Division alignment question

Can I ask something that may be stupid; why are the divisions all out of whack?

To rise to be the champion of the NL Central, you are competing directly with 5 other teams.

To be the champion of the AL West, you need to beat 3 other team's records. This includes Texas. The Rangers! And Seattle, which has been poor lately. Not like the Reds and Pirates are termendous or anything...just sayin.

Overall, with 16 teams in the NL and 14 in the AL, the plain old percentage chance of getting a playoff spot in the NL is worse:

NL - 4/16 = 25% chance
AL - 4/14 = 28.6% chance

Shouldn't this start out equal, and even and all that? Just as a starting point? It seems awful unfair to the one 6-team division, and awful light on the 4-team division (despite only one WS win in recent memory). Is this why the A's can always compete?

It seems fairly simple to me: 30 teams, divided by two leagues = 15 teams per league. 15 teams in a league / 3 divisions = 5 teams per division. then it's all neat and even. Right? The only legitimate complaints I can see on this are scheduling, and one team having to change leagues. I think an NL team would oblige.

Solution:

One team from the NL moves to the AL. All divisions realign to 5 teams. I'm thinking the Padres or Giants come over to the AL West, and on NL central team moves into the West division - Houston? Milwaukee?

To resolve the scheduling conflict, here is one potential solution: currently, when interleague play takes place, two NL teams have to play each other, because there are no AL counterparts left to play. I am thinking, instead of interleague play being a three-week stretch in the middle of the season for everyone, there is one interleague matchup every day. That way interleague is spaced out - less of a hype-able event, but more integrated into the season. And then everyone is affected equally - every team plays two interleague series (or more, if we really want), and no NL teams are left playing a boring NL series while everyone else parties WS style.

Does this sound silly? Farfetched? I just find it odd that it's been like this for going on 10+ years. Seems unfair to some teams.

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Originally Posted by Alloutwar

It seems fairly simple to me: 30 teams, divided by two leagues = 15 teams per league. 15 teams in a league / 3 divisions = 5 teams per division. then it's all neat and even. Right? The only legitimate complaints I can see on this are scheduling, and one team having to change leagues. I think an NL team would oblige.

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If I understand correctly, each league needs an even number of teams in order to schedule properly.

Honestly, I think it's about time to do (one last) round of expansion, and add two teams to the American League. Since that might make the AL a lot easier for a year or more than the NL, perhaps switching one team from the NL to the AL and then adding one expansion team to each league would be a better plan.

I'm about to do that in my Mogul game for the 2011 season.

I did that in my game in like 2035

I know that you need an even number of teams to create the schedule in say, BBM, and other baseball games as well (I was re-doing divisions in MLB Power Pros, and I can't simply have 15 in each, which is annoying). And I know that if you have 15 teams, obviously the 15th team has no one to play, in that division.

I simply think that using interleague to solve this problem is a fine idea, until they do one more round of expansion. If they are sticking with 30, I'd rather have 15/15, and then have my team doing interleague one a month or something. Breaking it up along the season seemed like a possibility, right? Isn't that better than a big chunk in June?

Yea they could add 2 more teams ans simply make 4 Divs of 4 in each league, Ditch the WC and just have 4 Div winners. plays 18 games vs each div opponent and 9 vs every one else in the league, no more interleague play.

I'm all for adding two new teams and creating four 4-team divisions in each league, but I think there would be a huge amount of moaning and groaning about the alignments. Can you imagine the whining and hand-wringing coming out of Evil Empires 1 & 2 if they were put in one 4-team division together, while relatively weaker teams like Toronto, Baltimore and Tampa Bay (the Rays recent success notwithstanding) got put in another.

Edit: come to think of it though, I seriously doubt MLB would put the Yankers and Red Sux in the same division. No way.

What exactly would the 4 divisons be then, to separate the Yankees and Red Sox? You can't divide it by region, because no matter how you slice it, Boston and New York are in the same region. I'd say just leave it 3 divisions and set up each league with 2 5-team divisons a 1 6-team division.

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Originally Posted by HoustonGM

What exactly would the 4 divisons be then, to separate the Yankees and Red Sox? You can't divide it by region, because no matter how you slice it, Boston and New York are in the same region. I'd say just leave it 3 divisions and set up each league with 2 5-team divisons a 1 6-team division.

