Would this be better for Major League Baseball? Looks more even, doesn't it?

Question

American League

East
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Baltimore Orioles
Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Central
Toronto Blue Jays
Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Indians
Milwaukee Brewers

Midwest
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
Louisville Sluggers (expansion team)
Kansas City Royals

West
Los Angeles Angels
Fremont Athletics (moving to Fremont, CA in a few years)
Seattle Mariners
Texas Rangers

National League

East
New York Mets
Atlanta Braves
Washington Nationals
Florida Marlins

Central
Philadelphia Phillies
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cincinnati Reds
Indianapolis Comets (expansion team)

Midwest
Chicago Cubs
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
St. Louis Cardinals

West
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Francisco Giants
San Diego Padres
Houston Astros

Every team will play their division rivals 12 times and every other league rival 6 times. All teams will play 18 interleague games.

This would be a good way to expand the league and still just keep the season as long as 162 games.

There are millions of talented players graduating high school and college. Maybe each team should hire more scouts to search for talent.

Think of it this way.
If this does happen, it can't expand even further. A 32 team league would be perfect for MLB.

About the Brewers,
yeah they should keep them in the National League Central and put the new expansion team i call the Indianapolis Comets into the American League Central.

For the Athletics moving to Fremont, CA, why not just change their name to the California Athletics?

If I mail this idea to Major League Baseball, they might do it. Just look at how even the scheduling would be!!!

I just realized I made a mistake in the scheduling.
I said the teams would play their division rivals 12 times. It really should be 24 times. I counted the games and now it adds up to 162 games.

To Yankee Dude:
Why not let the Phillies play the Pirates 24 times in the Central Division? They're both from Pennsylvania.

Putting Houston in the West Division. I did that to match the American League's Texas Rangers, who are also in the West Division.

Answer 1

Looks good to me except I'd move the Phillies to the East and the Braves to the Central.

Answer 2

If you had Louisville and Indianapolis, you might as well just shut the door and turn out the lights in Cincinnati. I doubt the Cardinals, Cubs and White Sox would put up with teams there either. You could expect all four of those teams to exercize their veto powers for an attempt at expansion in either Indy or the 'Ville, athough Louisville once had the Eclipse (which were merged with the Pirates, since they had the same owner).

You left out the two most talked about cities that didn't get the Expos, Portland, Oregon and San Antonio Texas.

It would be nice to not have my team in a six team division; however, bottom line for me is that expansion of MLB baseball is a very bad idea. The last expansion was a bad idea.

Answer 3

Its an interesting set-up. I like the logic behind it.

But, pitching was diluted pretty badly when MLB expanded in 1993 and 1998. So adding another 24 mediocre pitchers to the league may not be a good thing.

I would relocate the Marlins and Devil Rays out of Florida. It is clear that the citizens of Florida care nothing about their baseball teams. Especially the Marlins - 2 world championships in the past 10 years. Shameful the way the people of south Florida treats that team.

I would also end interleague play. The novelty has long since worn off. I would even end the wild card, go back to two divisions, one round of playoffs, but I'm sure I'm in the minority on that.

Answer 4

expansion is not good for MLB right now.

drop interleague, its stupid.

3 divisions/league keep the wild card, it keeps more teams in the race late in the year, which draws support and excitment,

milwaukee was a NL town with the Braves and the Brewers chose to move, it actually inbalanced the league, but oh well.

washington has always been a AL town until 2 years ago, so they go back to the AL.

Toronto moves to AL Central. Kansas City moves to AL West. I wouldn't be oppossed of moving the Blue Jays to Salt Lake/Sacremento/San Antonio etc. and keeping KC in the Central. Also I wouldn't be opposed to keeping Toronto in the AL East and moving Tampa Bay to a city in the west as they have little support.

Pitt moves to AL East to with rival Philadelphia. this puts NL and AL back into balance 5:5:5 instead of 5:6:5 and 5:5:4, and makes a 1:1 league comparssion instead of 16:14.

Answer 5

It looks like a more even setup, but I'm not sure adding more expansion teams is the best way to go. The overall talent level of teams has been watered down with so many teams already. Though I'm not sure how possible it would be due to scheduling conflicts and time changes, I think it would be interesting to see the MLB teams compete with the Japanese league teams. That could be in the form of the World Series Champion facing the Japanese League Champions, or play these during the season like interleague games. It wouldn't go over with the Players Union, but wouldn't that be great to see? Back to the question, if they did end up adding teams to MLB I would like to see one in the Latin countries. There are so many Latin players, I have a feeling they would love to be able to play for their hometown team. Their culture is also seems to be lively and fun, so I bet they would have great fans too. I would love to go to a baseball game held in a Latin country.

Answer 6

Nice effort - but bad results. Moving into 4 divisions are a bad idea.
1) Indianapolis cannot support a team. Louisville either. They need to get rid of a few small market teams (like Tampa), not add more. That is a bad idea.
2) Time Zones are wrong. Houston is not a west coast team on west coast time. They would have to travel too much, too long, and with too many time zone changes
3) Milwaukee does not go back to the AL. They do not deserve to be changed to the AL.
4) No interleague play would be needed. If we went with your idea, there is no need to play interleague anymore.
But I do like the idea of no wild-card. That way - only Boston or New York would make the playoffs. That would make ESPN cry.

Answer 7

Leave the Astros in the NL Midwest and the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West. As for the Brewers, leave them in the NL Central.

Expansion teams? Do you really think baseball needs more expansion teams?

Answer 8

One, MLB doesn't really think or try to do things logically.

Two, Texas and Houston really shouldn't be in the West but where do you stick them. Maybe a new division South with Houston, Texas, Florida and Tampa. That way maybe the Rangers could win a few games.

Answer 9

I think this will happen eventually for baseball, but I don't think you can force expansion. The D-Rays will need to be moved, making it harder to get a 31st much less a 32nd expansion team. I like the setup for the scheduling, but I think this is a few years off at best. 32 teams does work really well for the NFL, why not baseball?

Answer 10

The Pirates and the Phillies in the same division would be an excellent change, but why have Arizona in "midwest" and Houston in the west?

FYI, Arizona is right next to California.