How would you like to see MLB realign when they reach 32 teams?

[KevFu]

If the NHL had developed as two separate but equal leagues, I would prefer an AL/NL style alignment there as well.

That was my point on "That's how they've always done it." I've long argued that the AL/NL model was a very happy accident that makes things BETTER that the leagues who didn't have two rival leagues shake hands 120 years ago.

Spinning off into some existential alignment horror, "what if the NHL was the Campbell League and Wales League":

Campbell East: PHI, PIT, BUF, BOS, NYR, TB, DET, CLB
Campbell West: SEA, EDM, WPG, MIN, ARZ, LA, SJ, STL
Wales East: MTL, TOR, OTT, NYI, NJ, FLA, WAS, CAR
Wales West: ANA, LV, VAN, CGY, DAL, NSH, COL, CHI

See, I think that if the NHL went to that kind of "zipper" format, instead of dividing teams up from right now in 2023, the best way to find the "right" groups (not that there is one right answer), would be to ask...

"If they HAD adopted the MLB alignment model back in the day...." and go through the timeline. Start with the "Original Six"and "Expansion Six" they put in opposite divisions in 1967, because the O6 wanted it that way. From there anytime someone is added to the league, they go in the "opposite" group, like baseball did.

If you start with with:
O6: BOS, MON, NYR, TOR, DET, CHI
E6: PHI, PIT, STL, MIN/DAL, LA, OAK/SJ

Most expansion teams are are obvious additions to one conference or the other. But it can get messy with relocations and the stretches of time where "If they swapped these two, it would be better for the next eight years or so."

But ultimately, I think O6/E6 conferences would end up pretty close to:

O6 - BOS, MON, TOR, TB | NYR, NJD, CBJ, DET || CHI, WIN, NSH, ARZ | ANA, CAL, SJS, SEA
E6 - CAR, OTT, BUF, FLA | NYI, PHI, PIT, WAS || STL, MIN, DAL, COL | LAK, EDM, VGK, VAN

Of course, the key to getting people on board with a zipper format is the schedule matrix. The goal of this is to play 2/3 of the league a lot, and 1/3 of the league a lot less often.

Baseball had the excuse of separate leagues, but hockey has never had a stigma on interleague play. So if you set the matrix right, it could work:

8 divisions of 4
- 4 vs division (12)
- 4 vs league (48)
- 4 vs rival division (16)
- 1 vs half the remaining teams (6)

 

[PCSPounder]

Outside of “the way I want it” realm…

…the zipper may be a happy accident, but many owners and some fans are starting to attend The Church Of What’s Happening Now. (TM)

And this particular sect of the church is populated by Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Dodgers (aka everyone out west). And Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Yankees (which could be everyone, but especially people in the ETZ). I’m not sure Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Cubs is that big, but pretty close. I don’t know if there’s enough impetus for radical realignment, but it is primarily coming from the owners.

So don’t be surprised.

 

[KevFu]

Outside of “the way I want it” realm…

…the zipper may be a happy accident, but many owners and some fans are starting to attend The Church Of What’s Happening Now. (TM)

And this particular sect of the church is populated by Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Dodgers (aka everyone out west). And Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Yankees (which could be everyone, but especially people in the ETZ). I’m not sure Everyone Who Wants Divisional Games Against The Cubs is that big, but pretty close. I don’t know if there’s enough impetus for radical realignment, but it is primarily coming from the owners.

So don’t be surprised.

I won't be surprised, I've been ranting and raving about the impeding screw up for like eight years, because I fear Manfred's destructive plan.

I think it's coming from owners who look at the NBA as more popular and are just thinking "what can we do to be more like them?" And since they can't introduce the slam dunk to baseball, dividing into Eastern and Western Conferences is something they CAN do. As well as "playing everyone in the league."

I don't think Manfred and the owners get it. "The owners want it" isn't an acceptable answer to me. WHY do they want it? (obviously "more money"). Ok, show me how it makes more money than before. Show me how it's the option that makes the most money. I have some seemingly wild opinions, and I can show my work!

Everything that's been stated about the reasons for radical geographic alignment (by reporters doing "this could be MLB's plan" stories) are totally full of crap.

