team. For each team there will be 14 games against each team in their own division. Six games against each team in the other two divisions in their league. Three games against 14 teams in the other league and 4 games against one team in the other league. (2 home, 2 away)

4. Both leagues will be playing under the same rules.

5. Those rules are enforced by umpires who are MLB umpires. In the old days they used to be American league umpires and National League umpires. Now umpires work games in both leagues throughout the regular season. And that has been true for at least the last 20 years. I can’t remember what year it started specifically.

My proposed realignment in my opinion is the next logical step.

So there is your proof. What more proof do you require.

Now may I have the honor of your consideration of what was in my original post? Plus what I added in this post.

I have followed baseball for over 60 years, and it is still my favorite sport. But the fact of the matter is that it is a distant number three behind the NFL and the NBA. Especially with young people. Baseball needs to be yanked into the 21st-century.

By the way I do want to thank you for all the add-ons you have created for OOTP baseball over the years. I have used a lot of your stuff especially in my fictional leagues.

[Shackdaddy]

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!

I’m sorry I did not use the Cardinals and Cubs as examples of existing rivalries. I will change my original post to reflect that. Just so you know that I have covered every contingency.

If you look at my league structure you’ll see that the Cardinals and Cubs are in the same division. And that was in my original post if you had bothered to look. I am sorry you got so bent out of shape.

I didn’t have any idea that my opinions would freak so many people out that they wouldn’t even read the post completely to understand what I was saying.

So as I said no existing rivalries will be disrupted.

And a lot of new rivalries will be created.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

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.



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

What scheduling nightmares? You don’t have to make up the schedule, and neither do I. There are programmers with computers who can work all that out.

Obviously with 32 teams the schedule would be easier to make out. And when baseball does expand to 32 teams I’m sure I will have an idea on how to set up that situation.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

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.

If you look at my proposed divisional alignment the Cardinals and Cubs are in the same division. I just did not use them as an example of an established rivalry. I can’t tell you how guilty now that makes me feel. I have changed my original post to include the Cardinals and Cubs as an established rivalry.

The bottom line is my realignment takes all the established rivalries into account. And create a bunch of new ones. Show me one instance where it doesn’t. And look at the league structure when you do that.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

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.

You are right. I made a mistake about the Guardians and the Indians. I just haven’t gotten used to it yet. But I did fix my original post regarding that. I changed Indians to Reds.

This may come as a surprise to you but the vast majority of baseball fans do not live in Chicago. There are 22 cities in the major leagues that only have one team. And once Oakland moves to Las Vegas within the next five years there will be 24.

How do you know that a schedule cannot be created that would have the White Sox and the Cubs not in Chicago at the same time except when they played each other. And even if it couldn’t, I don’t see what the big deal is.

The Cubs and White Sox are not rivals because they do not play in the same division. Or even in the same league. My plan would put them in the same division which would create a brand new rivalry.

[pilight]

The NBA and NHL have made winning a division irrelevant. Geographic realignment is a step towards expanding the playoffs to an NBA style tournament with 16 teams included each year.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by pilight

The NBA and NHL have made winning a division irrelevant. Geographic realignment is a step towards expanding the playoffs to an NBA style tournament with 16 teams included each year.

I think people are way overstating the case for realignment here but this is just dumb “new things bad” thinking thrown in with the slipperiest of slippery slopes. Like, it’s just a stupid argument, and comparisons to other leagues do not make it smart.

I will point out here that the current NBA system where only roughly half the teams make the playoffs is actually, historically speaking, a very low number for them. After the ABA merger they had the same 16 team playoff (does the play in count as playoffs? I say no, since if a 9 or 10 seed gets in they do so at the expense of a 7 or 8) with… 22 teams, 23 after adding the Mavericks in 1980. Throughout the 50s and 60s they ran 8 or 9 team leagues with 6 of them playing in the postseason. This in short is always how the NBA has done business and if anything the move to only half the teams making the playoffs in the 90s is the new thing they’re trying out.

The sky will not fall down if baseball moves divisions around. Creating divisions in the first place didn’t kill the leagues; in fact, it kind of did the opposite because nobody cares if you were 4th in a 10 team league but in a 6 team division you might be able to contend for a title. I think that even the boomers here are mostly young enough to accept that yes, league championship series were a good add. Personally I’m down with the divisional round as well, especially since it allows the leagues to use a wild card instead of splitting into tiny divisions. If they split it out to like 12 teams and a 3rd round, meh. I’ll live. There’s just no evidence that the league wants to move beyond that, unless they expand more and more playoffs begin to make more sense.

[joefromchicago]

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

This may come as a surprise to you but the vast majority of baseball fans do not live in Chicago.

I know. Shocking but true.

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

There are 22 cities in the major leagues that only have one team. And once Oakland moves to Las Vegas within the next five years there will be 24.

Yes, but you're proposing a realignment that affects Chicago and the other cities that have two teams, and part of your rationale is that it increases or create rivalries. What I'm saying is that the Cubs and White Sox aren't necessarily rivals. While putting them in the same division would, no doubt, create a rivalry (putting Cincinnati in the same division as the Cubs has done much the same thing), is that worth everything else that would be lost as a result of your realignment? My guess is that it wouldn't.

