MLB Realignment

[shinatoo]

So the MLB PA has suggested realignment to two 15 team leagues. Requiring one team to move back to the AL. Probably Huston. According to Buster Onley.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6651634

Jim Bowden thinks if you are going to do that you might as well do a total geographic realignment. More like the NBA.
http://espn.go.com/blog/the-gms-office/ ... ealignment

That would probably work, but I would like to see two teams added and go to a NFL type of 8 divisions.

Whatever happens MLB needs a major geographic overhaul with unified rules in both leagues. Time to kill the DH.

Here are two alignments I could see with 32 teams. Both add Portland, one adds Indi and one adds San Antonio.


W/Indi
AL

NWest
Seattle
Portland
San Fran
Oakland

SWest
LA
Anaheim
San Diego
Phoenix

SCentral
Denver
KC
Texas
Huston

NCentral
Minnesota
Chi C
Chi WS
Milwaukee

NL

Great Lakes
Detroit
Cleveland
Toronto
Pittsburgh

NEast
Boston
NYY
NYM
Philly

MidWest
St. Louis
Indi
Cincinnati
Baltimore

S East
Washington
Atlanta
Tampa
Fla
W/San Antonio
AL

NWest
Seattle
Portland
San Fran
Oakland

SWest
LA
Anaheim
San Diego
Phoenix

SCentral
Denver
San Antonio
Texas
Huston

NCentral
Minnesota
Chi C
Chi WS
Milwaukee

NL

Great Lakes
Detroit
Cleveland
Toronto
Pittsburgh

NEast
Boston
NYY
NYM
Philly

Middle
St. Louis
Cincinnati
Washington
KC

SEast
Baltimore
Atlanta
Tampa
Fla

[bobbyhawks]

I'm all for realignment, and adding two teams wouldn't be terrible, but they would have to significantly modify the playoffs.  I don't think the MLB players association will ever consent to erasing the DH.  The only conceivable way is if they allowed an increase in roster size in the big leagues.  Otherwise, a number of aging hitters and Billy Butler types will have diminished value, and the overall salaries could go down if singularly offensive players are not as valuable as they once were.  There are a lot more mediocre hitters with great defensive skills than there are excellent hitters with below average defensive skills.  Personally, I'd love to get rid of the DH, but you'd be saying goodbye to a lot of fan favorites like Big Papi.

I don't believe that it is wise to put teams from the same city in the same division.  It would cannibalize the lesser teams revenue to an extent, as it would be harder for a team like the Mets/ChiSox to generate fan support when they are always hosting big brother at home.  Some great rivalries could occur, but there is also a strong possibility that a team could dominate the head to heads and make the second tier team even less popular.  It would also be unfair to other teams in the division that those teams would have potentially 10 to 20% less travel.  Purists would also never accept breaking up the NL's original core.

The easy fix for the time being is to take an NL team and move them to the AL.  The 6 team division and the 4 team division are the biggest inequity in pro sports.  Houston would make sense in the short term, but is also a good reason why total realignment should be a consideration.  I'd rather see Milwaukee return to the AL since they were there recently, but that makes KC the best candidate to play in the West, which would be a travel nightmare.  Houston isn't really much closer.  The teams in the AL West currently have a significantly better chance of winning a playoff spot before they even step on the field, though, and that just isn't fair.

[KCMax]

Whatever happens MLB needs a major geographic overhaul with unified rules in both leagues. Time to kill the DH.

Why?

[shinatoo]

Why?

1. The AL has won close to 70% of inter-league games since 2005, showing a glaring inequity in competitiveness between leagues.

2. The DH is harder on pitchers, who's ranks will be deluded if we add two teams. Plus games are to long as it is, the DH makes them longer.

3. More games played in the same geographic region foster higher attendance.

4. I don't like the DH.

[mean]

If the DH makes teams better, perhaps the NL should adopt the DH rule.

[shinatoo]

I'm all for realignment, and adding two teams wouldn't be terrible, but they would have to significantly modify the playoffs.  I don't think the MLB players association will ever consent to erasing the DH.  The only conceivable way is if they allowed an increase in roster size in the big leagues.  Otherwise, a number of aging hitters and Billy Butler types will have diminished value, and the overall salaries could go down if singularly offensive players are not as valuable as they once were.  There are a lot more mediocre hitters with great defensive skills than there are excellent hitters with below average defensive skills.  Personally, I'd love to get rid of the DH, but you'd be saying goodbye to a lot of fan favorites like Big Papi.

I don't believe that it is wise to put teams from the same city in the same division.  It would cannibalize the lesser teams revenue to an extent, as it would be harder for a team like the Mets/ChiSox to generate fan support when they are always hosting big brother at home.  Some great rivalries could occur, but there is also a strong possibility that a team could dominate the head to heads and make the second tier team even less popular.  It would also be unfair to other teams in the division that those teams would have potentially 10 to 20% less travel.  Purists would also never accept breaking up the NL's original core.