And all the possible goals of radical realignment can be achieved -- in a lot of cases better -- with alternate that are better than radical realignment.

For one, the whole Yankees/Dodgers thing. AL and NL being separate are totally better for that than radical realignment. Every team in MLB sees either the Yankees or Dodgers every season. Each league has a New York team, an LA team, a Chicago team.... what's the problem?

"Teams want the Yankees to visit more" But that's not going to increase the visits by the Yankees to a majority of teams. 13 AL teams will get less (the AL Central and AL West, the three teams no longer in the Yankees division if they do 8 divisions of four). Three NL East teams and Boston will stay the same.

That's 17 the same or worse, and only 12 teams getting more. And that includes the ultra rich Mets and Dodgers, who don't really NEED it.

So again, how is this a good thing? Radical change alienates people just because they don't like change. If you're going to radically change something, it has to be so demonstratively better that people accept it.

And radical geographic realignment for baseball and playing everyone in the league once a season is demonstrably worse.

 

[KevFu]

The biggest lie is that geographic realignment saves travel. It doesn't. Because they're adding in "playing every team at least one series per season, either home or road."

So your road schedule goes from: 1 road series vs half the league (determined by AL/NL) to 1 road series vs half the league (determined by something else). It's the same thing.

You're removing a team from your division that's the furthest away from you (like, NYY losing TB), but you're adding in two more teams to the league. The only real travel saved is that "Nashville is closer than Tampa" which happens if you realign radically or keep AL/NL.


Also the distances between cities in divisions doesn't matter, because it's the order of the games that determine how many miles you travel: A Blue Jays road trip to TB-BAL-BOS is less miles than going BAL-BOS-TB. BAL-BOS doubles back, so it's more miles.


The only real way to DEFINITELY reduce travel is to play less series. Which you can easily do: All four-game series means 40 series instead of 54. Less flights, less miles.

But if you only have 40 series instead of 54, then playing 31 other teams is hard, because there's only 9 series left to do division play, and teams are playing too much out of time zone.

 

[ponder719]

The biggest lie is that geographic realignment saves travel. It doesn't. Because they're adding in "playing every team at least one series per season, either home or road."

So your road schedule goes from: 1 road series vs half the league (determined by AL/NL) to 1 road series vs half the league (determined by something else). It's the same thing.

You're removing a team from your division that's the furthest away from you (like, NYY losing TB), but you're adding in two more teams to the league. The only real travel saved is that "Nashville is closer than Tampa" which happens if you realign radically or keep AL/NL.


Also the distances between cities in divisions doesn't matter, because it's the order of the games that determine how many miles you travel: A Blue Jays road trip to TB-BAL-BOS is less miles than going BAL-BOS-TB. BAL-BOS doubles back, so it's more miles.


The only real way to DEFINITELY reduce travel is to play less series. Which you can easily do: All four-game series means 40 series instead of 54. Less flights, less miles.

But if you only have 40 series instead of 54, then playing 31 other teams is hard, because there's only 9 series left to do division play, and teams are playing too much out of time zone.

Yeah, the only "easy" way I could come up with off the top of my head to cut travel, still prioritize seeing every team at least once, and increase density of divisional games was an 8 division model:

3*24 (1 3-game series per year against every team in your opposite league, and 1 3-gamer per year against two divisions in your own league)
6*4 (2 3-game series per year against the 4 teams in another division)
15*4 + 2*3 (17 series against the 3 teams in your division: 5 4-gamers against 1 team, and 5 4-gamers plus a 3-gamer against the other two.)

This probably gets shot down because it involves an imbalanced schedule against your own division, and it only cuts down to 49 series. (That said, the 3*24 and 6*4 leaves 66 games to divide, which can be 22 games against each team in your division, 5 4-gamers and a 2-gamer each, which takes you to 50 series... but if you're willing to append that 2-gamer to make it a six-game marathon series, you drop to 47.)

Ultimately, the league's going to get what it wants; the only question is, once they get it, will they find they didn't actually want it after all?

