MLB Relocation/Realignment Ideas

[crowhop]

For those who allow for and control Realignment and Team Relocation, what does your ideal league look like starting with current day MLB?

With the goal of 32 teams (2x4x4), I try to spread things out across the map a little more evenly, usually taking the opportunity whenever it pops up in game and adjust it to suit my ::ahem:: "more realistic" vision. All to move smaller or duplicate market teams into better places, typically going by the age of their current ballpark and current market.

What kinds of things do you do? What markets do you move from and to? Just trying to get some more new and interesting ideas.

[Stormhound]

I've tried different things. In my OOTP24 fictional league, I actually grew it to 48 clubs (8 divisions of 6, and 4 wildcards/league). While entertaining, it was not entertaining enough to want to do all that again, particularly because of having to go through and add a ton of minor league teams. I had also run it well over a century, and I figured an import might give my PC a CPU attack.

For OOTP25, I've settled on 36 teams (6x6, and 3 wildcards/league). It was far more manageable to get everything set up from the get-go. With that in mind, here's my list of expansion cities; I tried to spread them around a bit:

AL:
E - Jacksonville, FL
C - San Antonio, TX
W - Las Vegas, NV (yeah, I know, so in OOTP26 I'll pick somewhere else)

NL:
E - Indianapolis, IN
C - El Paso, TX
W - Portland, OR

My aim wasn't to pick the biggest cities, and there were a lot of options (my '24 clubs included places like Des Moines, Montreal, OK City, Calgary, Vancouver, Sacramento, Memphis, Charlotte, Raleigh, Buffalo, Columbus OH, and Little Rock).

I left the real-life teams the same, in both cases, as much for familiarity as anything else.

[AFreems11]

I'll preface with I've spent entirely too much time thinking about this. Expansion is normally my favorite way to play this game as I find it provides more of a challenge (although I haven't started my long term save this year and hear the game is much more challenging). I have spent hours on what realignment and relocation look like. In almost all iterations, I put the Astros back in the NL, for personal reasons, geographical reasons, and balance reasons. Obviously that means both expansion teams will be AL which opens up Canada and Mexico which is fun. This is of course if you are trying to keep everyone else in their original leagues. Below are two options I have

Option #1: Region Based

AL East - BOS/NYY/BAL/TOR
AL North - DET/CLE/CHI/MIN
AL South - KC/TEX/TB/Expansion (ex. Nash., SA, OKC, NO, Lousiville, MEX, etc.)
AL West - SEA/OAK/LAA/Expansion (ex. VAN, POR, Salt Lake, LV, NM, etc.)

NL East - NYM/PHI/WAS/PIT
NL North - MIL/CHI/CIN/STL
NL South - ATL/MIA/HOU/ARI
NL West - SF/LA/SD/COL

Option #2: Time Zone based (recommended)

AL Atlantic - BOS/NYY/TB/BAL
AL Central - CLE/DET/CHI/MIN
AL Mount. - TEX/KC/MIN/Expansion (ex. MEX, IND, SLC, OKC, Omaha, etc.)
AL Pacific - SEA/OAK/LAA/Expansion (ex. VAN, POR, Riverside, LV, etc.)

NL Atlantic - NYM/PHI/MIA/WAS
NL Central - PIT/CIN/ATL/CHI
NL Mount. - MIL/STL/COL/HOU
NL Pacific - ARI/SD/LA/SF

*Division names just placeholders.

I'm a bit of a geek about expansion possibilities. I have this, and other expansion ideas in a spreadsheet that i update throughout the years specifically for this game.

Interested to see what you or others have done.

[Bluenoser]

No relocation/realignment, just expanded to 36 teams. Although I seriously considered putting Houston back in the NL and Milwaukee back in the AL where they belong.
_

[cheo25]

I like 36 teams because I like the 6-team divisions. Four teams in a division are not enough, and I don't like five because of the odd number.

With the 36-team idea, you could put Milwaukee in the AL Central, move KC to the AL West and put Houston back in the NL Central. And, yes, I agree with you Houston belongs in the National League.

[tem316]

I would like to see League Realignment become an Option if you expand a League while in Challenge Mode. At Present, only in Commisioner Mode.

Originally Posted by crowhop

For those who allow for and control Realignment and Team Relocation, what does your ideal league look like starting with current day MLB?

With the goal of 32 teams (2x4x4), I try to spread things out across the map a little more evenly, usually taking the opportunity whenever it pops up in game and adjust it to suit my ::ahem:: "more realistic" vision. All to move smaller or duplicate market teams into better places, typically going by the age of their current ballpark and current market.

