{"id":1787,"date":"2011-07-13T13:32:10","date_gmt":"2011-07-13T17:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2015-07-15T14:50:59","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T18:50:59","slug":"re-alignment-the-easiest-solution-will-be-to-add-2-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1787","title":{"rendered":"Re-alignment? The easiest solution will be to ADD 2 teams."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bud Selig failing to hear calls for him to retire. Photo: ajc.com<\/p><\/div>\n

(Note: if some of this looks familiar, it is because I started this post in a long-winded answer<\/a> in a recent “My answers to Boswell’s chat” post).<\/p>\n

Ever since Buster Olney<\/strong> posted a June 12th Article<\/a> raising the topic of “Divisional Realignment,” every baseball columnist and blogger on the internet seemingly has posted their own 2 cents on which team should move leagues and why, opined about how year-long interleague play would be the death of baseball, and other interesting topics (my very fast 2 cents on the pressing questions: move Houston to AL West, who cares about interleague play, and make DH standard in both leagues).\u00a0 The topic came up again at the all-Star game, with Selig talking about “minor” realignment<\/a> in the future and other topics.<\/p>\n

However, what if re-alignment isn’t the best solution to the problem at hand?\u00a0 Yes, it is more difficult to make the playoffs from the NL in general (by virtue of having 16 teams to the AL’s 14) and in the NL central specifically (with 6 teams and a lot of money being spent by a couple of them).\u00a0 Certainly as compared to the AL west with only 4 teams.<\/p>\n

Instead of going two leagues of 15 teams each, why don’t we just ADD two more teams to the AL?<\/p>\n

If we’re already talking about adding a 5th playoff team to each side via a 2nd wild-card, why not add 2 more teams and have an NFL-style league configuration and playoff structure.\u00a0 8 divisions of 4 teams each, with 4 division winners and two wildcards in each league.\u00a0 The two wild cards play the lesser two divisional winners, much like in the NFL, giving the two best divisional winners a weekend bye and some semblance of an advantage.\u00a0 If the season ended on (say) a Wednesday, the two wild-card series occur Fri-Sat-Sun with the divisional playoffs to run starting the following Tuesday.\u00a0 It isn’t adding that much time to the playoffs and should be doable.<\/p>\n

(Note: other pundits have mentioned this same idea.\u00a0 Keith Law<\/strong> and a blog run by The Common Man<\/strong><\/a> have both made mention of the possibility of expanding.\u00a0 Baseball America just posted a missive that leads to the same concept (equal teams in both leagues) but suggests contracting two teams<\/a> (can’t see that happening, sorry.\u00a0 Too much value in each team to just get rid of them).<\/p>\n

Lets talk about the logistics and questions of this:<\/p>\n

Which two cities get new teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The two current largest metropolitan markets without major league baseball teams right now are Portland and San Antonio, and for a variety of reasons they make the most sense to select.\u00a0 The San Antonio-Austin corridor is growing rapidly and has a large population base of immigrants that enjoys baseball.\u00a0 Portland is a large sophisticated area that only has one major sports franchise, and has a natural wealthy owner in Paul Allen<\/strong> to buy and own the franchise.<\/p>\n

Honestly, the two largest US or Canadian cities without baseball are Montreal and Vancouver, but after the complete debacle of the Expos leaving Montreal I’m guessing that Canadian baseball will never get an expansion team again.\u00a0 Vancouver couldn’t keep an NBA team so I’m doubting baseball makes sense up there either.\u00a0 Mexico has a well attended Mexican League, with attendance in the 350,000 for some teams, but the exchange rate issues and current safety issues in the country make it a no-go.<\/p>\n

If we were being completely realistic in terms of\u00a0 a population per baseball team, then both New York and Los Angeles really would be the two expansion targets.\u00a0 You could put a team back in Brooklyn (or perhaps Long Island) and then put a team in the Riverside area (which by itself has a larger population than places like Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Diego).\u00a0 However, none of the teams in either market is likely to give up any of their local revenues or TV networks to allow in a third team.\u00a0 So we have to move elsewhere.<\/p>\n

A slight potential issue: Portland doesn’t currently support even a AAA franchise.\u00a0 San Antonio\/Austin supports several baseball teams and would be a more “sure thing” (The San Antonio Missions is a AA team and the Round Rock Express, north of Austin, is AAA).\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t believe Portland has any semblance of any pro baseball team; the closest I could find is a Short-A team in Spokane.\u00a0 If you’re using AAA attendance as a bench mark (here’s links to the International league attendance figures<\/a>, and the Pacific Coast League<\/a>), then your best bets are cities like Louisville, Indianapolis, Sacramento and Albuquerque.\u00a0 Of these cities, only Indianapolis and Sacramento are really large enough MSAs to make sense.\u00a0 Moving to any California city is problematic because of the current budget nightmare there.\u00a0 Indianapolis is interesting but may struggle to find a fan base sitting in-between Cincinnati and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Lots of people talk about somewhere in North Carolina as a potential spot.\u00a0 An area of the country far away from its two closest MLB teams (Washington and Atlanta).\u00a0 Durham hosts a AAA franchise ably enough.\u00a0 The problem would be (as pointed out by Baseball America pundits, who are based in the Research Triangle) that the Triangle area supports a large number of minor league teams, a thriving set of collegiate baseball programs, and a big wood bat league, and a MLB team would probably harm attendance at all of these well supported clubs.<\/p>\n