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

I hope MLB realizes that having every team play all the others every season is not a good idea and that they go back on this in the future. It also goes with me wanting interleague play reserved for certain days of the season once again with the expansion to 32 teams, because the leagues, of which there would now be 4 under my proposal, would all once again have an even number of teams. Because the AL and NL currently both have an odd number of teams (15), interleague play is required all season long and to me that takes a lot of the magic out of it.

 

[KevFu]

Yeah, the only "easy" way I could come up with off the top of my head to cut travel, still prioritize seeing every team at least once, and increase density of divisional games was an 8 division model:

3*24 (1 3-game series per year against every team in your opposite league, and 1 3-gamer per year against two divisions in your own league)
6*4 (2 3-game series per year against the 4 teams in another division)
15*4 + 2*3 (17 series against the 3 teams in your division: 5 4-gamers against 1 team, and 5 4-gamers plus a 3-gamer against the other two.)

This probably gets shot down because it involves an imbalanced schedule against your own division, and it only cuts down to 49 series. (That said, the 3*24 and 6*4 leaves 66 games to divide, which can be 22 games against each team in your division, 5 4-gamers and a 2-gamer each, which takes you to 50 series... but if you're willing to append that 2-gamer to make it a six-game marathon series, you drop to 47.)

Ultimately, the league's going to get what it wants; the only question is, once they get it, will they find they didn't actually want it after all?

The proposal put forth in 2017, which was reporting based on talking with Manfred and owners (very off the record) was:

- Four divisions of eight by radical geography (bad)
- 12 games (four series, 2 home, 2 road) vs each division opponent (84 games)
- 3 games (24 series, 12 home, 12 road) vs the other 24 teams outside your division (72 games) for 156 total.

Their reasoning is that Radical Realignment
- makes travel better (it doesn't; Half the league home/away alternating years is no different than half the league, AL/NL only every year, because the league is a zipper format. Going to Anaheim every year vs alternating between Anaheim and LA is still a trip to the same airport every year).

- increases regional rivalries. It really doesn't do that either. It makes the local rivals ordinary instead of special. When Houston and Texas were interleague rivals, it didn't matter to attendance if Houston was losing 100 games a year. It was the battle of Texas, the only time the two fan bases could talk trash over head-to-hear results. Now the standings do that all year. The results of a SERIES don't matter in the trash talk, because the team that lost 2 of 3 will just say "Yeah, but we're 2nd and you're 5th."

Furthermore, the whole "but now there's 12 games between Yankees/Mets, Cubs/White Sox, etc. Sure, but the Yankees played 19 vs Boston and 4 or 6 vs the Mets (23 or 25). Now they have 12/12 (24).

The Cubs have 36 vs CWS/MIL/STL... they had 42 or 44 before!


That plan, which sounds very much like it could be what MLB wants to do -- since they've slowly been evolving toward it! -- led me to dissecting the flaws with it, trying to find a better solve to what the teams and owners actually want, and led me to the 4-league plan of Western, Southern, American, National. Although, I suppose instead of treating Southern like the West, we COULD treat it American, National, and Other in the same way...

 

[KevFu]

It makes sense to have the West be together for TV start times and start a fourth league while keeping AL/NL. I picked "Southern" because HOU, TEX are leaving the AL West, and NASH as expansion.

But let's try a "three-way" zipper format that has regional balance and similar market sizes/strengths for the 24 teams not West.

You want the leagues to have a balance of market sizes and geographic representation, but you don't want to jumble AL/NL. It needs to be teams joining new league, and AL/NL needs to remain teams who've been historical AL/NL team.

I can show my logic/work if asked. but I came up with this:

AL: BOS, NYY, BAL, TB, CLE, DET, CWS, MIN, TB
NL: PHI, PIT, CIN, CHC, STL, HOU, ATL, MON
CL: NYM, WAS, TOR, KC, MIL, TEX, MIA, NASH

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

My versions of the 8-team AL and NL have teams in the same markets that those leagues had teams in during the 1957 season (the last MLB was confined to the Midwest and Northeast), with the exception of Miami replacing Brooklyn in the NL as Brooklyn is technically a part of NYC and thus can't have its own team because of current MLB rules. This leaves the CL to include the 8 remaining ET/CT markets that first had MLB after 1957, five of them in markets that were in the proposed mid-20th century version of the CL.

