MLB Realignment

by Bucs Fever on Sep 2, 2009 8:43 PM EDT

Obviously this isn’t specifically related to the Pirates, but I wanted to bounce this around and see what everyone thought.

My buddy told me that Buck Showalter suggested a pretty radical theory on MLB realignment the other day on Baseball Tonight. Apparently he proposed 2 leagues with 2 divisions of 7 teams. That sounds reasonable to me, but he also suggested playing each team 6 times in 2 series of 3 games a piece. To me that makes no sense, but I think he was on to something with the 2 leagues 2 divisions portion.

With that in mind (and the idea of contracting Oakland and probably Tampa) I began thinking of how to make an equitable baseball schedule with 28 teams. This is what I came up with.

One 3 game series with each team (14) in the other league: 42 games.

Two 3 game series with each team (7) in the opposing division within your own league: 42 games.

And lastly, four 3 game series with each team (6) in your division: 72 games.

Of course this adds up to 156 games, but you could certainly argue that the season is a bit too long to begin with. Realigning the teams would be easy with two divisions (North and South or East and West) in each league. The DH can stay and not really cause any problems. It’s a balanced schedule, and you would have an equal number of home and away games for every team. With the season being shorter you could also have 6 teams make the playoffs from each league with a bye going to the two division winners, although I’m not sure about that one…

I guess I could go on, but I really just wanted to get some opinions on this. I’m sure there is some reason why this wouldn’t work (as I’m sure someone will point out), but this seems to be the best case scenario I’ve seen in a while.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of the managing editor (Charlie) or SB Nation. FanPosts are written by Bucs Dugout readers.

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Comments

oakland a's

i think the a’s are close to a new stadium being built. I also dont think MLB is ready to give up on tampa bay yet. The only Realignment i want is to move the bucs, to the east. I think all pirate fans want that. We all hate the Mets, Phils, and of course the Braves.

by abnjas1925 on Sep 2, 2009 9:02 PM EDT reply actions

I really hate the Cardinals and Cubs, too, though!

by matskralc on Sep 2, 2009 9:12 PM EDT up reply actions

agreed

I’ve always wondered why the pirates werent in the east? and always wished they were. It makes more sense to me.

by FusilliJerry88 on Sep 2, 2009 9:24 PM EDT up reply actions

I saw that re-alignment show. He radically re-aligned all the teams in fact moving a couple from the AL to NL and vice versa. It was quite interesting though.

It was interesting. But there were a couple of flaws as far as i saw
1. The DH had to stay or go in both leagues.
2. Contracture (which you mentioned) however, he had mentioned both florida teams i thought, so the Marlins and TB or the possibility of Oakland, but i don’t see that happening. Especially cause the MLB Player’s union would have a fit.

by lfhlaw on Sep 2, 2009 9:15 PM EDT reply actions

Im not sure why the DH would be a problem...

Is there something I’m missing? The home/away splits would be the same every year.

by Bucs Fever on Sep 2, 2009 9:32 PM EDT up reply actions

I found a link that had the divisions

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/notebook?page=bbtn/090823

hopefully that works.

by lfhlaw on Sep 2, 2009 9:22 PM EDT reply actions

I remember listening to this idea and thought it didn’t do what it intended:

I believe that he wanted every team to play every other team 6 times (home and away) regardless of division. However one of his complaints was that time zones meant fans had to stay up too late (Texas has too many games in cali, etc.)

But it seems to me that if every team played every other team equally it wouldn’t matter how geographically well set up his divisions were which defeated his whole argument about travel team

I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.

by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 2, 2009 9:39 PM EDT reply actions

I quote now from the link posted above:

Every team plays every other team six times per season — three at home and three away. There’s your 162-game schedule. The idea embraces baseball’s current love affair with interleague play; fans see every team, every year.

Ok but the below defeats that purpose:

The Showalter Plan realigns as follows, with four divisions of seven teams each, arranged geographically to keep all divisions as much within the same time zone as possible — another simple, common-sense idea. Gee, how novel.

I made most of my life decisions at a Foghat concert... I stand by them.

by Chester J Lampwick on Sep 2, 2009 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions

This is the worst realignment proposal I've seen

Since this one guy suggested that baseball have 3 divisions with separate championships, like in soccer in the…Champions League, I think. But then he also had the AAA become a completely separate entity where the bottom two teams would drop out and move to AAA and two AAA teams would move to the lowest ML tier.

by Schide on Sep 3, 2009 12:32 AM EDT reply actions

why not have an equal number of teams in both leagues

except why not have with 15 teams in each league move a team for the NL to the AL, or have two new teams in the AL that way the leagues have the same number of teams in them because right now its 16-14. Even the leagues that would be a start because then the NL central wouldn’t have 6 teams in them. All division would have 5 teams in it yes even the AL west would that would help out alot in terms of making the game easier to follow.

by WVPiratesfan on Sep 3, 2009 9:51 AM EDT reply actions

the common argument against that is

due to the odd number of teams, there would always be one team without a game due to the odd number of teams, except during interleague play. it may be more practical if they didn’t bunch up all of the interleague games and instead spread them over the season.

by johnnycuff on Sep 3, 2009 11:15 AM EDT up reply actions

Of course it would be more practical

That’s why they don’t do it. It would also be more practical (in a baseball sense) to have a rotating interleague schedule rather than the same large market teams playing each other every year. Then again interleague isn’t about practicality and fairness, it’s about making money in New York, Chicago and LA.

