Go "North" Mets Fans: Realignment Proposal

[Frayed Knot]

btw, how much would the Nationals hate this one?!?

Edgy MD wrote: Maple Tree Division Baltimore Boston Montreal New York (A) New York (N) Philadelphia Pittsburgh Toronto =#FF0000]Bible Belt Division Atlanta Cincinnati Houston Kansas City Miami Tampa Bay Texas Washington =#00BF00]Dairyland Division Chicago (A) Chicago (N) Cleveland Denver Detroit Milwaukee Minnesota St. Louis =#FF8000]Calistoga Division Anaheim Arizona Los Angeles Oakland Portland San Diego San Francisco Seattle

Five teams within a five hour drive -- Pitt (245 mi), Philly (138), NYCx2 (250), and of course Baltimore (40) -- and they're not in a division with any of them but are with such "locals"
as KC, Dallas & Houston
That's one of the problems with these things, EVERY solution is bound to piss someone off.

[nymr83]

The problem with any radical realignment is the abomination known as the DH.

West: this one is easy. SEA, Portland, SF, SD, LAA, LAD, ARZ, OAK. done.
NorthEast: NYM, NYY, BOS, BAL, PHI, WAS, Montreal - the 8th in my opinion is Pittsburgh, not Toronto, but that could go either way.

the real issue is do you split the remaining 16 teams along north/south lines or east/west lines?

I'd probably go north/south - Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinatti, Cubs, White Sox, Twins, Brewers

this creates a "fuck you travel" division from 2xFlorida to Atlanta to 2xTexas to Colorado to 2xMissouri. the best bet would be to end Coors field and move them to Nashville or Charlotte.

if you swap PiT/TOR, though, you could have 4 NL and 4 AL teams in each division and keep the DH in play for "former AL" home games - everyone would need a DH for 81 games! truly crazy!

Edited October 17, 2017 by Guest

[bmfc1]

Frayed Knot wrote: btw, how much would the Nationals hate this one?!? ... That's one of the problems with these things, EVERY solution is bound to piss someone off.

Then you might as well piss off WSH. F them.

[Lefty Specialist]

This would be the way they finally get the DH across all of baseball. If you obliterate the league identities you obliterate the resistance to the DH.

[Edgy MD]

That's a big yup.

Continuing to let pitchers hit isn't a cause that has a big natural constituency when the powers-that-be gather around the table. The main argument the persistence of the rule has in that room is that it's part of the National League's identity.

No National League, and that angle is gone.

[nymr83]

I found a solution that makes almost everyone happy.



Apologies to El Yanquis de Ciudad Mexico.

[Frayed Knot]

bmfc1 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: btw, how much would the Nationals hate this one?!? ... That's one of the problems with these things, EVERY solution is bound to piss someone off. Then you might as well piss off WSH. F them.

I had a feeling you might chime in on that one.

Maybe Edgy's program needs to shift the Nats in with the Maple Trees, Toronto over to the Cheeseheads (how ironic that Toronto is moved away from the Maple group?), and St Louis to the bible belt
But that, while placating Washington, would horrify the mid-western contingent who'll see their Cardinals/Cubs games reduced to three/year.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, one of my working assumptions was that NYY/BOS, CHC/STL, and SFG/LAD couldn't be broken up.

[Chad ochoseis]

I'd preserve the AL and NL because of tradition and DH non-proliferation. The argument that realigning everyone is OK because two teams in the 100+ year history of the two leagues have done it is ridiculous.

But, if we had to do it:

NE: BOS, NYY, NYM, TOR, PIT, CLE, DET, MON
SE: PHI, WAS, BAL, ATL, MIA, TBR, CIN, STL
Cow Country: CHC, CHW, KCR, MIN, MIL, TEX, HOU, DEN
West (we're all in agreement here): POR, SEA, ANA, LAD, SDP, SFG, OAK, ARI

Although Montreal is much further from Detroit than it is from Philadelphia, Baltimore, or DC, preserving time zones to the greatest degree possible is a worthwhile goal. And this would get me 6 Met games a year at the Jake, another worthwhile goal. The only time zone oddballs you get here are St. Louis in the southeast division and Denver - the only MLB team on mountain time* - in Cow Country.


