Selig, committee considering radical realignment plan

[HoustonGM]

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...nnbin&hpt=Sbin

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.

Divisions still would loosely follow geographic lines; no team would join a division more than two time zones outside its own, largely to protect local television rights (i.e., start times of games) and travel costs.

Floating realignment also could mean changing the number of teams in a division, teams changing leagues and interleague games throughout the season, according to several sources familiar with the committee’s discussions. It is important to remember that the committee’s talks are very preliminary and non-binding.

Sounds like a pretty terrible idea.

[Alloutwar]

Yep, sounds terrible.

[Jeffy25]

sounds awful!

and just to fix payroll?

They should move the Pirates to the NL East, make a new AL West team, and allow the Rangers to be in the Central...

put them geographically correct would be a good start.

I still like my idea of 2 leagues, 4 divisions, 4 teams in each division.

[HoustonGM]

Hey, Cleveland, move to the AL East - you'll get some marginal increase in revenue - possibly - by having more games against Boston and New York....but greatly decrease your chances at making the playoffs! YEAH!

[Jeffy25]

San Antonio will join the new National League South Division. They will be competing with the Houston Astros, the Florida Marlins, and the Atlanta Braves.

Portland will join the American League West Division and will be competing with the Oakland Athletics, the Los Angeles Angels and the Seattle Mariners.

The new shifts will allow four divisions inside each the American and the Nationals Leagues. The winner of each division will play in a new playoff set up at the end of each season to determine the new World Series Champions.

Here is the new setup:
American League
East
Baltimore Orioles
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Toronto Blue Jays

North
Minnesota Twins
Cleveland Indians
Detroit Tigers
Chicago White Sox

West
Oakland A's
Portland Wolves
Los Angeles Angels
Seattle Mariners

South
Tampa Bay Rays
Arizona Diamondbacks
Kansas City Royals
Texas Rangers

National League
East
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Pittsburgh Pirates

North
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds
Chicago Cubs
St. Louis Cardinals

West
Los Angeles Dodgers
Colorado Rockies
San Francisco Giants
San Diego Padres

South
Atlanta Braves
San Antonio Miners
Florida Marlins
Houston Astros

This new set up also eliminates the wild card. The only change to the playoffs is that the first round is now a best of 7 series, not 5.

The Diamondbacks are the other notable change, switching from the National League to the American League and will now need to find a DH

[free2131]

I always liked the idea of 4 divisions in each league. Now if we can do that and get the NL the DH, I'd be happy.

[kenny1234]

I first read this as just a standard realignment, which is fine with me, but basically irrelevant. The idea of floating realignment, "based on based on geography, payroll and their plans to contend or not.", is simply ridiculous. If you want to fix competitive balance, do it, or just balance the schedule more generally and change the playoff structure, but allowing teams to decide each year if they have a chance to contend is a recipe for turning off fans.

[Alloutwar]

Jeffy, I actually like that. Even alignment always made the most sense to me - have 14/16 just dilutes the NL more and makes it even tougher for them. Combine that with the bigger markets in the AL and the dominant talent, and you can see why the WS and all-star games are so stacked in favor of AL.

Not sure about the two locale choices - in a bad economy, San Antonio fighting for loyalty with Rangers/Astros texas is tough, and Portland has the Mariners just up in Seattle anyway.

[etothep]

Regardless of the city, there won't be any expansion until the economy gets better, if it even happens then. You guys have been playing BBM too much

[Wassit3]

Jeffy, I actually like that. Even alignment always made the most sense to me - have 14/16 just dilutes the NL more and makes it even tougher for them. Combine that with the bigger markets in the AL and the dominant talent, and you can see why the WS and all-star games are so stacked in favor of AL.

Not sure about the two locale choices - in a bad economy, San Antonio fighting for loyalty with Rangers/Astros texas is tough, and Portland has the Mariners just up in Seattle anyway.