The easy fix for the time being is to take an NL team and move them to the AL.  The 6 team division and the 4 team division are the biggest inequity in pro sports.  Houston would make sense in the short term, but is also a good reason why total realignment should be a consideration.  I'd rather see Milwaukee return to the AL since they were there recently, but that makes KC the best candidate to play in the West, which would be a travel nightmare.  Houston isn't really much closer.  The teams in the AL West currently have a significantly better chance of winning a playoff spot before they even step on the field, though, and that just isn't fair.

Goodbye Big Popi. The fewer old, fat, softball players the better. I reality that roster spot becomes a bat specialist that you can plug in whenever you bench a one of the 3-4 pitchers you use in the course of a game. Plus you my be killing 14 DH's but by adding 2 teams you are creating 80 major league jobs.

The big problem with 15/15 is you would have to have inter-league play every day. But I agree it is better than what we have now.

8 divisions allow for 8 playoff teams. MLB plays 162 regular season games. They don't need a wildcard.

I am opposed to two 15 team super leagues. You would have a lot of teams mathematically eliminated by the all-star break.

[KCMax]

1. The AL has won close to 70% of inter-league games since 2005, showing a glaring inequity in competitiveness between leagues.

2. The DH is harder on pitchers, who's ranks will be deluded if we add two teams. Plus games are to long as it is, the DH makes them longer.

3. More games played in the same geographic region foster higher attendance.

4. I don't like the DH.

1. So get rid of interleague play. I hate it anyway.  The lack of DH doesn't seem to be hurting NL teams in the Fall Classic as the 2010 Giants, 2008 Phillies and 2006 Cardinals will attest to.

2. Sure, but offense is already going down. And people like offense. And we're not adding two teams - there is absolutely zero talk of expansion (doesn't seem like any potential cities could support a team) and you're not going to find a city that will build a stadium in this political/economic climate.

3. Is there any evidence to support #3? I think winning fosters higher attendance. Teams are already in regional divisions. I can't imagine attendance would go up here to see the Reds and Astros any more than it did when we were lumped in with the Tigers and Indians. Even the Cards/Royals series seems to be losing its novelty as evidenced by all the empty seats a few weeks ago at the K when the Cards came to town.

4. I like the DH. I think there will always be some fans that love it, and others that don't. The best solution is to have one league that has it, and another that doesn't so everyone gets what they want.

FWIW, from what I've heard, they're not talking about realigning divisions, they're talking about ABOLISHING divisions which would be bad for the Royals I would guess. I also don't expect this talk to get very far.

[WSPanic]

Expansion, radical reallignment and major rule changes aren't necessary. Baseball teams are pretty profitable now and the above changes don't do anything to make them more profitable. I think the goal is some sort of increase in scheduling balance, along with adding two more teams to the playoffs. You don't need to blow the whole thing up to do that.

Not saying some of Shinatoo's changes don't make logical sense - but there's no reason to try an emulate the NFL and NBA when MLB has a pretty good thing going right now.

[GRID]

I think changing the divisions will do nothing for attendance, especially for the Royals.  Also adding teams in Indy and Portland would be real risky.  KC with 2.6 million people within an hours drive and many millions more that consider KC their big league vacation city (omaha, wichita etc) can barely support MLB with the way the economics are.  Portland and especially Indianapolis would be no better off and just further dilute baseball for the smaller markets.

[aknowledgeableperson]

Can't see expansion on the table.  Are there cities now banging the drums trying to get in the game?  Although it might not be as much money percentage-wise as in the past but adding two teams just dilutes national TV money each team receives.
Leagues expand because there is pressure to expand.  Cities looking for teams, ownership groups looking for a team.  Just don't see that is the case right now.

[beautyfromashes]

Never happen the way shinatoo lays out above.  St. Louis would throw a fit if they weren't with the Cubs.  Atlanta would lose the major match ups they have to replaced with Florida teams.  Not to mention the traditional AL/NL histories (Dodger in the AL?) It just won't happen.

[KCMax]

Can't see expansion on the table.  Are there cities now banging the drums trying to get in the game?  Although it might not be as much money percentage-wise as in the past but adding two teams just dilutes national TV money each team receives.
Leagues expand because there is pressure to expand.  Cities looking for teams, ownership groups looking for a team.  Just don't see that is the case right now.

IIRC, the last two times MLB expanded was because they needed the expansion fees from potential ownership groups to help pay their restitution payments for losing their anti-trust collusion cases against the players.

Otherwise, you're right, it doesn't make sense to bring in two more teams to split the FOX money over. Also, I'm sure teams like the A's and Rays like having Portland and Charlotte without teams just to use as leverage to gain stadium deals - not that those markets are possible at all.

I didn't even notice you split up the Cards and Cubs - yea, that's a total non-starter.

Houston's new owner has also said he will not move to the AL. So there's that.

Some people like to talk realignment so they can have fun drawing up new divisions (I have done this too), but in reality, there seems to be little reason to change things dramatically.

