Here’s How I’d REALIGN 32 MLB teams…

Here’s Brody Brazil. I’ve been loving the voicemails lately. Thanks to all of you who have been sending me great ones at 8334. Brody, call anytime. Don’t worry, I never actually pick up the phone. You leave a message, you have something great to say. If it’s really good, I’ll play it here on the channel. Good morning, Brody. This is Josh from New York. Hey, Josh. So, uh, with the current landscape of Major League Baseball, uh, we’re looking at coming to a collective bargaining agreement negotiation soon. And uh one of the topics that is on people’s minds with this is expansion. The future of Major League Baseball is expansion. They talked about it in the last round of CBA negotiations. They’re probably going to bring it up in this upcoming one. Yep. Uh but one of the questions that’s related to that is what is divisional realignment going to look like? Are they going to stick with the American League and the National League both being continentwide? Are they going to go to a radical realignment with an Eastern Conference and a Western Conference uh like the NBA and the NHL? Are we going to see uh four four team divisions in each league? Are we going to see two eight team divisions in both leagues? I’m curious what your thought thoughts are. What you think would be best for baseball? What you think baseball is more likely to do? I’m uh I’m curious to see what you think. Thank you. Bye, Josh. Thank you. I appreciate the call. First off, I think the number one issue of the upcoming CBA negotiations is going to be salary stuff, competitive balance stuff, a potential salary cap, maybe uh a salary floor. Who knows how all the money stuff’s going to shake out. But you’re right, if it does come to expansion eventually, and that has to be discussed because you’d like to think that within the course of the next CBA, whenever it’s agreed upon, that expansion would likely happen during the course of this next CBA. And so what I want to do here is bust out the map and I’m actually going to drop two additional pins hypothetically if we really really were to add some teams in Portland and in Salt Lake City. Now I know if you’re sitting in Nashville, Tennessee, you’re saying wait a second, what about us? The Orlando Dreamers, wait a second, what about us? I don’t know what else to say. It feels like there are 900 million reasons in Utah and 800 million reasons in Portland why Major League Baseball and their owners might consider allowing a team to go to those places. So, hypothetically, if those are two expansion cities and also if you’re trying to fill out the West a little bit, I mean, if you ever look at baseball and geography here, look at all the teams over here. Look at how few teams are actually basically at the Rockies or or west of the Rockies. And I know the Rockies are east technically of the Rocky Mountains, but you get my point. So if we’re adding two teams out west, I think let’s start off by doing four eight team divisions and then we’ll draw a little north and south to each of them. If you really wanted to have a bunch of four team divisions, I think that’s too small. Like I really want to make it competitive with a group of teams. I like what the NHL has in their divisions with four eight team groups. eight team groups. You understand what I’m saying here? Here’s how I would do it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Seattle, Portland, and I know the Athletics still have the Oakland logo there. They’re playing in Sacramento. Maybe they’re in Vegas. Doesn’t matter. Wherever the Athletics are, that’s where they’re at. Giants, Dodgers, Angels, Padres’s, Diamondbacks. That’s division number one. I’m not going to name them yet, but that’s division number one. I’ll do the next division in blue. I’ll take Salt Lake City. I’ll take Colorado. I’ll take the two Texas teams. I’ll come up here and I’ll take St. Louis, the Cubs and White Sox. That’s a hard line to draw right there, but that’s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 eight teams. There you go. Eight teams. Let me take that little blue dot off the screen off Oklahoma there. Problem is here, like I hate to split up the White Socks and Cubs and Brewers and Twins. Like Brewers and Twins, White Sox, Cubs, you’d think they all fit together, but I really want to keep the Royals and Cardinals together. I want to keep the Cardinals and Cubs together and the Cubs and White Socks together. Oh, by the way, in case you didn’t know, in all of this, I’m eliminating the American and National Leagues, if we’re really doing realignment and we’re trying to create geographical rivalries here, which is, as you can see, what I’m what I’m attempting to do, you don’t need the American and National League. Pitchers don’t hit in the National League anymore. There’s a DH for everybody. There’s no rule difference between the American and National League. So, why do we have it? Let’s basically do East and West. Let’s have four divisions. And you know what? Maybe let’s divide these divisions in half. More on that in just a second. Let’s take the next division, do it in red. So, Twins, Brewers. How did I do this before? I also included the Reds, Braves, Rays, Miami. I came up here with the Guardians and Tigers. I’m going to leave the Jays in that final division. I’m going to keep the two Pennsylvania teams together with the Pirates and Phillies. They’ll be out east, but that is my kind of like dog leg of a third division there. And then the last one, let’s do it in uh I don’t know, orange. Does that work? So you got the you got the Jays, you got the Pirates, the Orioles, the Nats, the Phillies, the Mets, the Yankees, and the Red Sox. That is a small geographic division. I mean, the travel in this division alone is pretty unfair. But I just I don’t exactly know how else to handle it. I mean, look at the travel that this division is doing. Um, actually, I just cleared it all accidentally. That was dumb. Let me draw it again here for you. There’s one. There’s two. There’s three. And one more we’ll do in blue. Here’s four. Okay. The travel is so much different here versus there. That’s just the way it is. Now, you could also, I still think, cut each of these divisions in half, right? You could do that. How would we do this one here? 1 2 3 4. I guess in this one, we could almost kind of do it like that. In this one, we could maybe take See, I’d hate to I’d hate to have Cincinnati and Cleveland in a different one, but we could do that. This one is a cluster out east here. I really don’t know how you do that. Maybe Red Sox, Yankees, Mets, and Phillies, and then everybody else. But look at the geography there. It’s It’s very tough. But I I do think that geography is the best way to do it. I think creating geographical rivalries is the best way to do it. I don’t see the need anymore for American and a national league. This is basically what I would do with Major League Baseball realignment. Let me know what you think in the comments section below. Did I get this right? Did I get it totally wrong? Are there some alterations you could see? I’d love to hear your feedback. Also, a thumbs up on this video helps me to video the channel. Don’t forget to subscribe. I’d love to see you back here next time.