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Alphabetical?:D:rolleyes:

I used to always realign my mogul leagues when I firsst started playing (KC to the AL West & Milwaukee to the Al Central)

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Originally Posted by beerchaser

I'm all for adding two new teams and creating four 4-team divisions in each league, but I think there would be a huge amount of moaning and groaning about the alignments. Can you imagine the whining and hand-wringing coming out of Evil Empires 1 & 2 if they were put in one 4-team division together, while relatively weaker teams like Toronto, Baltimore and Tampa Bay (the Rays recent success notwithstanding) got put in another.

Edit: come to think of it though, I seriously doubt MLB would put the Yankers and Red Sux in the same division. No way.

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Actually, if MLB did realign, I don't think there's any chance whatsoever that they'd SEPERATE Boston and New York. Sort of like the NFL finally realigning and yet keeping the Cowboys in the East with the Redskins. Rivalries like the Cowboys/Redskins (believe me it used to be the biggest in football) and the Yankees/Red Sox (probably still the biggest in baseball) don't get broken up.

Why, you don't want to see a Pittsburgh Boston rivalry, or a Giants/ Royals :D

I'm not sure how they would setup that alignment, to be honest. But I do know that money talks, and geography or no, I could see a deal being made to split those two up by MLB if it enhanced the chances of both making the playoffs. That's assuming of course that with 4 divisions there would be no wildcard team.

Alloutwar, the "solution" is balanced schedules...

Texas should be in the AL Central anyway, by the way. Two expansion teams in the AL West.

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Texas should be in the AL Central anyway, by the way. Two expansion teams in the AL West.

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In real life? Are you kidding? Where are you going to expand to? The Canadian project has proven to be useless. They like hockey. Las Vegas, Memphis, Portland, Indianapolis and Jacksonville (real life) have been reviewed and discarded. Those cities do not have the population to support a team. If the league does expand, it is going to be San Antonio or Mexico City.

Mexico City would be awesome. 100K people in the stadium and **** running down your leg.

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Those cities do not have the population to support a team.

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Bull****

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The Canadian project has proven to be useless.

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What in the world makes you think that? Montreal? :confused:
The only problem with Montreal was the ownership. Loria is doing the exact same **** in Miami right now... I suppose "baseball in southern Florida" is a failure as well?
Toronto is doing great!

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If the league does expand, it is going to be San Antonio or Mexico City.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._by_population
San Antonio is #28 on the list. Portland is 23rd, Las Vegas is 30th, Sacramento 26th, Orlando 27th, Columbus, OH 32nd, Indianapolis 33rd, Norfolk 34th.
What exactly makes San Antonio so special? More importantly, Why add another Central (or Eastern) time zone team?

As for Mexico City... the Peso, security, fan interest, Players Union objections, individual player objections, travel time, etc... No thank you.

Portland Skyhawks anyone?

:)

Where did you come up with "Skyhawks" from?

"Beavers" or "Timber<something>" are much more likely...

My favorite talk-radio host would name them the Porkland Other White Meat

Doubt anyone on here listens to Leykis though

Monterey, mexico might work, or San Juan, Puerto Rico

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Originally Posted by etothep

My favorite talk-radio host would name them the Porkland Other White Meat

Doubt anyone on here listens to Leykis though

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Who's Leykis? :)

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Originally Posted by RedsoxRockies

Monterey, mexico might work, or San Juan, Puerto Rico

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Anywhere in Mexico pretty much suffers form the same problems as Mexico City, with the added problem of not having Mexico Cities' ~20 million person potential market.

San Juan... Eastern time zone. I guess the AL could do something like 4-6-6 (Rangers to the Central, +1 in AL West, +1 in AL East) but... meh. Expansion should occur out west first, in my opinion. They could add some eastern teams to both the NL and AL a few years later.

Why not just add a team in every state :D that would be sweet. Realistically, how about Vancouver?(Canadian one)

Vancouver, BC would work well I think.