[bobbyhawks]

My priorities would be:

1.  Move a team from the NL to AL so that teams in the AL West don't have a 9% better chance of making the playoffs than any team in the NL Central without playing a game (4.5% better than other AL teams).  The Brewers were AL not too long ago.
2.  Develop a reasonable but not frantic, shot-clock like approach to pitching, mound visits, and getting set in the batter's box (only for the regular season).  I think they have something like this in college, but the biggest knock on baseball currently is how slow the games are (also, it would be a big help if they didn't put 5 full minutes of annoying and loud video between each half inning).  There are almost too many distractions at the park lately to pay good attention to the game.
3.  Go back to 154 game seasons.  This wouldn't be popular in places like Boston and NYC, but it would slightly increase the importance and demand for each game, make certain records attainable without an asterisk, avoid a bit of the attention overlap that has developed with overlapping sports, and allow expansion to an extended post-season.
4.  Revise the post-season.  There are a lot of good ideas out there, and I haven't really though most of them through.  Possibly, I'd make the wild-card position a one game playoff, essentially adding two teams to the post-season.  My post-season would start with one wild-card game in NL and AL each, move to a set of 5-game series in the NL and AL each, then a 5-game series for the pennant, and a 7-game world series.  I'd also like to see a cup or something created for the best two teams over the second half of the year (AL vs. NL) that didn't make the post-season.  They could have a one game exhibition in a set city and play the night between the wild card play-in and the first 5-game series.  This could be the showcase game that the MLB uses to have an exhibition overseas.

[KCMax]

The only change I would really like to see is to go back to two divisions (7 teams in each in the AL, 8 in the NL), and have two division winners and maybe two WC teams in the playoffs.

[brewcrew1000]

My priorities would be:

1.  Move a team from the NL to AL so that teams in the AL West don't have a 9% better chance of making the playoffs than any team in the NL Central without playing a game

You can't move a team from NL to AL because the schedules would be messed up, the reason why Milwaukee moved is to have even number of teams, if each team had odd number of teams, one team would have off every night

[KCMax]

You can't move a team from NL to AL because the schedules would be messed up, the reason why Milwaukee moved is to have even number of teams, if each team had odd number of teams, one team would have off every night

You could do an interleague series every day, which is what is being discussed right now, albeit not seriously IMO.

[bobbyhawks]

The only change I would really like to see is to go back to two divisions (7 teams in each in the AL, 8 in the NL), and have two division winners and maybe two WC teams in the playoffs.

That would appear to help the Red Sox and Yankees make the post-season about every year, and probably at least one of the other top 5 payrolls in the AL.  The AL East would play more games against half the teams in the current central, likely making the difference between former shells of those leagues even greater.  Teams like the Twins would no longer be able to have so many games against teams like the Royals and Indians (of the last few years), opening the door for Toronto and Baltimore to spend some cash after not having to play the Yanks and Sox as often.  As I see it, the smaller divisions are a protection against big markets dominating the post-season.

[KCMax]

This will come as a surprise, but after the Red Sox and Yankees, the top three payrolls in the American League - are in the current Central Division.

The notion that the AL Central is small market division has always been a bit incorrect. Detroit is a huge market. Chicago is a huge market - that is split - but still huge. Minneapolis has been the sleeping giants with a cheap owner and a crappy stadium, but now they have an owner willing to spend and a nice stadium, and a large metro to boot. For a long time, no one in the division was willing to spend money, but that has changed, and all indications are when the Royals begin developing talent, they will be willing to spend some money as well.

[brewcrew1000]

This will come as a surprise, but after the Red Sox and Yankees, the top three payrolls in the American League - are in the current Central Division.

Don't understand why people complain about players salaries, it must be a jealous guy thing.  Some movie stars make 50-60 MILLION PER MOVIE but you don't hear people complain or heckle them.

[bobbyhawks]

This will come as a surprise, but after the Red Sox and Yankees, the top three payrolls in the American League - are in the current Central Division.

You forgot about the Angels, but I see your point.  However, the Yankees spend twice the Royals' entire payroll more than the White Sox, and the Red Sox spend the Royals' payroll alone more than the White Sox.  AL Central has certainly been spending more money lately, but outside of injuries, it is pretty telling how often the Angels, Red Sox, and Yanks make the postseason.  In the last 10 seasons, the leaders in post-season berths are the Yanks (9), Red Sox (6), Angels (6), and Twins (6).  The Twins are the only team you could point to to say that payroll isn't importand, but they are now spending a lot, and spending wasn't big in the division when they were spending less.  The only other team with more than 2 berths is the A's at 4, and it just shows that Moneyball cannot work in perpetuity without big payrolls following.

Don't understand why people complain about players salaries, it must be a jealous guy thing.  Some movie stars make 50-60 MILLION PER MOVIE but you don't hear people complain or heckle them.

I could care less what the guys actually make (unless they are underperforming).  My only beef is with the inequality the MLB allows in payroll.  No other league is close.  The Royals payroll is 16% of the Yankees payroll.  This is not really possible in any other major league that I am aware of.