Me personally I always thought a 32 to 36 team MLB with even numbers of teams in both league would make the most sense. I really would like to see more international cities have teams even if it meant that weak American based teams had to be killed off. I would rather have a strongly support foreign MLB team than a weak American based team because I feel that it would make the league as a whole more stable plus growing the game even more internationally. For example why couldn't you realign the league such that you had 6 to 8 teams in say Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, etc and call it the Asian Division AL. Maybe I am going way over the top here too...

[200tang]

Me personally I always thought a 32 to 36 team MLB with even numbers of teams in both league would make the most sense. I really would like to see more international cities have teams even if it meant that weak American based teams had to be killed off. I would rather have a strongly support foreign MLB team than a weak American based team because I feel that it would make the league as a whole more stable plus growing the game even more internationally. For example why couldn't you realign the league such that you had 6 to 8 teams in say Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, etc and call it the Asian Division AL. Maybe I am going way over the top here too...

That would cost so much for flight and such...not to mention you would rarely get people wanting to make such a radical lifestyle change when they get traded. If you were a utility player who can't speak an asian language I can guarantee you'd probably be extremely pissed having to move to Tokyo or something.

As for hispanic countries. Have fun dealing with visas.

Both bring up the question of the draft too. I would imagine almost every high profile draftee wouldn't want to go to those teams. If you just graduated from HS would you rather just go to college or another country you may not want to go to? Also farm teams and such. It's just a complete mess.

Canada and maybe Mexico are the only 2 countries I could see being added to the league.

[Wassit3]

That would cost so much for flight and such...not to mention you would rarely get people wanting to make such a radical lifestyle change when they get traded. If you were a utility player who can't speak an asian language I can guarantee you'd probably be extremely pissed having to move to Tokyo or something.

As for hispanic countries. Have fun dealing with visas.

Canada and maybe Mexico are the only 2 countries I could see being added to the league.

Many American players, ok not many but some, go over to play in Asia when they can't make it in the US anyway. For what those guys make, even utility guys, where they play and where they live are two different matters. The travel would be minimized by have several teams in a region, why couldn't an team based in Asia, in this day and age, travel stateside and play 2 plus weeks on the road then fly home?? I don't think travel is really that much of an issue, it's not like they are taking boats over. Also as for language barriers, that's what interpreters are for, how many players play here but do not speak the language? Hasn't really hurt many as I recall Ichiro uses and interpretor and he is still a popular player.

[200tang]

Many American players, ok not many but some, go over to play in Asia when they can't make it in the US anyway.

There are players that go there and do that, but it's usually a one year deal to establish value to come here and there's a difference between making that choice on your own and having a team make it for you. I would guess 90+% of no trade clauses would have that entire region blocked off.

I'd love to live in Japan one day, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that EVERYONE wants to live there. You're really far away from family.

The travel would be minimized by have several teams in a region, why couldn't an team based in Asia, in this day and age, travel stateside and play 2 plus weeks on the road then fly home??

Do you realize how messed up the schedules would be? Also, what about all the east coast teams? That's a LOOOONG time to be flying and gives that Asian team a pretty extreme home advantage since all the other teams have to fly in there, but when they go stateside they get babied with 2 week road trips so they're not constantly flying back and forth like the rest of the league.

I don't think travel is really that much of an issue, it's not like they are taking boats over.

Flying costs a lot of money....if it wasn't such an issue why would they be discussing those types of things in the article? Obviously, it IS a big deal. Not to mention the tv times and such.

Also as for language barriers, that's what interpreters are for, how many players play here but do not speak the language? Hasn't really hurt many as I recall Ichiro uses and interpretor and he is still a popular player.

Again, it was Ichiro's choice to come here. If I didn't want to live outside of the USA most of the year it wouldn't care if I had an interpreter or not. I would NOT want to live not knowing what everyone around me is saying. Moving to a country that doesn't speak English shouldn't be forced, it should be a choice. Changing countries is a life choice and should stay that way.

[KowboyKoop]

Floating realignment!??! Boy that's got to be one of the flat out stupidest ideas I've ever heard of. No way in hell should teams just be able to change divisions to give themselves a better shot at making the playoffs...my god that would nearly ruin the sport for me if this happened.

[haveacigar]

I would love to see a team in, say, Monterrey, Mexico.