I'm with you. I do wish there was some sort of re-aligning but it'll never happen, unless maybe expansion happens.

Why do you believe destroying the traditional AL/NL affiliations for regional divisions is a plus? Even the NFL was smart enough not to mess with AFL/NFL grouping of teams within divisions when possible.

I did not ask why you would want to, I asked why you think it would be a good idea?

I like your idea, but expansion may be on the table soon. The two things holding it up were the A's and Rays ballpark situations. The Rays situation has been officially resolved, while the A's look to be all but official. Now that those are resolved, I would guess expansion to 32 teams is on the horizon.

Right now, the leading candidates look to be Portland/Salt Lake City and Nashville/Charlotte. These cities make a lot of sense in a lot of ways. Regardless, it seems highly likely one eastern city and one western city is chosen if expansion happens. Assuming expansion happens within these four cities, here is my proposal for realignment:

AL East
New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
Baltimore Orioles
Toronto Blue Jays

AL North
Detroit Tigers
Cleveland Guardians
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins

AL South
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Colorado Rockies (move from NL)

AL West
Las Vegas A's
Los Angeles Angels
Seattle Mariners
Portland/SLC Expansion

NL East
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
Pittsburgh Pirates

NL North
St. Louis Cardinals
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati reds

NL South
Miami Marlins
Tampa Bay Rays (move from AL)
Atlanta Braves
Nashville/Charlotte Expansion

NL West
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
Los Angeles Dodgers
Arizona Diamondbacks

Generally, this format keeps rivalries intact while tightening up the geographic distribution within divisions. Can use a very similar scheduling format to the current schedule. All division winners make the playoffs plus three wildcards - so only the team with the best record in each league gets a first round bye. Otherwise, same playoff format can be used.

The only reason I liked the Rangers being in the AL West was because I could see them play when I lived in Seattle.

South Platte said:

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As a Rangers fan, and I think I can speak for Astros fans as well, I'm tired of playing a bunch of west coast late games within the division. Reducing the number of division games has helped. I don't care where we end up as long as we don't have a ton of 9:00 PM first pitch games.

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I live on the east coast. How do you think I feel lol? 10 PM games are brutal.

rocky_ag said:

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AL South
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Colorado Rockies (move from NL)

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My apologies, I misunderstood/read your post..I think the only true positive is it would cut down on potential amount of traveling, but I don't think even that would cut it down enough.

It might allow fans to see their team on the road more often as they're geographically closer more often.

Fair enough. What rocky ag posted accomplishes what you posted without being radical. IMO any reorganization of divisions should at the very least keep the Classic Eight NL teams and Original Eight AL teams in those leagues.

I did not even consider the potential expansion that is coming in the next 5 years probably! I do like the layout of this, though 4 team divisions will be weird just to see! I think you'd have to go back to 4 division winners and 2 wild cards.

I'd be curious to see how the schedule would be laid out with this format. How many division games. I wouldn't mind seeing like 20-24 games vs division opponents.

South Platte said:

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rocky_ag said:

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AL South
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
Kansas City Royals
Colorado Rockies (move from NL)

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Love This !

Actually like the entire field of 32 (assuming expansion). It's the least amount of disruption to existing alignments while making a lot more sense geographically. TV coverage (viewership) should be much better than what we have now.

OP isn't LV east of San diego?

I do like the 4 divisions better and Nashville or San Antonio should be team 4 with Houston Arlington and KC. Why wouldn't San Antonio get a team before Portland? SA is a top 10 city bigger than Dallas. Portland is a mess.

jkag89 said:

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Why do you believe destroying the traditional AL/NL affiliations for regional divisions is a plus? Even the NFL was smart enough not to mess with AFL/NFL grouping of teams within divisions when possible.

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What's the difference? They play so many inter league games it's hard to tell AL/NL. You're wrong about the NFL not messing with the NFL/AFL groupings. The Colts, Steelers and Browns were NFL teams that got shuffled to the AFC.

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What's the difference?

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Tradition and history matters in baseball.

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They play so many inter league games it's hard to tell AL/NL.

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Maybe to the very casual fan. 46 interleague games out of 162 is not "so" many IMO.

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You're wrong about the NFL not messing with the NFL/AFL groupings. The Colts, Steelers and Browns were NFL teams that got shuffled to the AFC.

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What I said - "Even the NFL was smart enough not to mess with AFL/NFL grouping of teams within divisions when possible."

When the two leagues merged there was simply more teams in the NFL than the AFL. They either had to expand further to fill out the AFC, leave a disparity between the two conferences or move three NFL teams into the AFC. Since then the NFL has prioritize rivalries over regionality when they restructured divisions and minimized movement between conferences. To this day every AFL team remains in the AFC.