I chose 1957 as the cutoff point because MLB began to fundamentally change after that with the NYC teams in the NL moving to California. I consider 1958 the start of MLB's modern era, since it marked the earliest efforts to bring MLB to cities that weren't in the Northeast or Midwest US, with teams being placed in the South and Canada by the start of the 1970s. TV coverage of MLB also dramatically increased after it gained a West Coast presence.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Meanwhile 1871-1900 constitutes the early era of MLB, and 1901-57 the classic era.

 

[rojac]

It makes sense to have the West be together for TV start times and start a fourth league while keeping AL/NL. I picked "Southern" because HOU, TEX are leaving the AL West, and NASH as expansion.

But let's try a "three-way" zipper format that has regional balance and similar market sizes/strengths for the 24 teams not West.

You want the leagues to have a balance of market sizes and geographic representation, but you don't want to jumble AL/NL. It needs to be teams joining new league, and AL/NL needs to remain teams who've been historical AL/NL team.

I can show my logic/work if asked. but I came up with this:

AL: BOS, NYY, BAL, TB, CLE, DET, CWS, MIN, TB
NL: PHI, PIT, CIN, CHC, STL, HOU, ATL, MON
CL: NYM, WAS, TOR, KC, MIL, TEX, MIA, NASH

So, TB who has been in the AL for 25 years stays in the AL while TOR who has been in the AL for 46 years gets shuffled off to the garbage CL. TOR loses all their rivals (BOS, NYY, and to a lesser extent DET — from the old 2 division AL days). As a Jays fans, I have almost no interest in the other CL teams - it feels like a demotion. It feels like the garbage Smythe division that the Leafs were stuck in for so long. I can see a lot of Jays fans disliking. Also, under your nonsense plan, how often do teams visit the teams in the other leagues? Having seen some of your thoughts n scheduling, it’s probably something like every other year Fans in western Canada will definitely be annoyed if the Jays don’t visit Seattle every year. That series is almost a home series for the Jays. And to a lesser extent, that’s true for Minnesota and Detroit too. So, you’ve not only robbed the Jays of their rivals but you’ve reduced their visits to cities near the Canadian border. Jays fans would absolutely hate this.

And while I’m a Jays fan these days, I grew up as a Montreal Expos fan and I have to admit, I see very little appeal to your joke of a NL either. To be honest, one of the things I liked about the possibility of the Rays moving to Montreal was that it would have put Montreal in the same division as Toronto and Boston.

And people think Gary Bettman hates Canada.

Personally, swapping MON and NSH would make more sense to me and would make the CL a tiny bit more appealing to Jays fans. And don’t give me this traditional NL nonsense. A Montreal expansion team is not the Expos — it’s a new team with no allegiance to either league. And as an old Expos fan, the CL just seems more interesting. You have an old NL East foe, the former Expos, Toronto, a team to hate in Miami (due to the Lorna connection) and 3 boring teams. As a potential fan of a new Montreal team (as long as they don’t call themselves the Expos), I could probably live with that. As a Jays fan, I’d still hate it.

 

[rojac]

I want to see different teams. I want to see my team play different places. I’m looking forward to the new MLB scheduling.

I also definitely prefer 8 team divisions or leagues over smaller ones.

I also disagree on the local rivalries thing. I’d find it more meaningful to battle a rival in the standings than to meet them in an interleague series once a year. The standings feel real - a once a year thing feels like almst any other series.

 

[KevFu]

So, TB who has been in the AL for 25 years stays in the AL while TOR who has been in the AL for 46 years gets shuffled off to the garbage CL. TOR loses all their rivals (BOS, NYY, and to a lesser extent DET — from the old 2 division AL days). As a Jays fans, I have almost no interest in the other CL teams - it feels like a demotion.