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47 comments

  1. now if st.louis Houston national ( or pirates) was move to green would work.
    2. Tigers need to be blue
    3. brewers and Tigers in red.
    for this one to work.

  2. Realignment needs to happen. There's an AL vs NL game daily, and the DH is universal. The umps aren't differentiated by league anymore. The only differentiation between the leagues now is talent

  3. Your hypothetical East division may as well be nicknamed the Acela division. 6 of the 8 teams can get to one another via Amtrak Acela within a few hours. Pittsburgh and Toronto being the exceptions there.

  7. Good job Brodie. It’s a tough task to realign, but at least you didn’t put the Dallas/Arlington team in the East division like the NFL did after their 2002 realignment

    By the way, it would be cool to do a video revisiting that NFL realignment they did over 20 years ago. What would you have done differently?

  8. I would do two divisions with 8 teams each. The division winner would get a bye into the division series. The second place teams would play a wild card winner from either division in the wild card round.

  10. This is a mathematical solvable problem. One could write an algorithm using a maximal flow model based on some constraints like travel time, travel costs, number of divisions, and a bunch more that smart people would know to give you the ideal map.

  11. Now that there are so many teams and everyone plays everyone, divisions mean almost nothing anymore. How important can divisions be when only one-third of your games are played within your own division now? Before the '93 expansion, interleague play, and realignment, teams would play 90 of their 162 games against their division rivals and the other 72 against the 6 teams in the other division. That meant THREE home and away series against your own division and TWO home and away series against the other division, creating SO many natural rivalries between East and West teams.

  14. I still like the traditional AL/NL separation and would have each league with four 4-team divisions that maintain traditional rivalries while factoring in geography,. For my example, I assume the expansion would take place in Nashville and either Portland or Salt Lake in the west. Tampa and Colorado would switch leagues.
    National League: West – Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Padres, Giants. Central – Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, Cardinals. South – Braves, Reds, Marlins, Rays. East – Nashville, Mets, Phillies, Nationals.
    American League: West – Angels, Athletics, Mariners, Portland/SLC. Mountain – Astros, Rangers, Rockies, Royals. Central – Indians, White Sox, Tigers, Twins. East. – Orioles, Red Sox, Yankees, Blue Jays

  15. I think the only issue will be for metro areas with multiple teams, will the Chicago/LA/NY agree to be in the same conference. In the NHL/NBA, this occurs. But those are leagues where it seems more than half of the teams make the playoffs. In the NFL, the NY/LA teams are in separate conferences. As was SF/OAK prior.

