32 Team MLB Realignment

[kq76]

Which do you like better? A or B?

One I asked Gemini AI to come up with and the other I tweaked. I was actually going to use Bluenoser's as I remembered liking his expansion realignment structure, but when I looked I could only easily find his 36 team structure. I did ask the AI to merge the AL and NL and to prioritize timezones and geographical proximity so it's not like it came up with it all on its own without any input, but I thought it did pretty well. I only saw the 4 teams (in red and blue) that I thought should be swapped. It might be sacrilege to merge the AL and NL (I thought going to the universal DH without going to a hybrid DH was far worse), but I don't think either of these realignments would be totally out of the realm of possibility 10 years from now.

Are there any rivalries that we can't possibly sacrifice? I don't see any. The late 80s / early 90s fan in me likes seeing the Reds and Braves in the same division again.

[Brad K]

Since you have eight team divisions (great move) are you going to weight the schedule toward in division play?

Where are the Rays going to be in 2029?

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Brad K

Since you have eight team divisions (great move) are you going to weight the schedule toward in division play?

Where are the Rays going to be in 2029?

I wasn't thinking that deep about it TBH. I only did it to test out Pelican's expansion draft recommendation, which so far has worked out really well.

If I were to take it seriously, yes, I'd use a pretty unbalanced schedule. I'm not at all into perfectly balanced schedules. I like wild cards too, but I really like winning a division to mean a lot more.

I don't know about the Rays. I hear Orlando, I hear Nashville, I hear they're going to stay in Tampa. I kind of wish they'd stay in Tampa because I feel bad for Tampa area baseball fans like yourself, but I also just wish they'd play in a great stadium in front of a lot of fans regardless of the city.

[Brad K]

I'm close enough to walk to the ballpark and obviously a big baseball fan. However I'd prefer St Pete and Pinellas Co spend the money on something other than a stadium. That's strictly from the logical standpoint. It did make me angry when while asking for $300m from St Pete the Rays outright rejected a request to name the team the St Pete Rays.

Back to your idea, I'm truly glad you have an eight team division format. It was great to see someone who thinks this way. There's a schedule that has more in division games for a 32 team two league eight team division format but I don't recall there being one for it being all one league.

[Bluenoser]

Ya, I didn't do any realignment, just added 1 team to each division.

Like you, I'm OK with 2 WC's in each league, but I definitely favour division winners in the Divisional Round after the WC's are played out.

My playoff format goes like this.

Of the 3 Division winners, the 2 with the best record get a huge advantage in the 1st round they play.

So rnd 1 is like MLB, best of 3, no off days.

Rnd 2 though, is a 1-2-2 set up, with the higher ranking team getting 4 home games. Game 1 is at the lower ranking teams park, the next 4 are at the higher ranking teams park. I like this setup for a reason. Suppose you have already clinched your division with a week to go. Nothing to play for now, right? Wrong - if your the 3 seed, you may still be able to finish as the 2 or 1 seed depending on what the other division leaders are doing. So that last week of games still has importance.

The LCS are standard 2-3-2.

WS is best of 9, and played 3-4-2.

I also have DH in AL, non in NL. No interleague play. I always liked that setup in real life, just because it adds more intrigue to the WS.


Schedule is weighted to division play. You play the teams in your division 18 times, and teams in the other 2 division just 6 times.

[David Watts]

I definitely like Detroit's situation in A better than B. That being said, I will always hope that any future realignment will somehow get Detroit and Toronto back in the same division. Tigers/Blue Jays was such a great rivalry in the 80's. A rust belt division would also be kind of cool, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee, move the White Sox to Indianapolis instead of Charlotte and St. Louis.

[Bluenoser]

When I first came up with this idea back in OOTP18, I used to move Tampa to Orlando. In my imaginary world I pretended the Orlando franchise could feed of the Disney crowd to help with attendance. People going to Disney for a few days could take a break from the excitement there, and have a relaxing afternoon at the ballpark.

Eventually though, I just left them in Tampa.

