Division Formation?

[lcbj68c]

Eight 4-team divisions would be fun. I'd even go for 6 playoff spots per league. However, I don't think there is an advantage to having a "bye".

[jeffy]

The biggest problem with any fix is the DH rule. If that did not exist, then interleague play every day or moving from one league to another would not be such a barrier to any realignment.

 

The other problem is including AZ, there are 7 teams on pacific time (AZ is in mtn time zone, but does not do daylight savings time). There is only 1 team in the Mountain time zone. So if they want no more than two time zones in a division, need these to either be in one division of 8 or two divisions of 4.

[jeffy]

I like the divisions in this plan (some variation on this would be fine, too):

http://www.nydailynews.co...s_how_it_could_look.html

 

Don't like the play 6 against every team aspect, I prefer an "unbalanced" schedule. I don't care if they contract, expand, or stay the same, but the divisions should differ by no more than 1 team. I love the idea of getting rid of the DH and think expanding roster to 27 players makes a lot of sense since the norm is 12 pitchers now.

 

(Unbalanced schedule with this alignment could be 13 games against each division opponent, 6 against the other division in the league, and 3 against the 14 teams in the other league. Or 17 division and 3 against each other team in the league.)

[Invader3K]

I like the ideas in the article you linked to, jeffyscott. The problem is that baseball won't retract any teams right now, though the A's and Rays make logical candidates, as suggested.

[jeffy]

Maybe it could still work pretty well with 30 teams and an unbalanced shedule, just have 2 divisions with 8 and two with 7.

 

6 divisions with 5 each would also be fine with me (though, that creates time zone issues)...makes scheduling easier though, eg. play 15 teams in other league 3 times each, 10 teams in other divisions of same league 6 times and 14 against each division opponent (that's a 161 game schedule).

 

Mainly I like the idea of playing every team every year, or really just having the same schedule (or at least very close to it) for all teams in a division (and doing away with the DH is a nice bonus).

[ReverendBrewmeister]

MLB could realign to 2 leagues with 3 divisions of 5 teams each. (This would necessitate interleague baseball year-round, so the DH question would have to be dealt with.)

 

A basic schedule of 160 games* could be played in the regular season:

10 games (5H, 5A) against each divisional team [10 x 4] = 40 games

6 games (3H, 3A) against each intra-league, non-divisional team [6 x 10] = 60 games

4 games (2H, 2A) against each team from the opposite league [4 x 15] = 60 games

*An extra 2 games (1H, 1A) could be given against an opposite league "rival" to keep the 162 game schedule.

The simplest way of achieving this realignment would be to move the Houston Astros to the AL West, thus giving the Texas Rangers a team in their division in the same time zone.

 

The divisional alignments would then be:

AL EAST - Baltimore, Boston, New York Yankees, Tampa Bay, Toronto

AL CENTRAL - Chicago White Sox, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Minnesota

AL WEST - Houston, LA Angels, Oakland, Seattle, Texas

NL EAST - Atlanta, Florida, New York Mets, Philadelphia, Washington

NL CENTRAL - Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis

NL WEST - Arizona, Colorado, LA Dodgers, San Diego, San Francisco

[Oxy]

The Cubs, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati are the only traditional NL teams (pre-WWII) East of the Mississippi. The White Sox are the Westernmost traditional AL team. Seems to me that the entire American League West should join the NL and the entire NL East should join the AL. Pittsburgh could be given the option of joining the AL if they like which would make more geographical sense and keep the 16/14 ratio of teams in each league. If Pittsburgh prefer to stay in the NL, send KC or Minnesota over to the NL as well to make it 16/14. Heck, if Pitt does make the switch to the AL then send both Minnesota and KC to the NL to keep all the central time zone teams in one league (except the White Sox).

 

So, ideally you would have 4 divisions:

 

NL West: Seattle, Oakland, SF, LA, Anaheim, SD, Arizona and Colorado

NL Central: Minnesota, Milwaukee, ChC, St. Louis, KC, Cincinnati, Texas, and Houston

 

Old Schoool AL: Boston, NYY, ChSox, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Atlanta

New School AL: Toronto, NYM, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, and Florida

 

All divisions would have a nice balance of power and proper proportion of large markets, all storied rivalries would remain intact (with apologies to Pittsburgh who doesn't seem to have any real traditional rivals), GREAT new rivalries would be established, and this alignment makes a lot of geographic sense/time zone sense.

 

The winners of each division make the playoffs along with two wild card teams that could come from the same division if that's the way it worked out. I would play a heavy intra-division schedule, but a balanced schedule outside of your division so that all teams within a division have a similar strength of schedule.