That's fair. I mean, you're probably not going to make everyone happy. My main goal with that was just to equalized market sizes, so I took the "youngest" Northern teams to form the new league. (Both AL/NL have five franchises each who haven't switched cities in over 120+ years in their leagues. So I started with them and built the new one out of the teams that were in the same footprint as those 10; then added the remaining ones in to try and give balanced regional representation and market sizes).

But I think your "rivals" comment kind of illustrates my point about AL/NL being better than geography...

You mention BOS, NYY, DET as Toronto's rivals. BAL, NYM, PHI, PIT, CIN and MIL are closer to TOR than BOS is. And CWS, CHC are about the same (15 more miles). You're rivals with BOS, NYY and you mentioned Detroit, because you played in the division with them for decades, not the map (Same with the Mets/Braves).

It's impossible to make everything better for everyone, so you have to maximize the benefit for the most number of teams, and have the teams who feel screwed over be the teams who can financially sustain it. Toronto is a unique case because the Jays TV market is all of Canada. The economic disparity of the AL East vs AL Central is enormous.

Personally, swapping MON and NSH would make more sense to me and would make the CL a tiny bit more appealing to Jays fans. And don’t give me this traditional NL nonsense. A Montreal expansion team is not the Expos — it’s a new team with no allegiance to either league. And as an old Expos fan, the CL just seems more interesting. You have an old NL East foe, the former Expos, Toronto, a team to hate in Miami (due to the Lorna connection) and 3 boring teams. As a potential fan of a new Montreal team (as long as they don’t call themselves the Expos), I could probably live with that. As a Jays fan, I’d still hate it.

I separated like a zipper format three-ways instead of two. You wouldn't want to swap MON and NASH because then someone's losing Southern representation and doubling up in the North. You'd swap MON with either TOR/MIN or NASH with either TEX/HOU.

But your feedback makes the Southern League make the most sense (still).

Because the historical rivalries simply aren't there:
Texas - stuck in AL West forever and glad to get out of the SEA-OAK-LAA division
Houston - was NL West from 1969-1993, NL Central from 1994-2012, AL west since and also happy to leave it.
Nashville - expansion, no history
Miami - NL East from 1993-present.
Tampa - AL East from 1998-present.
Washington - NL East from 2005-present.
Kansas City - NL Central from 1994-present

 

[jkrdevil]

Along traditional AL/NL lines. Two divisions each league (East and West). Division winners get byes to the LDS and 2nd and 3rd place teams to the wild card round.

Would bring back traditional pennant races.

 

[rojac]

Along traditional AL/NL lines. Two divisions each league (East and West). Division winners get byes to the LDS and 2nd and 3rd place teams to the wild card round.P.

Would bring back traditional pennant races.

I think I’d still prefer 4 wild cards instead of 2nd & 3rd from each division. It just feels like it wouldn’t be uncommon for a 4th place in one division to be better than 3rd in the other.

 

[jkrdevil]

I think I’d still prefer 4 wild cards instead of 2nd & 3rd from each division. It just feels like it wouldn’t be uncommon for a 4th place in one division to be better than 3rd in the other.

I could concede on that issue. However, I like each position on the ladder of the standings having some meaning and reward. I would move to a more division heavy schedule than balanced scheduled to 4th place in one division having a better record than 3rd place in the other would have less meaning because of the schedule disparity. The WC round would be cross division to avoid matchups with teams that were just in a playoff race with each other and would avoid teams that finish first and second in the same division from meeting until the LCS.

Having it be division based is more in baseball's tradition and if you are 4th in your division, you don't have much to cry about.

I would also move to even game series for the WC (2 games) and LDS (4 or 6 games) as more of a reward for 1st and 2nd place finishers. Basically the higher seed in each series gets an automatic win that would allow them to advance if the series ends in a tie. Makes it where a third place team basically has to play .750 baseball over the month to get to the World Series.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

With my proposed alignment, the playoffs should expand to 16 teams, the top 4 teams from each league qualifying for a Shaugnessy playoff in each league.

