Besides expanding or contracting, how can MLB create equal divisions of teams?

Question

It just doesn't seem very fair that the NL Central has 6 teams competing for one playoff spot, where as the AL West only has 4 teams competing. I understand why the NL has 16 teams as opposed to the 14 teams in the AL. It's for scheduling purposes. If they were even at 15 teams apeice, there would always be one team in each league with no one to play. But baseball has to find a way to even it out. Expanding the AL to 16 teams and restructuring the divisions seems like the only logical way to do it, but with the addition of two more teams, the talent pool would be worse than it already is. What other solutions are there?

Answer 1

Well, you could move a team, probably Milwaukee, back to the American League and have one inter-league series going on all the time rather than having just about all the teams doing it at the same time. Which team would be put in the AL West is up to somebody else. KC or Milwaukee would be OK.

The talent pool has increased in size by great measure when MLB started signing players from Asia, and of course, just the increase in population would mean more quality athletes.

If the government would do away with the trade embargo with Cuba, then we could expand to four major leagues with teams in the Caribbean and Latin America. Change the playoff structure and have a real World Series.

Answer 2

First off, the talent pool is not any less than it was 50 years ago; it is actually larger with more baseball players to pick from. Simple population numbers in the US along with the tremendous increase in Latin American players as well as the Asian nations will show that. The biggest reason for the perceived shortage of talent is the player's union. Players not hitting or pitching well cannot easily be sent down to the minors. The teams are concerned about bringing up talent too soon and "starting the clock" towards arbitration and later free agency.

The MLB scheduling team has their hands tied. Included in the player's union agreements are limitations on travel. If there were changes in divisions (Kansas City to the AL West and Houston to the NL West) it would increase the travel for all teams. It would also hurt the local television ratings and dollars with more games on the West Coast as compared to now.

The NHL has tried to make the divisions more aligned with geography and you see how well it has helped their business.

Right now it must be aggravating for the fans of teams that must compete with more teams for the Division Championship. But no one in the NL Central is playing that well anyways---everybody but the Pirates and Reds have a real chance at the Division.

Answer 3

They can't. It works as is, so why fix what is working well. There is NOTHING unfair at all!!

Chow!!