An MLB division realignment plan that works for everyone
Ever since USA TODAY got a hold of Major League Baseball’s plan to play a shortened 2020 season with realigned divisions, there’s been talk about the MLB permanently ditching the American and National leagues in favor of geographically-drawn leagues.
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they’re in favor of the idea. It would cut down on travel and could ignite regional rivalries, like Yankees-Mets, that have never been part of the game the way they should be.
But I also know that many baseball fans appreciate the tradition of the separate leagues. You can’t just throw out 120+ years of history.
From several articles I’ve read, the prevailing thought is that the MLB will add two teams some time this decade and realign the divisions to eight divisions with four teams in each. Montreal and Portland seem to be the frontrunners to land an expansion team.
By the time that expansion happens, the DH will probably have been adopted by the NL, meaning there will no longer be any difference between the two leagues. The AL and NL could very well be scrapped at that point in favor of an Eastern League and a Western League.
So, assuming that Montreal and Portland are in fact the expansion cities, and assuming that the Rays stay put in the Tampa area and the A’s stay in Oakland, I gave a lot of thought to what the divisions could look like.
After moving the puzzle pieces around several times, I came up with a compromise for all baseball fans: Divisions that are steeped in tradition within leagues that are drawn geographically.
You don’t get the Yankees and Mets in the same division, but you do get them in the same league, meaning they’ll play more meaningful games against each other and they’ll have a much higher likelihood of meeting in the postseason.
Here are the divisions, with an explanation of my process below.
EASTERN LEAGUE
Northeast: Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Washington Nationals
East: Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates
Atlantic: Miami Marlins, Montreal, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays
Great Lakes: Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins
WESTERN LEAGUE
Midwest: Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals
Central: Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers
Pacific: Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Angels, Portland, Seattle Mariners
West: Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants
Explaining the Eastern League
There are a lot of possible ways to split up the 12 teams that make up the Northeast, East and Atlantic divisions, but I wanted to maximize tradition as much as possible.
That’s why the East division is made up of the Mets, Phillies and Braves — who are quite familiar with each other from the last 25 years together in the NL East — plus the Pirates, which played in the NL East for many years and now get to be reacquainted with their rival from across the state.
The Northeast division keeps three longtime AL East rivals together in the Red Sox, Yankees and Orioles, and adds in the Nationals, which only have a short history in the NL. Putting the Nationals and Orioles in the same division makes a lot of geographic sense, and I think the Yankees and Red Sox will quickly embrace the Nationals as a divisional rival to play instead of the Rays.
Could you switch the Pirates and Nationals? Sure, but I think the Nationals make more sense than the Pirates as a fit in a division with the Red Sox, Yankees and Orioles.
OK, then that brings us to the Atlantic division, certainly the most curious division. I took a page out of the NHL’s book here, as that league’s recent divisional alignment put it’s two Florida teams in a division with several Canadian teams. The concept works for baseball too, as pairing the two Florida teams with the two Canadian teams allowed me to create more logical divisions elsewhere.
I initially kept the Braves with the Marlins and Rays for a Southeast division, but it was tough to find a fourth team because any fourth team would be a geographic outlier. The Nationals were probably be the best fit for that scenario, but the other divisions would have lost something if I did it that way.
Reds fans probably aren’t happy with the construction of the Great Lakes division. Twins fans might not like it either. But my hands were kind of tied on that one because of how the Western League came together. More on that below.
Explaining the Western League
The Pacific and West divisions worked out very cleanly, as I paired the Portland expansion team with three AL West teams in the Pacific and kept four NL West teams together in the West.
The Central division was also pretty much a no-brainer, made up of four teams that are somewhat close to each other in the middle of the country, and really don’t fit anywhere else.
The biggest sticking point in this whole thing was how to split up the teams in Great Lakes and Midwest divisions, because one division is in the Eastern League and one division is in the Western League.
I initially had the White Sox and Reds reversed, keeping AL teams together and NL teams together. But that meant that the Reds were the only team from the Eastern Time Zone in the Western League, while two Central Time Zone teams (White Sox and Twins) were in the Eastern League, which would have defeated the whole purpose of this exercise.
So I flipped the Reds into the Great Lakes division to join the within-driving-distance Indians and Tigers, and I moved the White Sox over to the Midwest division to join the cross-town rival Cubs and nearby Brewers. The Midwest division really revolves around the Cubs, who get their three biggest rivals in their division.
Why are the Twins in the Great Lakes division? Unfortunately, one team from the Central Time Zone had to end up in the Eastern League just because of simple math. There are 15 teams in the Eastern Time Zone, but 16 teams per league. The Twins weren’t any better of a traditional fit in the Central division, since they have almost no history with the Cubs and Cardinals.
This whole exercise would have been a little easier had the two expansion cities been Montreal and Charlotte, both in the Eastern Time Zone. I could have done what the NHL did a few years ago, and put all 16 Eastern Time Zone teams in the same league. But instead, we have the Twins drawing the short straw and becoming a slight outlier in the Eastern League.
