East is east, West is west - Central may be gone. MLB ponders changes.

MLB realignment?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6651634

I'm sure someone has the stats to show how this would impact pennant races, and how many wild cards have won the Series.
If they do realign, I'd be in favor of going back to the East-West formula. Teams that tend to suck: the Pirates, the Royals, the Astros, the Nationals, would be stuck playing interleague games down the stretch until they make the playoffs.

I'd put Detroit, Cleveland and the White Sox into the AL East, with the Royals and Twins back to the West.
Cincy and Pittsburgh would head East in the NL, with the Cards, Cubs and Brewers out West.
Leaving candidates for switching back to the AL West to the Astros, Rockies and Diamondbacks.

Of course, they could just add two new teams in maybe Nashville and San Antonio.

 

No division means no unbalanced schedule, which means significantly diluted rivalries. Pass.

 

If by "diluted rivalries," you mean not having to put up with 19 Red Sox-Yankees games a year, I'm in. To say nothing of avoiding 19 Nationals-Marlins games a year.

 

How would this even work? Either two teams would always be off or there would be continual interleague play. Both of those are horrible options.

 

This is so logical that it has no chance of being passed.

But I like the fact that they're even willing to float a trial balloon and engage in some discussion.

 

Check the baseball thread as well. It's been discussed there for a day or so.

And the talk is a team would over the AL, possibly Houston.

 

What is this going to accomplish?

 

What would be so horrible with one interleague series being played at all times?

Most of them aren't marquee series anyway. They don't all need to be played at the same time.

Sure, it means someone is playing an interleague series the last week of he season instead of a division series, but with four of the six divisions currently having 5 teams, there's already a bunch of non division games down the stretch.

One division having four teams, while another has six should be fixed.

The Yankees playing the Mets one series every year is stupid. I hate that they have to play two series every year.

You've go to have teams in the same division playing as close to the same schedule as possible.

 

You can't sell sixth-and-seventh-place teams (Or 14th/15th).

Leave it the way it is, maybe with some minor tweaking.

 

so, why exactly is Houston - a team that has been in the National League for 50 years - a candidate for getting bumped to the AL and not Milwaukee - a team that was in the AL for 38 years?

 

B, U, D.

 

I'm guessing if the top five made the playoffs the sixth- and seventh-place teams would sell pretty well. Particularly if they were within a couple games of that last playoff berth.