I don’t know if you saw the SI article about floating realignment:
One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Indians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.
Obviously that’s a terrible idea.
Here are my choices for re-alignment, in order:
1. Â Leave it alone
2. Â Go back to two leagues. Â No playoffs, no wild cards, no DH, the Cubs play day games and the Giants move back to Manhattan. Â Obviously everyone but me hates this idea.
3. Â Re-align to goose the rivalries and maximize the fun. Â Years ago my fantasy football league got so big that I proposed such a scheme. Â I enjoyed playing Pat more than playing Scott who I didn’t really know. Â Instead of picking the schedule out of a hat, we made divisions based upon who hung out together – you played YOUR buddies, not your buddy’s friends. Â Now we apply that to baseball.
“Patrick Division” (for those of you of a certain age you know what it means and yes I know Boston wasn’t in it.)
- Mets
- Yankees
- Red Sox
- Phillies
- Toronto
Toronto unfortunately has to go somewhere, and it’s not fair to keep the O’s and strand the Nats. Â Mets fans can come to hate Boston and Yankees fans can learn to hate Philly. Â Nice easy road-trips for 4 of the fanbases, and like I said Toronto has to go somewhere.
Incredibly Obvious Pacific Division
- Los Angeles of Los Angeles
- Los Angeles of Anaheim
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Oakland
Is there anything to argue about here? Â No. Â It’s perfect.
The southwest division:
- Texas
- Houston
- Colorado
- Phoenix
- Seattle: sorry but who told you to be so far north?
This one is a little messy for the Mariners but the two Texas teams together makes sense, as do Colorado and Arizona geographically. Â In 25 years the San Anotonio Mariners will love it.
The central division:
- White Sox
- Cubs
- Brewers
- Cardinals
- Royals
Not bad, right? Â The Chicago fans hate each other, everyone hates a team associated with Bud Selig, the Cubs still get to hate on the Cardinals, and the Royals get dragged into some Missouri rivalry I may be making up.
The coal division
- Indians
- Reds
- Pirates
- Twins
- Tigers
The Twins are already with Detroit and Cleveland now so you can’t nitpick that. Â The Reds and Indians both play in Ohio. Â I can throw a frisbee from Pittsburgh to Cleveland and there’s no jumbo market in this division. Go ahead someone and win it.
Southeast division
- Braves
- Miami
- Tampa
- Baltimore
- Washington
I don’t care about any of these teams and they sort of all play down there somewhere.
That’s it. Â I’m done. Â You know how many tweaks I had to make? Â None. Â It’s just obvious if you lay it out. Believe me, I killed lots and lots of time in college classes re-aligning sports leagues. Â This plan is a winner.
Schedule:
Play 18 games against your 4 division rivals = 72 games
9 games against two other divisions. Â Each years these rotate, like the NFL. Â = 90 games.
Total = 162 games. Â All of Barry Bonds records still stand.
I will leave it to someone else to name the leagues/conferences/divisions/whatever.
Unfortunately all teams will have the DH. Â That battle has been lost from here to Japan.
On twitter yesterday (@metspolice) some fans thought the Mets’ division was too tough. Â What do you think of the plan? Â Again my first choice is leave it alone.