Can you just imagine the AL West with:
LA Angels
Oakland A's
Portland
Seattle
Vancouver

?
Talk about regional competativeness!
:)

Yea, I hope that they add more Canadian teams. I have always hoped baseball would add more international teams, I have thought it is fun and interesting. I think they should return to Montreal as well, and maybe try Ottawa, or Quebec or Trois Riveres, or something. First they need to put minor league teams there, build up interest, then expand

Well, for Canadian markets, Vancouver really could work. They've got enough of a population base, plus Victoria over on Vancouver Island, and a lot of surrounding communities as well. Also, as I've mentioned before, their entire transit and transportation grid is in the midst of a HUGE upgrade for the 2010 Winter Olympics. The only problem would be a lack of a ballpark. Assuming you could get one built in a good location, they could be a very viable market.

As for Montreal, I HATED seeing the Expos go. Loria's ownership was the killing blow to a market that never seemed to fully recover after the '94 strike/lockout. I don't think there was another team that was hit as hard by that as the Expos were. They had a fantastic young team, but a lot of fans were really put off by seeing what might have been their best chance get flushed like that. I'd have a bit more of a question mark about Montreal than Vancouver...would fans be leery about whether or not baseball was 'serious' this time, or would they just be left waiting for the other shoe to drop? Also, they would need a new park...Olympic Stadium is a disaster, and also hasn't been used for years, now, with the CFL club moving on.

Ottawa/Hull is simply too small, and too distant from the other big cities in Southern Ontario to probably draw enough for a full MLB franchise. Quebec
City isn't even half the size of Montreal, so is fairly questionable. I'd love to say that Calgary or Edmonton could support a club, but I'm simply not sure. The population is extremely transient right now, with a lot of people here for a couple years to make their bucks in the oil industry, then get out of dodge and go somewhere with a lower cost of living. You'd also run in to the same ballpark issues. I really cannot see where they'd put a park in Edmonton (they're having enough trouble trying to find a location for a new arena for the Oilers...another issue that would suck away interest from an MLB franchise), as it's, quite frankly, a horribly designed city. Calgary has a few more possibilities in that area, and would probably be the better destination of the two. It's a more white collar market, so there's more corporate cash.

I love doing expansions and moves with my leagues, so this is a topic near and dear to my heart.

East: The most likely choices would be Montreal and Brooklyn. A non-Loria Expos might be able to rekindle the hearts of fans there. As for the second, surprised? The Atlantic Yards project could be reworked into a baseball stadium - that was Rickey's idea at one point - and the populace is definitely there, with money and baseball knowledge and love. A New Jersey or second Philly team would have nowhere to play, and Hartford and Providence might work, but only as NL teams (I had a Providence team draw okay in one league); and the "L.A. Clippers" factor in comparison to the Sawx.

South: A very neglected area. The best site would be the biggest metropolitan area without a major league sports franchise: the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Norfolk Admirals, anyone? All they'd need would be a decent stadium, which would require the five municipalities of the area to quit their bickering and build one. Memphis and, believe it or not, New Orleans are lesser possibilities.

Midwest: San Antonio may be the best, with Indianapolis a close second. The Houston area is growing tremendously, and may be able to support a team in ten years or so, given deep-pocketed local ownership that isn't named "Enron" or anything similar. :-) AL's Galveston Whitecaps, anyone?

West: Portland is the obvious choice here; Las Vegas or Vancouver are okay second choices. A lot of interesting other locations - I love to put Honolulu in my leagues...lots of money there, but yes, I know, aging stadium, small-ish population, and hideous travel hurdles - it just wouldn't work in real life. San Jose (yes, three Bay Area teams), Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Bernardino, and Calgary are interesting, but likely wouldn't work.

I'd go with Hartford and Montreal. Hartford would be a decent city for an NL club, for sure. You'd get parts of the New York and Boston markets, as well as the southern New England market. Really though, I think that the Northeast is pretty saturated. I wouldn't go into Brooklyn personally, since the Long Island area is more of a viable market really.

Calgary would be a good market I think. San Antonio would be good. El Paso (and Ciudad Juárez) would be good as well. Indianapolis would make a ton of sense,

I keep telling you folks, North Carolina is one of the largest areas in the country that does not have a MLB team yet, and the area just continues to grow. The only question is the population density is not that heavy; there's a lot of sprawl here. OTOH though, regardless of where you put a team, i.e. Charlotte, Raleigh or the Triad, there's at least 4-5 million people within 2 hours driving time.