So lets assume for the sake of this argument we’re expanding to Portland and San Antonio.<\/p>\n

How would we change the divisional structures to move to 8 divisions of 4 teams each?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The American League is much easier to re-configure than the NL.\u00a0 Here’s how the AL might shake out with two new teams and 4 divisions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n
AL East<\/td>\nBoston<\/td>\nNY<\/td>\nBaltimore<\/td>\nToronto<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AL South<\/td>\nTampa Bay<\/td>\nTexas<\/td>\nKansas City<\/td>\nSan Antonio<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AL Central<\/td>\nCleveland<\/td>\nDetroit<\/td>\nChicago<\/td>\nMinnesota<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
AL West<\/td>\nSeattle<\/td>\nLos Angeles<\/td>\nOakland<\/td>\nPortland<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This plan would preserve most of the major rivalries in the AL while creating some new ones.\u00a0 The AL East and its two juggernaut teams continue to do battle 18 times a year, but the addition of two wild cards means that Toronto and Baltimore have no more excuses.\u00a0 Tampa moves out of the AL east but goes against two like-minded franchises in terms of building on youth in Texas and Kansas City.\u00a0 The AL South has a bit more travel, but Tampa’s strong TV ratings should be maintained with 8pm start times instead of 7pm during its many central time zone trips.\u00a0 San Antonio builds an instant in-division rivalry with their Dallas neighbors.\u00a0 The AL Central keeps its four core teams that have gotten used to competing against each other and are all very geographically close.\u00a0 Finally, the AL west gets an instant Seattle-Portland rivalry while keeping all its games on Pacific time.<\/p>\n

The National League has a couple more re-configuration challenges, as we’ll see.\u00a0 Here’s one potential configuration:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
NL East<\/td>\nPhiladelphia<\/td>\nAtlanta<\/td>\nNY Mets<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL “South”<\/td>\nFlorida<\/td>\nHouston<\/td>\nSt. Louis<\/td>\nColorado<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL Central<\/td>\nMilwaukee<\/td>\nCincinnati<\/td>\nPittsburgh<\/td>\nChicago<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL West<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\nArizona<\/td>\nLos Angeles<\/td>\nSan Diego<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The NL East, Central and West all make plenty of sense.\u00a0 The only fault of this plan is what to do with the collection of teams that end up in the NL “South.”\u00a0 Clearly, Colorado is not a “southern” team and is two timezones away from its divisional rivals.\u00a0 This means a lot of divisional games for Florida end up starting at 9pm.\u00a0 This plan also moves your marquee NL franchise (St. Louis) away from its longtime rivals in Chicago. It may be better to try to maintain a bit more geographical sense and keep rivals together.<\/p>\n

You could do something a bit more radical to NL teams and longer term divisions, like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n
NL East<\/td>\nPhiladelphia<\/td>\nPittsburgh<\/td>\nNY Mets<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL South<\/td>\nFlorida<\/td>\nHouston<\/td>\nSt. Louis<\/td>\nAtlanta<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL Central<\/td>\nMilwaukee<\/td>\nCincinnati<\/td>\nColorado<\/td>\nChicago<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL West<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\nArizona<\/td>\nLos Angeles<\/td>\nSan Diego<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Here, the Pirates join the NL east, which joins the two Pennsylvania teams together for a nice little rivalry, plus keeps the four closest North east teams together.\u00a0 Atlanta joins the south allow Florida and Atlanta to stay close together.\u00a0\u00a0 Houston and St. Louis are relatively close as well.\u00a0 This plan eliminates Colorado from having the 2-time zone divisional rivals; there’s just no natural spot for Colorado to go unless you completely re-made the league and created a 4-team division with Colorado and the 3 Texas teams.\u00a0 The only downside to this plan is that St. Louis loses its divisional history with long-time NL teams Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Chicago.<\/p>\n

Here’s another attempt, trying to keep the four longest running NL central teams together somehow:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n
NL East<\/td>\nPhiladelphia<\/td>\nPittsburgh<\/td>\nNY Mets<\/td>\nWashington<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL Central<\/td>\nColorado<\/td>\nHouston<\/td>\nAtlanta<\/td>\nFlorida<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL Midwest<\/td>\nMilwaukee<\/td>\nCincinnati<\/td>\nSt. Louis<\/td>\nChicago<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NL West<\/td>\nSan Francisco<\/td>\nArizona<\/td>\nLos Angeles<\/td>\nSan Diego<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This may be your best solution.\u00a0 Florida and Atlanta stick together but must travel to Colorado.\u00a0 The NL Midwest now has four of the oldest teams in the league staying together.\u00a0 Colorado, Houston and Florida stay together, as three of the newest teams in the league.<\/p>\n

Would the various rooting interests all approve 2 more teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Probably.\u00a0 Here’s several groups who have input:<\/p>\n