[Brad K]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

When I first came up with this idea back in OOTP18, I used to move Tampa to Orlando. In my imaginary world I pretended the Orlando franchise could feed of the Disney crowd to help with attendance. People going to Disney for a few days could take a break from the excitement there, and have a relaxing afternoon at the ballpark.

Eventually though, I just left them in Tampa.

I think the team might do better in Orlando.

Although it's one of my minor objections, I don't like the idea of St Petersburg giving money to a team that's commonly referred to as being in Tampa and refuses to name itself after the city or county where it's located.

Not a criticism of you. It's what is commonly done.

[BBGiovanni]

but I don't hate everything...at least you have 8 team divisions.

The best way to do this is to use the original AL/NL as a guide. You preserve history and rivalries and probably make new ones. The one thing I liked about Manfred's 2020 jamboree was the way they structured play.

AL: NYY, BOS, BAL, TOR, CHW, DET, CLE, MIN
NL: CHC, STL, CIN, PIT, MIL, NYM, PHI, Expansion (Montreal, Buffalo, Hartford, etc.,or WAS if you don't mind 2 expansion teams in one league)
Southern League: ATL, MIA, TB, TEX, HOU, WAS, KC, Expansion (Nashville, Carolina, etc.)
Western League: SF, SD, LA, SEA, SAC, ANH, ARI, COL

Travel is minimized, since you're back to league footprints that predate air travel. You can keep the AL and NL teams on opposite sides of the playoff bracket to preserve World Series matchups somewhat.

That's how I'd do it if I had to although I'd prefer going back to the 2SL/4 Division structure like they had with 28 teams.

[Bluenoser]

Here's what my setup looks like in case anyone was wondering.
_

[WhiskyTango]

You can't stack expansion teams in a division. More than one will skew that division (and the others) for seasons to come.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by WhiskyTango

You can't stack expansion teams in a division. More than one will skew that division (and the others) for seasons to come.

Not true. If you do like Pelican suggested and only protect 12 players (+ the under 3 year service time or whatever that option is), the expansion teams end up pretty decent. Both of mine ended up around .500 and they did much better than the White Sox franchise, Pirates, As, and Marlins. Shockingly, the Rockies got off to a great start and finished a somewhat respectable 73-89.

The NHL did something similar when they expanded to Vegas and Seattle. They wanted the expansion teams to be decent right from the get go and there's no reason MLB couldn't do the same.

Besides, in the two above, Portland and Charlotte were the expansion teams. The White Sox moved to Nashville. I never much cared for the team name and with them being so bad and Chicago already having the Cubs I decided they should go to Nashville. I also couldn't decide between Nashville and Charlotte and wanted both along with Portland.

The team I felt most bad for was Pittsburgh, but what are you going to do, stick them in another division just because that division is so strong? Nah, what they really need are new owners. I swear I don't hate the Pirates. I am rooting for them to get better, I love their ballpark.

The worst thing about this test was merging MLB into one league forced all 4 divisions to the left side of the screen in OOTP so when I was simming all you could see were the top 2 divisions and the wild card race. If I did this again, I'd keep the AL and NL just to prevent that, but just randomly pick which division went where.

[Clovidequano Dovatha]

Send the Brewers back to the American League where they properly belong, and the Astros back to the National League where they belong. Put the Nationals back in Montreal, or create a new team in Montreal. Put new team in Nashville, maybe combine Florida teams, and put the Athletics much further east than Vegas, perhaps, if not actually back in California or in the Midwest or in the Northeast. CD out.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by BBGiovanni

...
The best way to do this is to use the original AL/NL as a guide.
...

I do kind of agree with this (I think it's probably why I remembered liking Bluenoser's so much, he didn't do anything too weird), but one thing I really like about the idea of merging the leagues now (I would have said no before the universal DH) is that if say the Dodgers and Mets are the best teams in baseball then they can very easily make the World Series. Whereas with how things are now they obviously can't.