Hartford's NHL team is now in Raleigh, and won the Stanley Cup down here.

Table of United States Metropolitan Statistical Areas

Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA is #34
Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC MSA is #35

According to that list North Carolina has 8 metro areas in the top 150, so like I said we have a lot of sprawl. Although I think some of those could easily be lumped together. Add Durham to the Raleigh-Cary MSA and it is roughly equal to Charlotte-Gastonia. Other smaller cities like Fayetteville, Greenville, Wilmington are within 2 hours drive of Raleigh. The Triad (GSO-HP-WS) is 1-1.5 hours from both Raleigh and Charlotte.

Charlotte-Gastonia-Salisbury, NC-SC CSA is 20th on Table of United States Combined Statistical Areas, with a population of 2,277,074.

You're right that it's going to be a huge area, especially if the ~20% growth rate continues for another 7-10 years. But... there isn't really a single large core, which is what Media companies really like. I'm not saying that it would be a bad choice (it would be better than someplace in the northeast, at least), it's just not a batter choice than... well, anywhere out West for starters. Especially since Major League Baseball really should grow out West before anywhere else. The simple fact that there are so few Western American League teams that a team in the Central time zone needs to be placed in the AL West still is a bit ridiculous in my opinion.

I see the Triangle and the Triad are #28 and 30 on that list, and as I said are within an hour's drive of each other.

The South is also very underrepresented, outside of Florida which is mostly transplanted Yankees anyway. Despite the East Coast "bias", there isn't a major league team within 2 hours drive of either the northernmost or southernmost border of North Carolina.

That is true - I moved to Charlotte, and the AAA Knights get no love (except on July 4th). I'm sure Durham is the same. People here are either transplants, Braves fans out of media market convenience, or simply have no association or love for baseball. I've never worked in an office where literally only 2 guys know more than 1 baseball team. Sad. but if we got a team (Charlotte, Raleigh, anywhere in NC), that's just another team trying to squeeze into a packed East division. Last time I checked, longitude-wise, Atlanta is further toward Central than Pittsburgh, even Cleveland. So there's some clutter towards the East. Maybe we could re-do divisions; instead of geography, alphabetical? Heh.

But how did this go into an expansion discussion? I don't think we need to add two new teams at all - just realign to 5-5-5. Then have interleague continue throughout the season, instead of all in one batch.

Ohms - what's this 'balanced schedule' phrase mean? Everyone faces the same teams the same number of times? (Then I wouldn't be able to rib the Yankees fans in my office, for their hard-fought sweeps of the Royals and such)

Well, in baseball a balanced schedule means you play all teams in the league the same or about the same number of times. MLB always had it bass ackwards IMO, because before the wild cards, they played a balance schedule. In other words, the teams from the Eastern Division played the teams in the East and West divisions the same number of times.

Then, once they went to the wild card, they started playing an unbalanced schedule. This is where you play teams in your own division WAY more times than the other teams in the league. For example, in the AL East, the Yanks and Sox will meet 18 or 19 times, and they'll play the Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays about that often. But they'll only play teams in the other divisions usually just two series, one home and one away.

The reason I say its bass ackwards is because when only division winners made the playoffs, THAT makes more sense to play an unbalanced schedule so you play teams in your own division more. Once the wild card is in place, and you're team is competing against teams in other divisions for a playoff spot, then that's when it seems more fair to be playing a balanced schedule. I still say MLB has it backwards.

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Originally Posted by Alloutwar

That is true - I moved to Charlotte, and the AAA Knights get no love (except on July 4th). I'm sure Durham is the same. People here are either transplants, Braves fans out of media market convenience, or simply have no association or love for baseball. I've never worked in an office where literally only 2 guys know more than 1 baseball team. Sad. but if we got a team (Charlotte, Raleigh, anywhere in NC), that's just another team trying to squeeze into a packed East division. Last time I checked, longitude-wise, Atlanta is further toward Central than Pittsburgh, even Cleveland. So there's some clutter towards the East. Maybe we could re-do divisions; instead of geography, alphabetical? Heh.