The playoffs would be structured as follows:

Round 1: League Division Series, best-of-3, 1-2 home field format (with the first game at the lower seed)
Round 2: League Championship Series, best-of-5, 2-2-1 home field format
Round 3: National Semifinal Series, best-of-7, 2-3-2 home field format, pennant winners seeded 1-4 based on regular season record
Round 4: World Series, best-of-7, 2-3-2 home field format

 

[KevFu]

Along traditional AL/NL lines. Two divisions each league (East and West). Division winners get byes to the LDS and 2nd and 3rd place teams to the wild card round.

Would bring back traditional pennant races.

As a fan, I'm totally fine with AL/NL each with two divisions. But from the business perspective, it takes the poorest divisions (Central) and puts them playing out West all the time, which is bad for TV deals.

They'd go 4-4-4-4 in each league before 8-8 in each league.

Having it be division based is more in baseball's tradition and if you are 4th in your division, you don't have much to cry about.

I would also move to even game series for the WC (2 games) and LDS (4 or 6 games) as more of a reward for 1st and 2nd place finishers. Basically the higher seed in each series gets an automatic win that would allow them to advance if the series ends in a tie. Makes it where a third place team basically has to play .750 baseball over the month to get to the World Series.

This is why I think you need four LEAGUES instead of four divisions, and why there should be fewer playoff teams but longer series. Baseball is a marathon season, and the playoffs are a short-series with off-days?

In the regular season, you're facing three starting pitchers from the other team in each series; and it's pure schedule luck if you face 1-2-3 or 3-4-5. You have a 40% chance of missing a team's ace. I liked 4-game series because it's 40 total series, 8 league, 16 division is easier to work with in the schedule than 6/7 and 18/19; AND as an extra benefit, a four-game series is 20% chance of missing the ace instead of 40%.

But here's a wild/crazy, but also shockingly simple/fair/sane way of fairly running a 32-team MLB:

Two 16-team leagues. All FIVE-GAME series, so teams face the opponents' entire pitching rotation each series. Two series vs everyone in your league (150 games). Add a H/H with designated interleague rival for 160 games, and you don't even NEED to argue about divisions!

Currently, the playoffs series are 32-53 games of playoffs with 14 teams.

Take 4 playoff teams per league, but do pool play: one five game series vs each other playoff team in your league. Higher seed hosts each series, so the 1st place gets 3 home, 2nd place gets 2 home. Third is only home vs the 4 seed; 4 seed is all road.

One off day between series, that's it.

That's 60 guaranteed playoff games to decide who goes to the WS. And sure, some of the games will be meaningless based on record, but it will be guaranteed more meaningful games than now. (You could also set the order of the series to maximize it, too. Start 1/2 and 3/4, end with 1/4, 2/3 and you get the 3/4 seeds "alive" the longest.

 

[PCSPounder]

Meanwhile, back in the realm of reality, MLB is requesting allowance for cost-cutting measures in their negotiations with Minor League Players.

Damn right they’re preparing for income reduction from the RSNs collapsing.

 

[HisIceness]

No idea but as long as Charlotte does not get a team, I'm good

 

[KevFu]

Meanwhile, back in the realm of reality, MLB is requesting allowance for cost-cutting measures in their negotiations with Minor League Players.

Damn right they’re preparing for income reduction from the RSNs collapsing.

In fairness, the thread was "how would you LIKE" and not "what's the most realistic/best"

 

[PCSPounder]

In fairness, the thread was "how would you LIKE" and not "what's the most realistic/best"

There are times when fantasy is achievable.

There are also times when fantasy gets nuked into billions of aimless molecules.

I’m fairly certain we’re closer to the latter than the former.

 

[KevFu]

There are times when fantasy is achievable.

There are also times when fantasy gets nuked into billions of aimless molecules.

I’m fairly certain we’re closer to the latter than the former.

Oh, of course. But there's things that sound crazy that actually WORK and work better. Things that achieve the goals, but fall outside the conventional wisdom (Baseball's pitch clock is one of them).

I don't think that MLB would ever go to my "Four Leagues" instead of four divisions. But I'm always hopeful that if I reply to/comment on stories about radical realignment, maybe the person who wrote it sees what I see in the plan and says "Oh, this IS WAY BETTER than what MLB is thinking!" and gives some attention to it.