MLB ponders realignment, moving NL team to AL (or could they possibly add 2 teams?)

cbssportsline.com ^ | 6-11-11 | By Evan Brunell

[rawhide]

As Major League Baseball continues to discuss possible realignment, one idea that has come up is going to a league with 15 teams per league, reports ESPN's Buster Olney.

Currently, the National League has 16 teams and the AL 14 for scheduling purposes. Should baseball go to two 15-team leagues, that would likely require interleague play every day of the season. Given baseball likes to treat interleague play as an event, that could dilute the appeal of interleague play to the point it would no longer be a moneymaker. However, there is still real resistance to the idea which has not been presented to owners yet, although the player's union is reportedly open to it.

"I'd still say the odds of it happening are less than 50-50," the source said.

CBSSports.com's Danny Knobler says that players are open to it because they are not happy about AL West teams having a 25 percent chance of making the playoffs, the NL Central just 18 percent and the rest all at 20 percent.

To switch to a 15-team alignment, one team from the NL would have to move to the AL. According to Olney, two highly-ranked executives think the Astros could receive the call in order to tap into a rivalry with the Texas Rangers. Picking the Astros would also allow baseball to remove one team from the NL Central and slot Houston into the AL West, which would address the issue of playoff percentages.

[buccaneer81]

heck with all the troubles with gangs at Dodger Stadium, maybe they might look to move east????,

That's a scandal, the situation at Dodger Stadium. I've been there five or six times, last time in 1999. Always a great experience then.

[Alberta's Child]

Thanks for clarifying that. I always assume that some of those mid-sized California cities are part of the state’s larger metro areas.

[trumandogz]

Not kddlng at all.

Games should be 3-2 and 1-0 games would be even better.

Moreover, MLB requires rarest talent in sports.

More teams dilute the talent.

Diluted talent dilutes the game and dilutes the records.

[Alberta's Child]

I can assure you that very few folks in Calgary would want to sit in a domed stadium on a summer evening to watch a baseball game. In southern Alberta, summer is the season for getting outside as much as possible.

Edmonton is actually the better city for baseball, since the summers are warm at its lower elevation.

To be honest with you, I don't see either of these cities offering much for Major League Baseball. Remember, the NHL teams in those two cities have had some financial difficulties over the years. What makes anyone think baseball is going to succeed there?

[buccaneer81]

In ‘79 my high school, Lynn Classical, played in and won the division High School Super Bowl and it was there.

Needham High, '81.

[Alberta's Child]

There’s no way MLB would put a franchise in Mexico anytime soon. The country is poor, and paying players salaries in U.S. dollars while collecting revenue in Mexican pesos is going to drive a team out of business in less than five years.

[Falcon28]

I like the idea of having 32 teams like the NFL. Each league has a clean four divisions of four teams. Baseball ain't working in Tampa, they should move. There's no reason for Pitt. and Houston to be in the same division. Portland would make a nice natural rivalry with Seattle, but I'm not sure Portland could support a team. Colorado, with that huge park belongs in the AL with the DH. The South could support a couple more teams. Here's my proposal:

AL EAST – NYY, Bosox, Toronto, Baltimore
AL NORTH – Chisox, Minn, Detroit, Cleveland
AL SOUTH – Texas, KC, OKC (expansion), Houston
AL WEST – Oakland, LAA, Seattle, Colorado

NL EAST – NYM, Philly, Pitt, WashDC
NL NORTH – ChiCubs, Milw, St. Louis, Cincy
NL SOUTH – ATL, Florida, Carolina (move from Tampa), Nashville (expansion)
NL WEST – LAD, SanFran, SanDiego, AZ

[Alberta's Child]

San Juan has the same problem Mexico City has: It’s a poor area relative to the major U.S. markets, and wouldn’t be able to generate enough revenue to support the salaries needed to field a competitive major league roster.

[raybbr]

They can’t fill the stadia now. Why would they add teams?

[buccaneer81]

That NL North of yours would in some years be the most fun in the sport, in others they might all finish below .500.

[raybbr]

As a reluctantly offered compromise, remove the pitcher from the batting line-up in both leagues and dump the DH.

How do you do that? Eight batters? That's ridiculous. Let the pitchers bat. In the AL they plunk guys all the time because they know they can't get hit.

[scrabblehack]

I like it.

6 divisions of 5 teams each.

Let’s see...
6 series against your own division.
2 series against teams in your league not in your division.

During intradivisional play, the odd team out would be playing the opposite league.

Say Mets vs. Phils, Nats vs. Braves, Yanks vs. Bosox, O’s vs. Jays, then Marlins would play Rays.
The next series might be Mets vs. Nats, Phils vs. Marlins,
Yanks vs. O’s, and Bosox vs. Rays. Jays would play Braves.

If you wanted to minimize travel, there would be one team in the opposite league a team would play twice (Yanks-Mets; Cubs-Chisox, etc.)

But then there would be one series left — I figure this one would rotate around the rest of the opposite league. So it would take 10 years to play every team in the opposite league.

