If MLB realigned the divisions again...

[Mattionals]

I had a thought sometime last year with the last wild card spot.  I know there is a great deal of parity in the sport for certain divisions, and not so much with others and the second wild card is supposed to help that.  What if the league expanded to add two new teams and did away with the wild card structure entirely?  Back to eight teams, but divisions would be tighter with only four teams in each division.  I thought about it and decided to draw up my own division list.

NL East:

New York Mets
Pittsburgh Pirates
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals


NL South:

Atlanta Braves
Houston Astros (Moves back from AL)
Miami Marlins
Nashville Sounds (Moved up from AAA - Get a better name)


NL North:

Chicago Cubs
Cincinnati Reds
Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Cardinals


NL West:

Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants


AL East:

Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays


AL South:

Indianapolis Indians (Promoted from AAA - Get new name)
Kansas City Royals
Tampa Bay Rays
Texas Rangers


AL North:

Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins


AL West:

Colorado Rockies (Moves from NL)
Oakland Athletics
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Seattle Mariners


It's an interesting shake up with two middle American AAA teams being promoted and Houston and Colorado switching leagues.  I think there would be a little bit better parity though without the goofy wild card game.  What does everyone think?

[spidernat]

Expansion? 

[HalfSmokes]

I don't think Indy or Nashville would get a large enough tv deal to be viable

[imref]

i'm sure the Rays would welcome that move.

[Mattionals]

I don't think Indy or Nashville would get a large enough tv deal to be viable

Omaha and Memphis might actually work out better.

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Mexico City

Omaha and Memphis might actually work out better.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Charlotte, NC and Portland, Oregon.  Or North Jersey.

[HalfSmokes]

westchester and Hoboken

[imref]

havana and mexico city would actually be awesome.

[Kevrock]

Dubai and Shanghai

[Kevrock]

Any realignment discussions should start with the Marlins being dissolved.

[blue911]

Glen Bernie and Towson

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Florida should be some sort of neutral ground or free fire zone.  Run a rotation of interleague, neutral site games at the marlins monstrosity.

[Kevrock]

Glen Bernie and Towson

[welch]

There are too many teams right now. In 1959, I could name the starting lineup for every baseball team...all 16 of them. Now if someone mentions a team nickname, half the time I can't remember which town and which sport that team plays. How did there get to be a basketball team in Oklahoma City?

(Confession: I never liked the divisions and the division playoffs. You play 162 games, and the team with the best record in the league should win the pennant. The best team is the one that proved it over the whole season.)

[Minty Fresh]

Four team divisions FOR THE LOSS.

Contract the Rays and Marlins and go back to two divisions of seven teams.

freak FLORIDA.

[Mattionals]

The reason I bring it up is to just shake out what a different feel the game would have.  I'm 25 so I've only experienced baseball in a 26+ team format and I like the addition of two more teams to get rid of an uneven amount of teams in each league.  I'm not a big fan of the DH rule and what it does to the game.

Geographically and Economically adding a team would be tough, but I have a feeling Memphis and Omaha (judging by stats on butts in seats in areas farther away from MLB teams) would be prime targets for MLB teams.  I thought Indy and Nashville would work, but judging by the numbers it would be tough to sell tickets.  Right now my only geographic sticking point is Omaha isn't in the south, which ruins my AL South dynamic.

Also I don't expect expansion in the sport for a long time, probably not until another 15 years at least and I have serious doubts that MLB will return to an eight team playoff format so my idea is bunk anyway.  I really do like the CWS stadium in Omaha though and it could be a nice small city for a baseball team.

[Mattionals]

Looking at actual TV markets though, Omaha nor Memphis are high up enough.  Which returns me to Indy and Nashville being better TV markets (no. 25 and 29 respectively) and being geographically located well to other teams to make travel somewhat convenient.

[HalfSmokes]

If you do it by market size,  a third team in on la and ny may make the most sense

[Mattionals]

If you do it by market size,  a third team in on la and ny may make the most sense

It would make sense, but honestly to me it feels like re-hashing the same old with those cities.  The reasons I suggested Nashville and Indy are because they are fairly decent sized cities that could take on a MLB sized team.  They both have shown to work well as football cities which is especially profound for Nashville considering Vandy is right there and the SEC is a hard product to top.

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Four team divisions FOR THE LOSS.

Contract the Rays and Marlins and go back to two divisions of seven teams.

freak FLORIDA.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

NY split 3 ways is better than the next available market.  I'm rooting for Tampa to move and become the Raritan Bay Rays.

[BrandonK]

Portland, Charlotte, or Las Vegas would probably be first to add a new team. NY could add another team. Given new wild card rules, I could see two more expansion teams in the future (I added Portland and Las Vegas in my OOTP league haha).

[comish4lif]

havana and mexico city would actually be awesome.

I vote yes on Havana (see my comments in the Politics thread) and no on Mexico City, still a little too much of a third world country. Second MLB team would go to Portland, or Charlotte with their new "Uptown" baseball stadium.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I'm looking forward to the naming contest for the Charlotte team.

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