 

As far as the DH rule, I think it should be universal across both leagues for each season, but I think it should alternate each year whether it is in effect or not. That way every fan base gets to experience both styles and every team is in the same boat every year. Sure, it would give GMs headaches every off-season trying to reconfigure the roster, but it would only be the bench; and in today's game almost every team's bench i re-configured every off-season anyway.

 

Get it done, Bud

[jeffy]

The simplest way of achieving this realignment would be to move the Houston Astros to the AL West, thus giving the Texas Rangers a team in their division in the same time zone.

 

Since this would also have to include abolishing the DH (I don't want to even think about the horror of the other option of making the DH universal), changing leagues would be less significant than in the past and may be a positive for them as the two Texas teams would then be in the same division. OTOH, they might resist and say Milwaukee should go back to the AL, in which case we go to the AL Central and move KC to the AL west, still giving the Rangers a division opponent in the same time zone.

[JohnBriggs12]

Can anybody tell me how it came to be that the Rays were put into the AL East?

Because it didn't make sense to put a team in Florida in the AL West?

 

Seriously, travel costs are a major expense for major league baseball. There's also the time factor involved in travel. Teams are aligned geographically for sound business reasons. It also doesn't hurt the Rays that there are very many retired folks in Florida from the major eastern markets.

[jeffy]

Can anybody tell me how it came to be that the Rays were put into the AL East?

Because it didn't make sense to put a team in Florida in the AL West?

 

But they could have put Tampa in the NL east, AZ in NL west and left the Brewers in the AL (glad they did not).

 

Apparently it was decided to add one new franchise to each league and then only at the last minute did they realize that 15 teams in each league would create a problem?

 

It appears KC had the first option to switch: http://articles.latimes.c...7/oct/16/sports/sp-43406

 

and this realignment was a fall-back from Selig's grand realignment where the AL would be only in the Eastern time zone: http://roadsidephotos.sabr.org/baseball/bb97-7.htm

 

That scheme would also explain why Tampa was designated to be AL and AZ NL.

[endaround]

They tend not to want teams from the same league in the same state. Sure they are exceptions in California (for obvious reasons) and Pennsylvania but in general they don't want that. Why? Who knows.

[Oxy]

They tend not to want teams from the same league in the same state. Sure they are exceptions in California (for obvious reasons) and Pennsylvania but in general they don't want that. Why? Who knows.

My guess is that having teams that are close geographically but in opposite leagues makes it easier for people to be fans of both teams, thus getting more TV viewers; especially later in the year when perhaps one team is out of the running and a fan can adopt their team from the other league to be their team the rest of the year. This doesn't work in the major markets like New York and Chicago where nobody is simultaneously a Mets AND Yankees fan, or a Cubs AND Sox fan, but I think it works in places like Texas and California.

[Warning Track Power]

They tend not to want teams from the same league in the same state. Sure they are exceptions in California (for obvious reasons) and Pennsylvania but in general they don't want that. Why? Who knows.

My guess is that having teams that are close geographically but in opposite leagues makes it easier for people to be fans of both teams, thus getting more TV viewers; especially later in the year when perhaps one team is out of the running and a fan can adopt their team from the other league to be their team the rest of the year. This doesn't work in the major markets like New York and Chicago where nobody is simultaneously a Mets AND Yankees fan, or a Cubs AND Sox fan, but I think it works in places like Texas and California.

 

Wrong on the California part. I know no one here who is both a Dodger AND Angel fan or a Giant AND Athletic fan. Likewise, no one is a Dodger AND Giant fan or Dodger AND Padre fan unless you are a fan of another team outside the state. People like myself, who are Brewers fans, turn to state teams to root for once their team is eliminated but only because they do not emotionally invest themselves into these secondary teams. For example, when the Brewers were eliminated in the NLDS in 2008, I cheered like crazy for the Dodgers in the NLCS but wasn't depressed or downtrodden when they lost.

 

Dodger fans root against the Angels, Padres and Giants when the Dodgers have been eliminated. Same for Angel and Padre fans, although there is a weird camraderie between Angel and Padre fans; probably because of their mutual Dodger hatred. Something akin to the Mets and Red Sox both hating the Yankees.

 

[Oxy]

They tend not to want teams from the same league in the same state. Sure they are exceptions in California (for obvious reasons) and Pennsylvania but in general they don't want that. Why? Who knows.

My guess is that having teams that are close geographically but in opposite leagues makes it easier for people to be fans of both teams, thus getting more TV viewers; especially later in the year when perhaps one team is out of the running and a fan can adopt their team from the other league to be their team the rest of the year. This doesn't work in the major markets like New York and Chicago where nobody is simultaneously a Mets AND Yankees fan, or a Cubs AND Sox fan, but I think it works in places like Texas and California.