*Arizona is also technically on mountain time, but doesn't observe daylight savings time, so they're effectively Pacific during the baseball season.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: when you put fewer and fewer teams in each division the odds of having any two of them be good at the same time gets smaller and smaller.

You were talking about the size of each division, not the entirety of MLB.
Whose odds? What odds?
This is probably something a fifth grader taking the "new math" set theory can calculate.
I realize that major league baseball is a zero sum game - for every winner there is a loser.
But the size of a set has nothing to do with the values in a particular set. One set ( a division) in a group of sets ( a league) can all have high values when compared to other sets. One set can have more than one high value. And some of the other sets can have many crap teams. I agree that can happen, because the league as a whole is at .500.
But a "the odds of ..... " statement should be backed up with the math.
I'm not trying to be difficult here, but it is a CPF tradition to challenge generalizations. And, besides, I'm really fucking pissed at the MFYs winning. If they had lost, I would have let this slide.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Let me try it this way.

In any given season, in any sport, there are usually (depending on how you want to define the term) somewhere between five and maybe eight really good teams.
This year you'd probably count them as the Nats, Cubs, Dodgers, and maybe the DBacks in the NL; Sawx, Yanx, seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians", Astros in the AL. That's seven/eight. Some years there might be more, in
others even one or two of the division winners are barely mediocre so maybe there's only five or six.

Now, if you spread those eight teams across four divisions like in the 1969-1993 era, or among six divisions like now, several divisions will [u:32541lfi]have to have[/u:32541lfi] more than one top team in it and therefore
competitive races among top clubs to follow throughout the season.
But sub-divide the league into eight divisions and the likelihood of having two or more in any one group goes down. It doesn't make the top teams themselves any worse or even the league as a whole
(the zero-sum game thing) but it does make the odds of two of them fighting it out for the division crown a whole lot less and in some cases nonexistent. This is then exacerbated by the smaller pct
of games for each team will be intra-division (unless you institute a wildly unbalanced sked). Note how NFL teams making the playoff with .500 or sub-.500 seasons increased when their realignment
caused intra-division games to drop from 50% of all games to 37.5% (8-of-16 to 6/16) even though it actually reduced the number of Wild Card teams from three per conference down to two/per.


btw, look at the division races this year: 21 games, 17 games, 20 games, 11 games. And there was a 6 and a 2
Not a lot of drama.

[MFS62]

I know. Intuitively, it is correct.
At the extreme, if each team was its own division, it would be obvious that there could be no division with more than one good team (d'oh).
The probability that as each division expands to four teams, and there are only 7/8 good teams (your post), on average there would be one good team per division. But there might not be uniform distribution based on geography. There still could be more than good one team in a division at any time, because teams can get better or worse over time.
And that was my point.
I was being a Math doofus.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

MFS62 wrote: But there might not be uniform distribution based on geography. There still could be more than good one team in a division at any time, because teams can get better or worse over time.

Sure, this isn't meant to say that the good team(s) won't change from year to year, only that in any given year there are only so many top squads and that there probably won't be more than one
of them in a given division. More divisions with fewer teams in each simply makes that scenario more likely, and if two (or even more) top teams do happen to find themselves in the same division
in the same season that almost certainly means that one or more of the other divisions won't have any and will instead be stuffed with mediocrities, one of whom is then guaranteed to be a division
winner.


The proposal which started this thread -- and let's do keep in mind that it's nothing more than think piece at the moment about what the future might look like if and when further expansion
occurs -- at least gets points from me by going the other way by envisioning a 4x8 set-up rather than the 8x4 which seems to be the type most often suggested. I suspect fans tend to like the 8x4
because it copies the NFL, because it makes nice neat groupings when circled on a map, and because it bunches together only the closest of rivals (whether they're actual rivals or just cities which
happen to be semi-close physically). The problem is I'm not sure how often they tend to consider all the ramifications of what would follow.