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

How do you know that a schedule cannot be created that would have the White Sox and the Cubs not in Chicago at the same time except when they played each other. And even if it couldn’t, I don’t see what the big deal is.

A schedule couldn't be easily created because, if the Cubs and White Sox are in the same division, they'd be playing a similar roster of opponents. If the Dodgers, for instance, are in town to play the Cubs, they'll want to play the Sox next (and vice versa). You wouldn't want the Dodgers to play the Cubs, then go someplace else, and then come back and play the White Sox. Indeed, as you mentioned in your original post, one of the advantages of realignment is that "it will reduce the cost of travel." So what would happen is that team A will play the Cubs and then the Sox, while at the same time team B will play the Sox and then play the Cubs. So both teams will be in the city at the same time and will, necessarily, also be on the road at the same time.

And why is that a big deal? Well, as you cogently pointed out, not every baseball fan lives in Chicago. But Chicago fans live in Chicago and the surrounding region. And one of the advantages of living in the Chicagoland region is that we get to see one or the other team practically whenever we want. I'm genuinely sorry if you're deprived of that experience, but don't think it's not a big deal for those of us who aren't similarly deprived.

[Syd Thrift]

Yeah, that's a good point. One thing I like about Chicago baseball is that a. it's usually set up so that the Sox are in town while the Cubs are away and vice versa and b. even when it's not, if you're in the mood to see a game you know you're going to get a wide variety of teams, not just the club that just played in Wrigley the night before. In fact, if your thing is "cutting down on travel costs" (which, why is this a factor in 2022?), then you'd have to specifically change the Cubs and White Sox and also the Dodgers/Angels and Giants/A's and Yankees/Mets schedules to make the teams more boring to follow in those metro areas. And frankly, those are 4 of the largest markets in the country; why are we making life harder for the largest fanbases in the game?

[calvin12]

Originally Posted by jumpSeat

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?

Sure they will, but they have that same issue now, and the complaints of the west coast complaining about road games started before people are home from work. The teams already make coast to coast trips. The only real difference is that instead of an east teams on a west coast trip playing the NL/AL west division, moving NS down the coast, they would play the same teams on the trip but they would be in different divisions.

[calvin12]

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

You are right. I made a mistake about the Guardians and the Indians. I just haven’t gotten used to it yet. But I did fix my original post regarding that. I changed Indians to Reds.

This may come as a surprise to you but the vast majority of baseball fans do not live in Chicago. There are 22 cities in the major leagues that only have one team. And once Oakland moves to Las Vegas within the next five years there will be 24.

How do you know that a schedule cannot be created that would have the White Sox and the Cubs not in Chicago at the same time except when they played each other. And even if it couldn’t, I don’t see what the big deal is.

The Cubs and White Sox are not rivals because they do not play in the same division. Or even in the same league. My plan would put them in the same division which would create a brand new rivalry.

As a lifelong cubs fan. Even if the cubs played the sox every day they still wouldn't be a rival. Just a loser teams that no one bothers to care about.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by calvin12

As a lifelong cubs fan. Even if the cubs played the sox every day they still wouldn't be a rival. Just a loser teams that no one bothers to care about.

The difference is I look at the big picture for major league baseball not just my local market. It seems that all you care about is Cubs baseball. If the Cubs and the White Sox do end up in the same division I’m sure your life will go on as you know it.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah, that's a good point. One thing I like about Chicago baseball is that a. it's usually set up so that the Sox are in town while the Cubs are away and vice versa and b. even when it's not, if you're in the mood to see a game you know you're going to get a wide variety of teams, not just the club that just played in Wrigley the night before. In fact, if your thing is "cutting down on travel costs" (which, why is this a factor in 2022?), then you'd have to specifically change the Cubs and White Sox and also the Dodgers/Angels and Giants/A's and Yankees/Mets schedules to make the teams more boring to follow in those metro areas. And frankly, those are 4 of the largest markets in the country; why are we making life harder for the largest fanbases in the game?

Why does it make life harder? Is your best argument is that I don’t want to see the same team play in my two team market six games in a row. That is about the weakest argument I have ever heard of. They are playing two different teams. With different strengths and weaknesses. How many people are diehard fans of both the Cubs and the White Sox? Judging by one reply in this very thread, not very many. I think the schedule could be created that would eliminate that very minor concern.

I will say it again, 2023 will be the first year that all major league teams will play each other in the same season. You will have a greater variety of teams over the entire season than used to be the case. That is a fact not an opinion.

Regarding the Giants in the A’s they fall out of your argument within five years because the A’s will be moving to Las Vegas. There will only be three.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by calvin12

As a lifelong cubs fan. Even if the cubs played the sox every day they still wouldn't be a rival. Just a loser teams that no one bothers to care about.

Looking at it from the outside they are both loser teams. Combined they have won a total of two World Series in the last 104 years. 2005 and 2016.