The other option would be to not play that one team in the opposite league twice; then it would take 5 years to play every team.

[Alberta's Child]

I like a 32-team league, but with an interesting twist. Baseball, more than any other sport, is ideally suited to a multi-tiered system of leagues similar to what you see in European soccer leagues. How about two eight-team "Tier I" leagues (American League and National League) and two eight-team "Tier II" leagues (American Association and National Association, or something like that).

At the end of each season, the top AL and NL teams play each other in the World Series. The last-place team in each "Tier I" league gets dropped to "Tier II" the following season, while the two teams that compete for the "Tier II" championship get promoted to the top tier.

This enables smaller cities like Pittsburgh and Kansas City to keep their big-league franchises, while at the same time putting an end to the silly notion that they can field teams that belong in the same league as the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc. every season.

[rawhide]

Never knew the soccer leagues did that in Europe? Seemed like a very strange concept, at least to me?

[Verginius Rufus]

Of course the only reason the two leagues are imbalanced is they moved the Brewers from the AL to the NL about the time they added the last two expansion teams (Tampa and Arizona).

[Alberta's Child]

The major flaw with inter-league play is that a team's record for the season can come down to the quality of the teams they play in the other league in that year. This was illustrated some years ago (maybe in the first couple of years of inter-league play) when the New York Mets had the best record in baseball in their intra-league games, but did so poorly in their inter-league games (they played the Yankees and Red Sox six times apiece that year, if I remember correctly) that they didn't even make the playoffs.

[rawhide]

That was Bud’s big ego in play there, for he wanted his Brewers in the NL. He screwed things up!

[Alberta's Child]

That’s how they maintain fan interest in smaller cities that can’t afford to pay huge salaries on a year-in, year-out basis but can occasionally put together the right combination of good players to jump into the top tier and be competitive for a couple of seasons with the most popular teams.

[muir_redwoods]

In all seriousness what is objectively “ridiculous” about an 8-man line up? It’s not like you’re going to have seven men on base and run out of hitters. If you get three men on base the othe five are either going to make three outs or drive at least two men in.

[sean327]

Everyone will call me a nut job for suggesting Albuquerque, but here is my argument.
Albuquerque has been the home for the Dodgers and Marlins AAA farm club for decades. They started off as the Albuquerque Dukes, and are now the Isotopes. There has always been great attendance, and the ballpark has been redone recently. It’s a beautifull stadium and there is room to expand it for more seating. There is plenty of parking as the University of New Mexico football stadium and the famed Pit are accross the street. Albuquerque doen’t have the distraction of other proffesional teams. I believe there would be great support for an MLB team in New Mexico. You also have the potential for great rivalries already built in with the Diamondbacks, Rockies, Padres and Rangers. Albuquerque is also a very good TV market.

[proudpapa]

Portland, Oregon is the largest urban area in the US w/o a major league team.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas

[Mariner]

"Games should be 3-2 and 1-0 games would be even better."

You just described nearly every Giants game played this year and last.

[KarlInOhio]

Never knew the soccer leagues did that in Europe? Seemed like a very strange concept, at least to me?

A friend who is a soccer fan says that some of the best games* of the season are when the teams near the bottom are fighting to keep from being dropped to a lower league at the end of the season, unlike last place teams here which coast through the last two months.

*"best games" for soccer still rank around paint drying for my entertainment.

[rawhide]

I do not think soccer fans really care about the game, as much as getting stone-drunk and creating violence afterwards. That is the real draw in these games.

[gusty]

Now that is thinking outside the box. This system would end all the griping about small market/ big market competition. Spend the money, play with the big boys. Small payroll, you compete with other small payroll teams. The only problem is the difference in how our leagues are set up. In Europe, the soccer teams are all independent clubs that come together to form a league. In the US, each team is a franchise of the overall league.

[bobby.223]

Noooooo, Really? Your pulling my leg right? Seattle’s ‘Go-Go you Pilots’ really went to Milwaukee To become the ‘Brew Crew’ ya say? The ‘Spos are in DC now? (Now that must be a tough ticket choice in the Capital, with the Senators there and all....now don’t tell me ‘The first in war, first in peace, but last in the American League’ Wash. Senators have moved to!!!!). Oh my.

[gusty]

Yea, they moved to Milwaukee. Get this, one their pitchers wrote a great book about the Pilots. Go out and get it, you’ll laugh your ass off.

[buccaneer81]

Portland, Oregon is the largest urban area in the US w/o a major league team.

I assume you mean major league baseball.

The largest metro without a major league team in any sport is Riverside, CA.

[buccaneer81]

I do not think soccer fans really care about the game, as much as getting stone-drunk and creating violence afterwards. That is the real draw in these games.

Not in MLS. Of course, MLS is looked at as a tenth-tier league in the rest of the world.