[Vic Sage]

Assuming the Portland / Montreal expansions: two2 4-division leagues that are grouped based on geography, while maintaining as much of the current alignment as possible (Milwaukee and Houston would have to switch back to their previous leagues, and Arizona would move to AL, with both new teams added to NL). This way, each region would have 1 AL team and 1 NL team, so you would see every team in every region. Each division would play home-n-home series against matching division in other league, minimizing travel, maximizing rivalries, retaining inter-league play but keeping it manageable. Including 2 wild cards in each league (along with the 4 division winners) increases chances of late season races [2 WC teams get 1-game play-in; 2ndR/best of 5 series (top record gets 1stR bye) or all 6 teams re-seeded based on record, with top 2 getting bye, and starting with best 2 out of 3 series. Extended playoff season possible with shortened regular season back to 154 games.

[u:177gqofj]NorthEast[/u:177gqofj]
Tor / [Mtl]
NYY / NYM
Bos / Phi
Det / Pitt

[u:177gqofj]Central-Atlantic[/u:177gqofj]
(Milw) / Atl
Cleve / Cinn
Balt / DC
TB / Mia

[u:177gqofj]Midwest[/u:177gqofj]
Mn / Col
ChW / ChC
KC / StL
Tx / (Hou)

[u:177gqofj]West[/u:177gqofj]
Sea / [Port]
Oak / SF
LAA / LAD
(Az) / SD

[Guest sharpie]

The proposal eliminates the leagues so no need for Houston and Milwaukee to switch again.

Since my daughter lives in Portland and I go there every year I heartily endorse a team being there. Also, I'm sure Mariners players would like to have at least one opponent that doesn't involve at least a 2-hour plane ride.

[Frayed Knot]

The other alternative to all this is that you don't change much of anything.

If and when expansion teams come up you simply place them in the division where they most logically belong until each of the current divisions gradually increased to six teams each from their current five.
Now unless they intend on expanding by six teams at once (not likely or recommended) they'll have to contend with different sized divisions and the scheduling problems which would come along with that
but they've been there before and the world didn't end and it's not like the scheduling is perfect now.
Meanwhile, leagues would stay intact, as would current rivalries, as would the present playoff structure which I think is in a good spot right now.

[nymr83]

4x8 is preferable to 8x4 just because it lowers the chances of a bad team winning a division.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Ceetar wrote: Nothing wrong with new teams. I'd kinda welcome them. How we align them is a different story.

If you like adding new teams, then you might like my plan for creating a European style promotion/regulation system for Major League Baseball.

1. Add 18 new teams. Here are 18 cities in North America with large markets and a history of supporting baseball: Austin, Charlotte, Columbus, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Mexico City, Montreal, Monterrey, Nashville, Norfolk, Orlando, Portland, Sacremento, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Juan, Santo Domingo, and Vancouver
2. Put these 18 teams into a new MLB Division 2 and allow them to play 5 seasons against each other to develop rosters and fan bases, complete with MLB Division 2 postseason and championship series.
3. Meanwhile, the existing 30 teams (now known as MLB Division 1) continue playing as normal for 5 seasons, knowing that after the 5 seasons are complete, 3 teams from each league will be relegated to MLB Division 2 based on algorithm that takes into consideration composite record over 5 seasons, postseason appearances (or lack thereof), attendance, etc.
4. Now MLB Division 1 and MLB Division 2 each have 24 teams total. Divide each division into two 12-team leagues (American League Division 1, National League Division 1, American League Division 2, National League Division 2).
5. Going forward teams will play a 154-game league only schedule (14 games versus each league opponent).
6. The first place team in each MLB Division 2 league is promoted to MLB Division 1 for the next season. The twelfth place team in each MLB Division 1 league is relegated to MLB Division 2 for the next season.
7. The top three teams in each league in each division qualify for the postseason. The 2nd & 3rd place teams play a best-of-five play-in series with the winners playing a best-of-seven league championship series against the first place team. League championships series winners meet in World Series in MLB Division 1 or a MLB Divsion 2 Championship Series (needs a clever name).
8. Any future expansion would involve creating a MLB Division 3 and adding new teams to that division.