by Bucs Fever on Sep 3, 2009 12:36 PM EDT up reply actions

both of you are right but

but my other idea is to add two teams to the AL in cities like Charlotte or Nashville (pick one I don’t care which), and one In western Canada Vancouver would work I think, but then you have one Division having six teams like the NL central you would have to figure that out as well, If you put a team in Charlotte you have six teams in the East if you put a team in Nashville you have six in the central or if you dropkick a team to the west then with a team in western Canada you have six teams in the west so it would take some thought by the Commissioner (something he isn’t good at or else he wouldn’t let the All-Star Game end in a tie) but that is the plan according to me.

by WVPiratesfan on Sep 4, 2009 6:51 PM EDT up reply actions

Once you add 2 more teams

You have 32, and you can go to the NFL-style 2 leagues with 4 divisions of 4 each.

My dream has always been to see teams in Havana and San Juan – put them in the NL South with Miami and Atlanta. The AL can have Milwaukee back – maybe Houston, too. Hmm. Need another team for the AL South.

Trouble is, we’ve already seen that pitching is too thin in a 30 team league – 2 more teams would be crazy.

by JRoth95 on Sep 7, 2009 12:40 PM EDT up reply actions

Thin pitching and Steriods is what caused the home run explosion of the offensive explosion of th early to mid 90’s

by WVPiratesfan on Sep 8, 2009 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions

Radical shmadical

I had a REAL radical plan and I like it so much it’s worth posting again:

Expand by two teams. Create four eight-team, two-division leagues. Call ’em whatever you want. Align as such:

Northeast League
A—Boston, New York, New York, Toronto
B-Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh

Southeast League
A-Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Florida, (Charlotte or Nashville)
B-Texas, Houston, San Antonio, Kansas City

Central League
A-Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minnesota
B-Milwaukee, Chicago, Chicago, St. Louis

West League
A-Seattle, Oakland, Anaheim, Colorado
B-Los Angeles, Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona

Teams play 22 games each in division (66), 18 against the other division (72) and 3 each against all the teams in one of the other leagues, rotating annually (24) = 162.

All leagues use the DH. Division winners make playoffs (no wild card). Division winners playoff within the league, four league champs go to next round.

Only regret is I can’t figure a way to get St. Louis and Kansas City in the same division.

Fin.

by bucdaddy on Sep 3, 2009 10:32 AM EDT reply actions

this is godawful

And I say that with all due respect, of course.
Any system in which the Pirates would play three games against the Cubs, Reds and Cardinals in a three-year period and 66 games against the Nats is not an improvement.

by Zadoras on Sep 3, 2009 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs

I like the idea

…plus playing the Nats gives us a shot at being a winner!

WE ARE.......PENN STATE!

by Nick7 on Sep 3, 2009 6:27 PM EDT up reply actions

Not just the Nats

The Bucs would also have 18 games every season against the Yankees, Mets and Red Sox in addition to their 22 against the Phillies. Teams in much bigger markets and with greater resources than the ones in, say, Southeast B.

by Zadoras on Sep 3, 2009 8:37 PM EDT up reply actions

Well

unless you just want to concede and let the Yankees, Sox and Mets play in their own little universe, SOMEbody is going to have to play them. Might as well be us. For one thing, they’ll sell out PNC a dozen times a year, bringing the Pirates more walking-around money. For another, this forces us to compete more to their level. You’d better approach everything you do more diligently and commit greater resources when your main opponents are the Yanks and Sox, rather than assclowns like the Reds and Astros. If you compete in a division with chumps, you only have to be Chump +1 to come out on top. This doesn’t really make you any good, just the best chump. Compete against Champs, you’d better show up to play every day.

by bucdaddy on Sep 4, 2009 12:25 AM EDT up reply actions

I'd point out

That the present system, by which the Pirates and Phillies and Pirates and Mets play only a handful of games a year is absurd too. SOMEbody’s always gonna get bumped.

Anyway, if it’ll make you happy, I’ll shuffle the divisions around a little …

East Coast League
A—Boston, New York, New York, Toronto
B—Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Florida, (Charlotte or Nashville)

Rustbelt League
A—Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh
B—Milwaukee, Chicago, Chicago, St. Louis

Somethingorother League
A—Texas, Houston, San Antonio, Kansas City
B—Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minnesota

Although this would probably make more sense:

Rustbelt League
A—Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh
B—Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minnesota

Central League
B—Milwaukee, Chicago, Chicago, St. Louis
A—Texas, Houston, San Antonio, Kansas City

The reasoning behind the number of games is this: Everything I read about baseball in the old days, when the teams in each league DID play each other 22 times, is that this bred familiarity for the players and fans, and as we all know familiarity breeds contempt, which is a lot of fun. As a Pirates fan, I couldn’t generate enough contempt for, let’s say, the Padres and Marlins to spit. The more games against enemies, the better.

I also like that in several of the divisions, most of the teams are within an easy day’s drive of each other, makes road trips more inviting for fans.

I would have been happy, actually, to go back to having all 162 (or whatever number) of games played within each league, but I guess that cat’s never going back in the bag. Rotating 24 games against the other three leagues is a (very) grudging admission of that.

by bucdaddy on Sep 4, 2009 12:18 AM EDT up reply actions