A few months ago I posted about this same topic, but now that Manfred himself has sent speculation into a frenzy I wanted to revisit.

Originally, I thought Tampa Bay would relocate to Nashville and we’d get an additional two expansion teams including a Raleigh/Charlotte NC team. With the Rays looking like they want to stay in Florida, I’ve adjusted course.

The main goals with my exercise I think are in line with what the MLB would realistically like to do:

  • add an expansion team in the best baseball hungry TV markets in the southeast and northwest in Nashville and Portland (SLC also an option, but Portland has a huge market, population, and historical baseball presence)

  • move to 4-team geographical divisions to benefit rivalries, travel efficiency, and timezone pairing for better broadcast scheduling

  • MAINTAIN the American and National leagues for historical value (we know there’s no difference between the two now, but still). This will provide the opportunity for 2-team cities to still separate their teams.

This requires some teams switching between AL/NL to be possible, but that has been done before and I’ve chosen to switch teams that would actually benefit (MIN vs. MIL becomes a natural rivalry) and don’t have strong historical rivalries to do the switching.

New AL: Washington Nationals, Colorado Rockies
New NL: Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays

With a goal to maintain and reignite rivalries (ex. DET vs. TOR), while going back to something similar to the division-heavy schedule. The only real loser I see here as far as having rivals stripped away is the Braves, as they lose their main rivals as they compete with the low-payroll MIA and TB in the new NL South, but there’s opportunity to build a huge new bitter rivalry with Nashville. The new NL East still maintains great history even without the Braves, as NYM and PHI stay while joined by two of the oldest NL teams in CIN and PIT. The Rockies finally get away from the NL West and might have a snowballs chance at competing in the AL, where the “South” division is geographically more of a “mid-southwest”.

Overall thoughts and discussion?

25 comments

  1. This one is decent. I guess I’d be fine with having the Nats being an AL team, though it would destroy the rivalry with the Phillies, but I guess we could compete with the Orioles for third place. 

    I do like the idea of calling a Nashville team the Stars, because I think there should be at least one team actually named after a Negro League team.

  2. Best one I’ve seen so far. In agreement that the AL/NL should somehow remain and not just devolve into an Eastern and Western conference. Matches what the NFL did to maintain AFC and NFC (yes, I realize there is significantly less travel considerations for that league).

  3. I like this better than most proposals I’ve seen. I like that there aren’t more than two big-market teams per division, and I like the proposed nationals vs. orioles rivalry. Blue jays lose the yankees rivalry, but I think being in the same division as the tigers nearly makes up for it. Braves and mariners would get easy division wins presumably.

  4. to be honest, i like this better than the one imagining that’s been floating around where all the California teams are their own division

  6. There’s a lot of these floating around out there, but rest assured, Manfred will use none of them. He will come up with the WORST possible plan imaginable and implement it on his way out the door.

  8. As a Mets fan, I welcome our new division and thank the Braves for a generation of misery.

  10. I think for teams like Pittsburgh, relegation should be in Play. Let’s see how Bob Nutting likes the income from a season in the Pioneer league Eastern division.

  12. Would I miss the Yankees and Red Sox, yes. But competing with Atlanta and Miami is a definite plus.

  13. Pretty solid, except I would put Toronto in AL East, Washington in NL East, Cincy in NL North and Minn in AL North. This reduces the amount of teams switching between AL and NL and keeps current division rivalries more in tact.

  14. this isn’t bad, but it’s funny to have the Nationals in the American League, given that back in the day (way back), newspapers used to call teams by their league affiliation.

  16. The divisions could even get fun names like Great Lakes Division, Sweet Tea Division and Cowboy Division and have some sort of corporate sponsor, naturally (not that I really want that but MLB will think of it). This also makes me think they could swap AZ and the Angels to make an all California division

  17. This doesn’t look half bad. I do appreciate that you put cross-town teams in the separate leagues.

  18. This is pretty close to how I do it in Out of the Park Baseball, and your travel explanations make even more sense.

  20. 1.) What would it take for the Houston Astros to rejoin the National League?

    2.) A team based in the Nashville, Tennessee, or Charlotte, North Carolina, areas should be an American League team. An American League team would create competition with the National League’s Atlanta Braves.

  21. I haven’t taken a deep dive into this, but of all the ones I’ve seen posted in my X feed I like one the best because the alignments make sense and because as a Rangers fan I’ve come to strongly dislike the West Coast games.

  25. Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings time (except on the Navajo reservation), so we’re actually at the same time as Cali for the entire baseball season.

Leave a Reply