But how did this go into an expansion discussion? I don't think we need to add two new teams at all - just realign to 5-5-5. Then have interleague continue throughout the season, instead of all in one batch.

Ohms - what's this 'balanced schedule' phrase mean? Everyone faces the same teams the same number of times? (Then I wouldn't be able to rib the Yankees fans in my office, for their hard-fought sweeps of the Royals and such)

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Baseball is more popular in eastern NC than it is in Charlotte, which is one of the reasons I think it would play better in Raleigh. The Durham Bulls draw pretty well, as they have a nice ballpark and a relatively high name brand recognition for a minor league team, but they would draw a lot better if they weren't located in the craphole that is downtown Durham. A MLB team in Raleigh would likely mean the end of the Bulls, which is no great loss as far as I'm concerned. But I know some people in this area, mainly Durham, would fight that hard.

Hmm. I gotta admit - I do like the rivalries with the Yankees, and the brewing upstart Rays - but I kind of miss not ever seeing the A's or Royals or White Sox or anything as much as I used to when I was a kid ('87-92 years). It gets kind of bland seeing the same 4 teams most of the time. Especially 18-19 games each? That's about half your season. It adds a depth to know these other teams perhaps more intricately - but to only have 80 games left to play 9 other AL teams, AND the whole 3-week interleague stuff? It does seem kind of unfair. Although 3 out of 4 spots are division titles, so division rivalries are 3x more important than that wild card spot...

Maybe it should just be lessened a bit - 18 games against the Rays was good for me when I lived in FL and tickets were $10, but both those things are gone now. 15 seems a lot better. 12 would even work, against teams in your division, for 48 games (over 1/4th of the season), and 114 games to play the other 9 teams in your division, and all the interleague games. That seems like a good compromise. How do basketball/football do it?

Even with all that, it doesn't solve the dilemma of the NL Central champion having to pile thru 5 other teams, which the small, weak AL West politely sits back and lets the Angels collect the best record. Even if you don't play them that much, having one 3 records to compare yours to, instead of 5, is a bit preferable, no?

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Originally Posted by oriole^

As for [Brooklyn], surprised? The Atlantic Yards project could be reworked into a baseball stadium - that was Rickey's idea at one point - and the populace is definitely there, with money and baseball knowledge and love.

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Money, baseball knowledge and love, and strong fan affiliations with established teams. Hey, I live in Brooklyn and it'd be cool to have a team here in a way... but like every other baseball fan here I already have a team.

An expansion team in Brooklyn would've been great if it had happened within a few years of the Dodgers leaving, but there aren't a lot of Met and Yankee fans who are going to jump ship for some new organization.

Not to mention the Met and Yankee organizations would never let it happen, which is a problem with a few of the cities being discussed. That and that you can't just put a team in a city on a whim, you need support from city government, and you need potential owners ready to put up serious cash. In BM, sure, it's easy to drop a team into any city based solely on its population numbers but that's not the real world.

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Originally Posted by Alloutwar

Maybe it should just be lessened a bit - 18 games against the Rays was good for me when I lived in FL and tickets were $10, but both those things are gone now. 15 seems a lot better. 12 would even work, against teams in your division, for 48 games (over 1/4th of the season), and 114 games to play the other 9 teams in your division, and all the interleague games. That seems like a good compromise. How do basketball/football do it?

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Yeah, I don't think an unbalanced schedule in principle is necessarily a problem, but I'd like to see it a little less unbalanced. Even 14-15 games instead of 18-19 would be an improvement to me.

For your question, I don't know about the NBA but teams in the NFL play each divisional opponent twice, once at home and once away. There are four teams in each division (eight divisions across two conferences) so that's six divisional games and 10 non-divisional. They also have an interesting approach to selecting those ten opponents, in which the strength of a teams schedule is supposed to be determined by how well they did in the prior season. Stronger teams, that is, are supposed to play a tougher (non-division) schedule.

Anyway, 6 of 16 games being in the division would be just over 60 games in a MLB schedule. In a five-team division that'd translate to playing each opponent 15 times.

Personally, I'm 100% behind going back to a balanced schedule.