{"id":19196,"date":"2025-08-24T10:36:34","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19196"},"modified":"2025-08-24T10:36:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T14:36:36","slug":"john-smoltzs-ideas-for-expansion-are-awesome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=19196","title":{"rendered":"John Smoltz&#8217;s ideas for Expansion are awesome"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19198\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Smoltz-John-braves-via-atlanta-parent.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Hall of Famer and big baseball thinker John Smoltz.  Photo via Atlanta Parent<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18360\">talked about Manfred&#8217;s expansion floating last week<\/a>, and lots of pundits out there are doing the same thought exercises related to where two new teams might pop up (Salt Lake City and Nashville &#8230; or maybe Portland and Charlotte), and then how we&#8217;d realign to go to an NFL-style 8 division format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, I got fed a little interview with John Smoltz, hall of fame Braves pitcher and now excellent broadcaster, and he had some awesome ideas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s his proposal:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fewer Divisions<\/strong>, not More.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don&#8217;t go 8 divisions of 4 teams each &#8230; go 4 divisions of 8 teams each. Then, keep the divisional focus in scheduling and make the adjustments so you&#8217;re more geographically sound. So, borrowing from my previous post, we could combine some of my proposed divisions to look something like this<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AL East\/Southeast: <strong>Boston, Toronto, New York, Baltimore<\/strong> plus <strong>Kansas City, Colorado, Houston, Texas<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AL Central\/West: <strong>Minnesota, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago<\/strong> and <strong>Seattle, Salt Lake City, LA, Oakland\/Las Vegas<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>NL East\/Southeast: <strong>Philly, Pittsburgh, New York, Washington<\/strong> and <strong>Miami, Tampa, Nashville, Atlanta<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>NL Central\/West: <strong>Milwaukee, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis<\/strong> and <strong>LA, Arizona, San Diego, San Francisco<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Honestly, i&#8217;d just abandon the geographical terms and go with some NHL-style division names.  I&#8217;d probably pick four historical names for the divisions with ties to one of the teams in that division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the AL Ruth Division for the AL East<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the AL Cobb Division for the Central\/West <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the NL Aaron Division for the NL East division<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>the NL Mays Division for the NL Central\/West<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Each team in these divisions play each other in 3 home\/away series (that makes for 18 games * 7 opponents = 126 games), then you get one 3-game set against each team in opposite AL division alternating home\/away year by year (8*3 = 24 games), then that leaves 12 games\/4 series that can either go against your designated NL rival or maybe like the NFL you rotate around chunks of the opposite league and play exactly 4 of them each year on a rotating basis. Something like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, this isn&#8217;t the awesome part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Declare First Half and Second half winners!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brilliant. Winners of both halves get byes in the October playoffs, then are joined with Wild Cards determined somehow (that&#8217;s the hard part).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The real brilliance is this: by having a first half and a second half, you get stuff we don&#8217;t have now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A playoff race from Mid June to Mid July that we don&#8217;t have now with real implications.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Another playoff race at the end of the year which we have now.  We have a playoff race now of course in September, but this one won&#8217;t have the same feel since the first half winners won&#8217;t be part of it necessarily.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Teams that finished dead last in the first half don&#8217;t have to &#8220;give up&#8221; at the trade deadline and can regroup.  This is his big reason: he&#8217;s tired of seeing teams give up in July.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If a team wins both halves, they get a playoff bye or some other incentive.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wild Cards can be given based on several factors; 2nd place teams in the races, or if a team manages to have the best overall record but doesn&#8217;t win either half they are guaranteed a playoff spot as well.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s assume that we want the same number of playoff teams that the 32-team expansion\/NFL style schedule dictates; that being 6 teams.  Here&#8217;s how this could look:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AL East 1st Half Winner<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AL East 2nd Half Winner<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AL West 1st Half Winner<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>AL West 2nd Half Winner<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Two AL Wild Cards: the two teams with the best full season records, or perhaps the two teams with the best individual half records.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Playoffs could go like this<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Two best half records get byes.  If they&#8217;re the same team, go to next best team.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If same team wins both halves, you&#8217;d go with 2nd best team.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Wild cards play into the two lowest ranked half winning teams.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It would take some noodling to figure out the wildcards  honestly.  Maybe you just go 1st half winner versus 2nd half winner and eliminate wildcards  &#8230; though this is a revenue non-starter since playoffs generate so much cash for the owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some thoughts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>what do you th ink?  Do you like half winners?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We talked about Manfred&#8217;s expansion floating last week, and lots of pundits out there are doing the same thought exercises related to where two new teams might pop up (Salt Lake City and Nashville &#8230; or maybe Portland and Charlotte), and then how we&#8217;d realign to go to an NFL-style 8 division format. However, I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19199,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196\/revisions\/19199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}