    You would have to redesign the playoff structure as well. Would you add more teams?

  18. Realignment based on geography with no NL and AL? No, no, no, no, no, no … and NO. MLB is not the NBA and the NHL. It would destroy the history of the game already weakened by so much crappy inter-league play. It's also not good from a competitive balance standpoint. Putting the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies and Blue Jays in one division is insane. For 2025 that's the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 9th teams in terms of highest payrolls. And the only reason the Red Sox are 9th is because they've been rebuilding. So you could have one division buying all the high end players in order to compete with each other with only the Dodgers and Padres out west competing for players. And Manfred has been an absolute disaster for MLB so I expect something bad to emerge. If he thinks he's getting a salary cap he's dreaming.

  19. I said this previously here is my idea, and I think that it could actually improve the game. Since there’s no longer a meaningful difference between the American and National Leagues in terms of rules or game-play, why not merge them into one unified league split by geography: East and West. You can still call them “National” and “American” if you want to preserve tradition, but structure it so that East plays East, and West plays West. Like the old days, none shall mix until the World Series. This would eliminate most of the brutal time zone problems: no more 10 p.m. starts for East Coast fans, or early weekday games for West Coast viewers. Players would benefit from more consistent schedules and less cross-country travel. It would fuel local and regional rivalries, possibly increasing local and regional travel which could also help economic development. It would end the meaningless inter-league games that no one asked for. East vs. West, no mixing until the World Series. Simple. Logical. Maybe even brilliant.
    My break down:

    West- Astros, Angels, Athletics, Mariners, Rangers, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Royals, Twins, Cardinals, Cubs, WSox.

    East: Orioles, RSox, Yankees, Rays, Blue Jays, Braves, Marlins, Mets, Phillies, Nats, Guardians, Reds, Tigers, Pirates, Brewers

    (I realize that Milwaukee is more west then East, but I think the cubs and Wsox need to be together.

  22. Go back to the old way. NL East and NL West, AL East and AL West. get rid of inner league, let the home team decide if the DH is used or not. Bring back some tradition. Payoffs would be top 16 teams regardless if AL or NL. Just by record. Cut down the season a bit. How about divisions based of total salary. Rockies, A's White Sox's, Rays..LOL

  23. I'm not OK with elimitinating the AL and NL. They must stay. 32 teams should simply have 4 divisions in each league

    Maybe one or two teams might need to flip from AL to NL (or vice versa), but the Leagues should not be removed.

  24. Location and rivalries should matter.

    I would do 2 leagues and 8 4 team divisions
    Western League
    California: SF, SD, LAA, LAD
    Pacific: Sea, Por, Ari, LVA
    Midwest: Col, Utah, Min, KC
    Central: CWS, CHC, STL, Mil
    Eastern League
    South: Hou, Tex, Mia, TB
    Atlantic: Bos, NYY, NYM, Phi
    North: Det, Tor, Cle, Cin
    Mid: Atl, Bal, Pit, Was

  27. You had a video years ago where you suggested dropping the AL/NL nomenclature (which I think is silly) and I had groups of 4 team divisions. I kept most existing rivalries, prioritized geographical divisions and kept AL/NL. Of course it assumed Nashville and SLC were the expansion teams.

    AL East – Blue Jays, Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles

    AL Central – Guardians, White Sox, Twins, Tigers

    AL Midwest – Rangers, Astros, Rockies, Royals

    AL West – Mariners, Utah, Angels, A's

    NL East -Mets, Phillies, Nationals, Pirates

    NL South – Braves, Nashville, Rays, Marlins

    NL Central – Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Reds

    NL West – Giants, Padres, Dodgers, Diamondbacks

  28. If the MLB are going to expand, they need to add more teams on the west coast to fill in that huge gap before adding teams in Nashville and Orlando. I also agree that there is no need for the American and National Leagues anymore.

  29. I think the caller had 2 questions. You answered what you think it should be but not what you think MLB is more likely to do. I don't think MLB will dump the leagues. That's a lot of history/records to just leave behind. Personally I think they would be better off keeping the two leagues and going back to 2 divisions per league. With all the wildcards now, 2 divisions per league works fine in a 16 team league. Otherwise, I totally agree the West deserves the expansion teams.

