Former Cincinnati Reds GM and current MLB Network analyst Jim Bowden put out an article this week for The Athletic imagining a hypothetical shake-up of divisions and leagues, and he took it a step further by adding in two possible expansion teams.
He’s not the only one thinking of tinkering with the Major League Baseball schedule.
The MLBPA and MLB reached a new collective bargaining agreement and part of that included changing the schedule. Starting this year in 2023, teams will play a more “balanced” slate of games, playing a series against all 29 other teams at the expense of some divisional matchups. Ie., the Cardinals will play a series against all teams from the AL, so less games against teams from the NL Central consequently.
Personally, I think this move will take some of the juice out of divisional rivalries, and it will force teams to travel further, but fans will enjoy seeing players they haven’t had a chance to see in person previously.
So, I decided to come up with my own divisions and leagues and realign the MLB myself. Here’s how I shook it up:
Atlantic:
Boston Red Sox
Montreal Expos (expansion team)
New York Mets
New York Yankees
East:
Baltimore Orioles
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
Washington Nationals
Southeast:
Atlanta Braves
Charlotte (expansion team)
Florida Marlins
Tampa Bay Rays
North:
Detroit Tigers
Milwaukee Brewers
Minnesota Twins
Toronto Blue Jays
Upper Midwest:
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
Cincinnati Reds
Cleveland Guardians
Central:
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
St. Louis Cardinals
Texas Rangers
Baja:
Arizona Diamondbacks
Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
West:
Colorado Rockies
Las Vegas Athletics (relocated from Oakland)
San Francisco Giants
Seattle Mariners
Bowden’s and my realignment both place an emphasis on geographic proximity, and on dissolution of leagues. If the NL has a DH at this point and all teams play each other, what’s the point of leagues other than for organizing the playoffs? However, we differ in which cities we think will land expansion teams. We agree that Charlotte will be the site of one, but I can’t envision Nashville with an MLB team, so I put the 32nd club back in a city that’s had a team before– Montreal. I wanted to put them in the same division as the Blue Jays to create a Canadian rivalry, but it didn’t work.
I also predict the Athletics will move to Las Vegas. If the Athletics don’t have concrete plans for a new stadium in the Oakland area within a few seasons, it’s over for them in the Bay Area and they will move if they continue playing.
But let’s go through the highlights of each division:
The Atlantic would be rivalry-heavy, especially for the Yankees. I’m not sure if being in the same division as the Red Sox and Mets would make Yankees fans happy, but that’d be a highly valuable division from a monetary and market standpoint.
The East on paper wouldn’t exactly make eyes-pop, but with time the Orioles and Nationals could become heated rivals– Baltimore is less than 35 miles from DC; it doesn’t make sense why they don’t play more. They would under this realignment.
The Southeast would appear to host the muggiest summer games in the league, but three out of those four teams play (or can play) indoors. I also made an assumption here that the Rays would remain in Tampa. I feel more optimistic about Tampa Bay figuring out a plan for a new (or improved) stadium than Oakland.
The North you could get some cold weather games early in the season, but Milwaukee and Toronto have retractable roofs. Detroit, Milwaukee, and Minnesota may be midwestern cities, but they’re relatively closer to one another than they are to Kansas City or St. Louis.
The Upper Midwest would be the division of Chicago and Ohio. Illinois and Ohio have some similarities. These four teams would save a lot of miles of flying, and it’d place a lot of weight on an inner-city rivalry and inner-state rivalry.
The Central would be the division of the heartlands so to speak, and would be very similar to the Upper Midwest with four teams from two states, but this time Missouri and Texas. Baseball has rich roots in both of those states.
The Baja would encompass the franchises that call the corner of the Southwest home and be the division of the desert. This wouldn’t take away from the budding Dodgers-Padres rivalry either.
The West would include the rest of the four teams who aren’t super close to another team.
It would take another article to figure out how playoffs would work. Oh well. Here’s to enjoying another year of Cardinals-Cubs-Reds-Brewers-Pirates fun.