 

Wrong on the California part. I know no one here who is both a Dodger AND Angel fan or a Giant AND Athletic fan. Likewise, no one is a Dodger AND Giant fan or Dodger AND Padre fan unless you are a fan of another team outside the state. People like myself, who are Brewers fans, turn to state teams to root for once their team is eliminated but only because they do not emotionally invest themselves into these secondary teams. For example, when the Brewers were eliminated in the NLDS in 2008, I cheered like crazy for the Dodgers in the NLCS but wasn't depressed or downtrodden when they lost.

 

Dodger fans root against the Angels, Padres and Giants when the Dodgers have been eliminated. Same for Angel and Padre fans, although there is a weird camraderie between Angel and Padre fans; probably because of their mutual Dodger hatred. Something akin to the Mets and Red Sox both hating the Yankees.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Within one city (Bay area/LA) it will be similar to Chicago and New York as you say. However, Cali is a huge state with 5 teams. I wasn't assuming any of the same groups of teams that you were. I was thinking of those living in Fresno or Santa Barbara and being a Giant/Angels fan, or a Dodger/A's fan or a Padre/Angels fan. Those associations make sense to me. Similarly, in Texas I doubt anybody in Dallas cares too much about Houston, and vice versa. But what about San Antonio, Austin, etc.?

[Warning Track Power]

This is exactly what I was thinking. Within one city (Bay area/LA) it will be similar to Chicago and New York as you say. However, Cali is a huge state with 5 teams. I wasn't assuming any of the same groups of teams that you were. I was thinking of those living in Fresno or Santa Barbara and being a Giant/Angels fan, or a Dodger/A's fan or a Padre/Angels fan. Those associations make sense to me. Similarly, in Texas I doubt anybody in Dallas cares too much about Houston, and vice versa. But what about San Antonio, Austin, etc.?

Yes and no. There isn't much in the way of split allegiances i.e. I'm a Angel fan in the NL and Padres fan in the AL. Mostly what you find is ambivalence towards the other teams except for when they play their rival hence my point about Angel fans rooting for the Giants or Padres against the Dodgers. You are just as likely to find an Angel/Cub or Dodger/White Sox fan as you are an Angel/Padre fan. You are much more likely to find someone like myself who roots for an out of state team like the Brewers and when they don't win, root for any or all of the state of California teams.

[jeffy]

I think any issues with teams located in the same city or state goes back to the time when the leagues were more independent and in competition with each other to some extent.

 

Would owners today be opposed to, for example, putting the Cubs and White Sox, not only in the same league but in the same division? Is any opposition strictly based on not wanting to switch leagues, meaning the White Sox owner would approve only if the Cubs were moved to the AL and the Cubs owner would only approve if the Sox were moved to the NL?

 

My guess is revenue would be increased by putting teams in the same city/metro area in a single division. Most Cub fans hate the Sox and visa-versa, but since they are not competing during the regular season, I think the fans mostly do not pay much attention to the other team. If they were in competition in a single division, I would think (for example) Cub fans would be more likely to watch Sox games on TV hoping to see them lose.

 

I know that I am far more likely to watch non-Brewer games on TV when one of the teams from the NL Central is playing. If the Twins are on the regional Fox Saturday game, I am much less likely to watch than if the Cardinals are.

[nate82]

Selig is looking at realignment but that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone since Selig wanted to do the realignment earlier. I don't think this will go anywhere as I don't see the baseball traditionalists going for anymore realignment for one it would be having the DH in both leagues as you will need to have an inter league game everyday and secondly the players union will not give up on the DH. So for the realignment to happen there will have to be a DH in both leagues which will not happen thus the realignment will not work.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/04/selig-on-mets-contraction-realignment-playoffs.html

[jeffy]

I wonder how the players union would react to no DH, but expanding the major league rosters to 27 players? This eliminates potential retirement delaying jobs for 14 sluggers, but creates 60 new jobs.

 

When Selig proposed the earlier radical realignment, what was his intent with regard to the DH at that time?

[nate82]

I wonder how the players union would react to no DH, but expanding the major league rosters to 27 players? This eliminates potential retirement delaying jobs for 14 sluggers, but creates 60 new jobs.

 

When Selig proposed the earlier radical realignment, what was his intent with regard to the DH at that time?

That maybe a possibility but the DH has prolonged careers for players who normally wouldn't have a long career. I don't see the players union giving that up especially with the way that baseball has been going recently with more younger players than older ones filling out the rosters.

As for the second part I can't remember exactly what Selig's intent was for the earlier realignment but I doubt he would have touched on the DH subject. I believe Selig's plan was more of a regional one where it would cut down on travel times. I think Houston moves to the AL West in the realignment I am not sure on that.