[Edgy MD]

That's brain thinking.

It seems to me that the cities and the leagues are already in place to build Division 2 and Division 3. Just declare an end to affiliation (which the courts should do anyhow) and they will naturally try to enrich their teams by paying loaner fees to the big league teams for their minor leaguers and pursuing players of their own.

Gradually, big league teams will keep fewer and fewer non-big leaguers under contract as they suddenly have new competition for not-yet-ready players, and a balance will be struck among the lower divisions with regard to players under contracts of their own vs. ringers on loaner arrangements.

[Guest d'Kong76]

Mets Willets Point wrote: If you like adding new teams, then you might like my plan for creating a European style promotion/regulation system for Major League Baseball. 1. Add 18 new teams. Here are 18 cities in North America...

Taking more than 700 players out of the MiLB system, talent pool and the
towns/cities that have AA/AAA teams and re-distributing them into 18 other
cities is, with all due respect, kinda nutty on about a dozen levels.

[ashie62]

Speaking of wacky,

WEST DIVISION

Seattle Mariners
Los Angeles Dodgers
Los Angeles Galaxy
Los Angeles Kings
Golden State Warriors
San Francisco Giants
Sacramento Kings
Anaheim Ducks.

Liberty and respect for all.

[nymr83]

Yeah, if you are going to do promotion/relegation you dony need new leagues, you already AAA AA etc just free them!

There are plenty of other issues to work out though.

[Ceetar]

I have no interest in the promotion/relegation thing.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

d'Kong76 wrote: Mets Willets Point wrote: If you like adding new teams, then you might like my plan for creating a European style promotion/regulation system for Major League Baseball. 1. Add 18 new teams. Here are 18 cities in North America... Taking more than 700 players out of the MiLB system, talent pool and the towns/cities that have AA/AAA teams and re-distributing them into 18 other cities is, with all due respect, kinda nutty on about a dozen levels.

Nutty for baseball execs. Good for players and fans.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Nymr83 wrote: Yeah, if you are going to do promotion/relegation you dony need new leagues, you already AAA AA etc just free them!

Essentially that is what is happening but branding it as MLB Division 2 takes away the "minor league" sting.

[Benjamin Grimm]

This relegation this is interesting in the abstract, but I wouldn't want to see it in real life. If the Mets were to spend four or five years as a Triple-A franchise they'd lose me forever. And I expect that during the years they were in Triple-A I'd be barely paying attention to them. Going into spring training with the hope of a World Series (however slight that hope is) is much different from going into spring training with the hope of maybe rejoining the major leagues.

I don't see at all how it's good for the players or the fans.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Players have more teams competing to offer contracts. Fans in more cities get a competitive team to call their own.

I think an advantage of dropping down to a lower division means that a team can do a rebuild and still compete for a championship rather than wallowing in last place.

[Benjamin Grimm]

They would lose me forever. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd walk away from baseball.

[Ceetar]

The only way I see them pulling off relegation is by giving us a long time to get used to the idea and prepare.

like, take those 18 new teams and make them the B league. Say in 2018. The winners of that league in 2018 and 2019 get promoted to the 32 team MLB for 2020. Then in 2020 you start swapping up/down with whatever rules you decide. is it 1 up 1 down? or two division of 8 and each winner goes up?

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: They would lose me forever. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I'd walk away from baseball.

Well, you've been talking about your dwindling interest in baseball for as long as I've known you but you still post here and still maintain a Mets database, so maybe you'd adjust to this (totally fanciful idea I made up for fun) change too.