  30. Hey Brodie! Always love watching your channel and videos!

    I'm not crazy about getting rid of the AL and NL. Some things that are still a tradition, even if they're like conferences now. Also, MLB has said they want to have an new East team and a new West team. Even though you might be right with the money and finances, I'm not sure that's gonna happen. Here's how I would realign baseball, assuming Nashville and Salt Lake City are the top cities (according to many reports). Curious to see what you think:

    AL East: BOS, NYY, BAL, TOR
    AL North: DET, CHW, MIN, CLE
    AL South: TB, KC, TEX, HOU
    AL West: LAA, SEA, ATH, Salt Lake City

    NL East: NYM, PHI, PIT, CIN
    NL North: CHC, STL, MIL, COL
    NL South: ATL, MIA, WSH, Nashville
    NL West: LAD, SD, SF, AZ

    Schedule: 162 games
    Divisional Games: 13 x 3 = 39
    League Divisional: 6 x 12 = 72
    Interleague Games: 3 x 15 = 45
    Interleague Rival: 6 x 1 = 6
    39 + 72 + 45 + 6 = 162

  31. Unless the competitive balance problem is solved no way you should have Yankees, Mets, Boston, Phillies in the same division. The other 4 teams with them will be destined to live a life of have-nots

  32. I agree that having American and National leagues is no longer necessary. I think splitting up into four divisions as you outlined could work, if you could work out the travel issues.

  39. i hate 4 team divisions but i’d take that over deleting the AL and NL, there is too much history involved in the leagues to just snap them away. The NFL still has its 2 leagues and the MLB is over twice as old. I think the best way is to go back to what the divisions were pre 90s, an East and West division in each league. We have enough western teams now that the Braves and Reds don’t have to be in the west. It works with 32 teams, 34, and even 36 in the distant future. With the way Manfred screwed up the schedule rival teams don’t even play each other enough to warrant tight, geographically linked divisions, it would be different if each team still played 20 games against each division opponent but they don’t. Divisions of 8 also perfectly mimics what baseball was for a long time, AL and NL had 8 teams for 60 years and even in the 1800s almost every league created had 8 teams

  43. I like the idea of realignment, how many teams make the playoffs? Could there be a crossover semi-final so that it possible that the Red Sox/Yankees could play in the world series, or Dodgers/Giants. Think of the most watched world series and the revenue it could generate.

  45. 32 Team Expansion (Realistic given the 2 cities you mentioned)

    AL East
    BAL, BOS, CHW, CLE, DET, NYY, TBR, TOR
    AL West
    HOU, KCR, LVR, LAA, MIN, SEA, TEX, UTAH (or Salt Lake as the name)
    NL East
    ATL, CIN, MIA, MIL, NYM, PHI, PIT, WSH
    NL West
    ARZ, CHC, COL, LAD, POR, SDP, SFG, STL

    I put Milwaukee in the NL East, to keep the Cubs Cardinals rivalry together, & also Milwaukee is further East than Chicago.

    Scheduling (keeping it where every team plays every team)(The schedule is going to stay at 162 games, it isn't changing)
    Interleague: 50 Games (3 games vs 15 teams, 5 vs geographic rival)
    Intraleague: 56 Games (7 Games vs 8 Teams)
    Divisional: 56 Games (8 Games vs 7 Teams)

    Obviously, this lacks divisional games, so if you want a more divisional schedule
    Interleague: 24 Games (3 Games vs 8 Teams)(rotate the teams each year)
    Intraleague: 54 Games (7 Games vs 6 Teams, 6 Games vs 2 Teams)(rotate the teams each year)
    Divisional: 84 Games (12 Games vs 7 Teams)

    For the playoffs just have the 2 division winners be the 1 & 2 seeds, with 4 wild cards, so now each division winner is getting a bye. 8 divisions of 4 teams isn't good, because It would cause really undeserving teams in bad divisions to make the playoffs, & also the division & playoff races would be better in 8 team divisions. I think keeping the AL & NL, & moving to 4 divisions of 8 is the way to go.

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