For example, in my test, the Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, and Nationals (2026) won their divisions with the Cubs having the best overall record and the Dodgers the worst of the four. And if the 4 best teams all come from the NL, then so be it. I'd be totally down for a Mets-Dodgers WS this year. But even if the second best team is in actuality a wild card, it could still end up facing the best team in the WS. The way OOTP set it up by default, the Yankees, who had the best wild card record, ended up in the Dodgers quarter of the bracket, but MLB could set it up where the 2 wild cards with the best records end up in the opposite side of the bracket. Or whatever you think is best, it's difficult to judge who really is the best regular season team when you use a heavily imbalanced schedule.

[BBGiovanni]

Originally Posted by kq76

Not true. If you do like Pelican suggested and only protect 12 players (+ the under 3 year service time or whatever that option is), the expansion teams end up pretty decent. Both of mine ended up around .500 and they did much better than the White Sox franchise, Pirates, As, and Marlins. Shockingly, the Rockies got off to a great start and finished a somewhat respectable 73-89.

The NHL did something similar when they expanded to Vegas and Seattle. They wanted the expansion teams to be decent right from the get go and there's no reason MLB couldn't do the same.

That's consistent with my limited experience with bigger expansions, I've never done enough testing to find a sweet spot but it's pretty easy to have really good expansion teams, if that's what you want. OTOH the Buccaneers went from 0 wins for more than a season to the league championship in 3 years so...

Originally Posted by kq76

I do kind of agree with this (I think it's probably why I remembered liking Bluenoser's so much, he didn't do anything too weird), but one thing I really like about the idea of merging the leagues now (I would have said no before the universal DH) is that if say the Dodgers and Mets are the best teams in baseball then they can very easily make the World Series. Whereas with how things are now they obviously can't.

Sure, if you don't care about the optics of having two AL or NL teams in the WS. Or you're worried about balance and competition, unlike the baseball cartel It's also realistic in that TV revenues matter even more to those folks so that interest will probably result in straight-up geographic realignment so NY vs. LA is a more likely result (or west vs. east at least). I don't think there will be any, or enough, holdouts for any kind of traditional realignment. Maybe Steve Cohen? But probably no one with enough votes to stop geography... or 4 team divisions


Anyway good luck with your game!

[WhiskyTango]

Originally Posted by kq76

Not true. If you do like Pelican suggested and only protect 12 players (+ the under 3 year service time or whatever that option is), the expansion teams end up pretty decent. Both of mine ended up around .500 and they did much better than the White Sox franchise, Pirates, As, and Marlins. Shockingly, the Rockies got off to a great start and finished a somewhat respectable 73-89.

The NHL did something similar when they expanded to Vegas and Seattle. They wanted the expansion teams to be decent right from the get go and there's no reason MLB couldn't do the same.

It is appropriate the NHL resides alongside Mickey Mouse, for the terms "NHL" and "mickey mouse" belong in the same breath.

I don't see how the divisions are disrupted less by having spiked inaugral seasons. Yes, if going strictly by parity then of course there are no easy wins for the rest of the division (assuming unequal schedules) but the cost is greater not lesser in that it's the Yankee phenomenon where instead of rosters being raided by the pocket book they're raided by the draft pick, which to me is as great a disaster. Besides that, lost is the traditional expansion team arduous climb to respectability (or not) and beyond. Imagine how different (and boring) the Blue Jays story would be had they started out in 1977 near or at the top? That the inaugral Golden Knights won the SC is befitting given the soulessness of LV in general where no one will care enough to support a team through the initial wilderness years. All that matters in Vegas is winning, nothing else is worth it, that includes their sports teams so the NHL, being the NHL, complied [edit] and by "complied" meaning the NHL fixed it, again fitting for both LV and the NHL.

[Bluenoser]

The inaugural Golden Knights didn't win the Stanley Cup.

[kq76]

Heh. I love it when someone goes on a rant and the next person effectively says, "yeah, that didn't happen".

[Carplos]

Originally Posted by kq76

Heh. I love it when someone goes on a rant and the next person effectively says, "yeah, that didn't happen".

Same dude earlier said to Garlon that baseball must be alien to him.

[snarls200]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Here's what my setup looks like in case anyone was wondering.
_

how you get those logo versions?