[bobby.223]

Ha! Good one gusty! I have read ‘that book’ at the start of every MLB season opener as some sort of screwy personal tradition since I bought the first hardback printing, (in June or July 1970 iirc. His follow up books to it are well done also. The first person account of his daughters tragic death and his invite, finally, back to the Bomber’s Old Timers Day was flat out wonderful writing. The second best MLB book ever written was ‘The Glory of Their Times’ by Larry Ritter imho.

[ken5050]

Good analysis. The two best sugestions I ahve heard to make baseball better, and which could be done easily, are:

1. Cut the number of interleague games in half.

2. During interleague play, when an AL team plays in an NL ballpark, they should use the DH. THis way NL fans get to see players like Bug Papi.

[SamAdams76]

I don’t think Las Vegas can have a professional team due to the legalized gambling. Anyway, it is fun to go to Las Vegas on a Sunday during football season. You get to sit in the sports room of your favorite casinos and see every single game on huge screens. I’ve done lousy gambling on the games however, I do better at the blackjack and craps tables.

[justiceseeker93]

Selig has already wrecked baseball beyond recognition. As an older fan, I'd like to get rid of the leftist bufoon. When you had eight teams in each league (or even ten or twelve) without the dumb interleague play, fans not only knew the players are their team, but just about all the players on the opponents. With so many players on so many teams and such a high level of player movement, even a fanatic of average intelligence doesn't know the skills or lack thereof and the backgrounds of all the players. In other words, you can't keep track of it without a handy computer (and a good knowledge of Spanish and Japanese) and can't really appreciate the strategy.

And that's not the end of it, not by far. I can list at least two dozen changes for the worse from the dedicated American fan's point of view - starting of course with ridiculously high prices for admission and overly pampered athletes not 100% into competing. And Selig is the poster boy for much of it.

More expansion? Is he kidding?

[proudpapa]

There are already three MLB teams in Southern California...

And none in Oregon.

[CommerceComet]

San Juan has the same problem Mexico City has: It’s a poor area relative to the major U.S. markets, and wouldn’t be able to generate enough.

The Latin city which would put all the others to shame in supporting its team would be Havana if those damned Castro brothers would die. Okay, some other things would have to fall into place as well and this a far-into-the-future candidate but I don't think that any Western Hemisphere city would have more potential once Cuba gets out from under its political yoke.

[Jacquerie]

Homosexuality, DH and regular season interleague play are all crimes against nature.

[buccaneer81]

I was only going by metro area size.

Is Portland a "baseball" town? The Blazers have had great players and six excellent seasons, but do they make money? I guess with Paul Allen as owner, that's probably not a big issue.

[buccaneer81]

Homosexuality, DH and regular season interleague play are all crimes against nature.

So is beer in plastic bottles, also found at major league ball parks.

[buccaneer81]

Excellent point. Agree 100%.

[Luke21]

“Did you know that the Montreal Expos are now the Washington Nationals, and the Seattle Pilots are now the Milwaukee Brewers??????”

He was being funny. No one but a real fan would know that those four teams joined baseball in 1969.

[Junior_G]

Would it help to get rid of the Seattle Mariners? Please?

[Jacquerie]

It may be served in plastic, but at least its limited to Butt Light for $7.00.

[boop]

Interesting comments about a MLB team in Mexico City. The Mexican League is AAA level, with 20 teams. None are associated with a MLB club, however. The Mexico City Red Devils play in a stadium for 26,000 fans. For such a baseball loving country, that’s pretty small. But huge for a AAA team. Especially when they have that soccer stadium that holds over a hundred thousand. Maybe a MLB club COULD tap into more fans, and have it be a source of national pride.

[raccoonradio]

And of course NL teams would object to #2 (as would probably AL teams: would the Red Sox want to give up the DH in
interleague games at Fenway?)

[choirboy]

Fans needed to bring jackets to night games even during the peak of summer, as temperatures often dip down into the 50s once the sun goes down at that elevation.

You mean like San Francisco . . . at sea level elevation . . . day or night. Tomorrow will be warm though. It's expected to get up to 60 degrees.

"The coldest summer I spent was a summer in San Francisco." -- Mark Twain.

[buccaneer81]

Worst MLB venue for beer was the Old Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. In 1999, there were three choices: Iron City, IC Light and Coors Light. In other words, no choice at all. Just horrible.

[buccaneer81]

"The coldest summer I spent was a summer in San Francisco." -- Mark Twain.

You mean, "The coldest winter...

[choirboy]

OOPS! Thanks for the correction.

[muir_redwoods]

In Hartford every year they play a few teams in what is know as Base Ball. It is played with period rules, uniforms and equipment. It’s fun, sporting and a good up close look at what might have been

[justiceseeker93]

I guess you mean "Base Ball" of the 1800s. I don't advocate playing that game, but the major league game of the 1950s and the early 1960s would be just fine.

In the last eight team league, the National League of 1961, every team had at least one future Hall of Fame player, for a total of twenty, not including those who made only brief appearances. (average 2 1/2 per team). With all the dilution of talent today, I'd venture a guess that you wouldn't average one future Hall of Fame player per team, even with diluted standards for election to the Hall of Fame.