The fact that you said the White Sox are a loser team shows that you don’t like the White Sox therefore they can be a rival. If they played in the same division. Which is going to happen maybe as soon as next year whether you or I like it or not. We have no say in the decision.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

The difference is I look at the big picture for major league baseball not just my local market. It seems that all you care about is Cubs baseball. If the Cubs and the White Sox do end up in the same division I’m sure your life will go on as you know it.

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.

[Shackdaddy]

Originally Posted by joefromchicago

I know. Shocking but true.


Yes, but you're proposing a realignment that affects Chicago and the other cities that have two teams, and part of your rationale is that it increases or create rivalries. What I'm saying is that the Cubs and White Sox aren't necessarily rivals. While putting them in the same division would, no doubt, create a rivalry (putting Cincinnati in the same division as the Cubs has done much the same thing), is that worth everything else that would be lost as a result of your realignment? My guess is that it wouldn't.


A schedule couldn't be easily created because, if the Cubs and White Sox are in the same division, they'd be playing a similar roster of opponents. If the Dodgers, for instance, are in town to play the Cubs, they'll want to play the Sox next (and vice versa). You wouldn't want the Dodgers to play the Cubs, then go someplace else, and then come back and play the White Sox. Indeed, as you mentioned in your original post, one of the advantages of realignment is that "it will reduce the cost of travel." So what would happen is that team A will play the Cubs and then the Sox, while at the same time team B will play the Sox and then play the Cubs. So both teams will be in the city at the same time and will, necessarily, also be on the road at the same time.

And why is that a big deal? Well, as you cogently pointed out, not every baseball fan lives in Chicago. But Chicago fans live in Chicago and the surrounding region. And one of the advantages of living in the Chicagoland region is that we get to see one or the other team practically whenever we want. I'm genuinely sorry if you're deprived of that experience, but don't think it's not a big deal for those of us who aren't similarly deprived.

I am genuinely sorry for you because you have blinders on to everything baseball outside of Chicago. You cannot or refuse see the big picture. And that is sad.

And you say it is hard to create a schedule. Are you creating a schedule? Am I? No. There are people who are paid to do that and they have a brand-new invention to help them do it. You may have heard of it. It is called a computer.

I wish they would offer me the job I would love to take a crack at it.

Besides that I am 67 years old and on a fixed income. So I could use the extra money.

[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.

[Clovidequano Dovatha]

Brewers fit better in the AL, not the NL, in my view. Astros do the same in the NL, as well. They started there, and that's where they should have always been kept, for sure. At least if we were to have between 24 and 32 teams in the overall MLB setup, anyway.

I'd rather have the Giants and Dodgers back in New York, but that's not likely going to ever happen again. Same thing with the Braves in Boston, or the Twins and/or Rangers back in Washington as the Senators, and the Nationals back in Montreal as the Expos, where they each belong.

I generally hold to a considerably more traditional view on where the teams should be placed, at least for the most part, if not entirely. I would be more in favor of having there actually be four major leagues connected to each other, as part of the MLB framework, with those being the National League, the American League, the Federal League, and the Continental League, in truth.

The 16 Classic Teams would each be in the leagues that were around prior to the expansion era of MLB history that they were each in, meaning the National League and the American League, respectively. While the Federal League would consist of eight teams primarily, if not entirely, east of the Mississippi River, and the Continental League would consist of eight teams primarily, if not entirely, west of it.

If MLB had 32 teams present for it, I'd favor this sort of configuration for it, or something like it, probably, although it's not likely to happen, if ever, of course.

Major League Baseball:

National League:

Boston Braves
Brooklyn Dodgers
Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
New York Giants (New York City [Manhattan])
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
St. Louis Cardinals

American League:

Boston Red Sox
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
New York Yankees (New York City [Bronx])
Philadelphia Athletics
St. Louis Browns
Washington Senators

Federal League:

Chicago Whales
Florida Marlins (Miami)
Milwaukee Brewers
Montreal Expos
New Jersey Generals (Newark?)
New York Metropolitans (Mets)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Toronto Blue Jays

Continental League:

Arizona Diamondbacks (Phoenix)
California Angels (Anaheim)
Colorado Rockies (Denver)
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
San Diego Padres
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers

Of course, many of you may disagree here, with the above, in regards to alignments and all, or with certain team names in question listed above, but that's just fine with me, in truth. But these are just some thoughts I have about things as they currently stand or may soon stand for MLB. And I don't think Las Vegas will get the Athletics either, in the next five years, for that matter, even if they did manage to get the Raiders away from Oakland in reality.

Thank you for your time and attention and all here, then, everyone. That's all for this post here, I think, at the very least. CD out.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Shackdaddy

...

You know, you started this thread off okay. But then you just went off the deep end and kept going and going.

Your idea of putting teams from the same city in the same division isn't crazy (other leagues do it) and Joefromchicago made an especially interesting point which I had never considered before, but it seems like somewhere along the line you took offense to the criticism and just couldn't deal with it. It's okay, not everyone loves it. Maybe more people will like your next idea more. I'd bet that most ideas, by anyone, get shot down. That doesn't necessarily mean they don't have some merit or that all your ideas will always be shot down. Take a breath.