What kinds of things do you do? What markets do you move from and to? Just trying to get some more new and interesting ideas.

[itsmb8]

AL East - BAL NYY BOS TOR
AL North - CHW MIN DET CLE
AL South - TEX HOU KC COL
AL West - SEA LAA OAK(LV) SLC(Expansion)

NL East - NYM WAS PHI PIT
NL North - MIL CHC STL CIN
NL South - TB MIA ATL NAS(Expansion)
NL West - ARI LAD SFG SDP

If you want two divisions of 8 you can go Eastern and Western Conference.

Eastern Conf
BAL NYY BOS TOR NYM WAS PHI PIT
TB MIA ATL NAS CLE DET CIN CHW

Western Conf
ARI LAD SFG SDP SEA LAA OAK SLC
MIL CHC STL TEX HOU KC COL MIN

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by itsmb8

If you want two divisions of 8 you can go Eastern and Western Conference.

Eastern Conf
BAL NYY BOS TOR NYM WAS PHI PIT
TB MIA ATL NAS CLE DET CIN CHW

Western Conf
ARI LAD SFG SDP SEA LAA OAK SLC
MIL CHC STL TEX HOU KC COL MIN

If one prefers two 8-team divisions more in keeping witn MLB's past:

    NL          AL
East West   East West
 CHN  ARI    BAL  ANA
 MIA  ATL    BOS  CHA
 NYN  CIN    CLE  KCA
 PHI  COL    DET  HOU
 PIT  LAN    NYA  MIN
 SLN  MIL    TBA  OAK
 WAS  SDN    TOR  SEA
*exp* SFN   *exp* TEX

This uses MLB's 1993 alignment as the starting point. The main difference is that MIL and HOU have swapped leagues compared to 1993.

If you prefer a bit more geography for the NL, then do the move that Commissioner Vincent wanted to do for 1993 but wasn't able to: send CHN and SLN to the West Division and ATL and CIN to the East Division:

    NL          AL
East West   East West
 ATL  ARI    BAL  ANA
 CIN  CHN    BOS  CHA
 MIA  COL    CLE  KCA
 NYN  LAN    DET  HOU
 PHI  MIL    NYA  MIN
 PIT  SDN    TBA  OAK
 WAS  SLN    TOR  SEA
*exp* SFN   *exp* TEX

if you send HOU back to the NL where it belongs and return MIL to the AL:

    NL          AL
East West   East West
 CHN  ARI    BAL  ANA
 MIA  ATL    BOS  CHA
 NYN  CIN    CLE  KCA
 PHI  COL    DET  MIN
 PIT  HOU    MIL  OAK
 SLN  LAN    NYA  SEA
 WAS  SDN    TBA  TEX
*exp* SFN    TOR *exp*

As before, if you want you can have ATL and CIN swap divisions with CHN and SLN in the NL. The AL East is now the same as it was in 1993 but with the addition of TBA. Alternatively, you could put MIL in the AL West and the expansion team in the East.

If you want to have HOU back in the NL while keeping MIL in the league, that is trickier. If you go with historical precedent, MIL goes into the NL East (reflecting how the team was in the AL East from 1972–1993) and HOU into the NL West. The AL would get one expansion team in each division.

    NL          AL
East West   East West
 ATL  ARI    BAL  ANA
 CIN  CHN    BOS  CHA
 MIA  COL    CLE  KCA
 MIL  HOU    DET  MIN
 NYN  LAN    NYA  OAK
 PHI  SDN    TBA  SEA
 PIT  SLN    TOR  TEX
 WAS  SFN   *exp**exp*

ATL and CIN can swap divisions with CHN and SLN in the NL if you want.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by cheo25

I like 36 teams because I like the 6-team divisions. Four teams in a division are not enough, and I don't like five because of the odd number.

With the 36-team idea, you could put Milwaukee in the AL Central, move KC to the AL West and put Houston back in the NL Central. And, yes, I agree with you Houston belongs in the National League.

Yeah, 5-6 teams per division seems like the best number. With 8 teams, mid-table teams get lost (and ugh, don't get me started on the 10-team, one-big-division format of the 60s) and even though I grew up with the 7-team divisions of the American League that strikes me as a little too big nowadays as well. On the flip side, the AL West was a 4 team division for years and it just seemed like in years where one team was rebuilding it was in reality a 2 team race at best. Obviously that can happen with a 5 team division too but 20% more teams is a weirdly large difference IME.

I'm all for moving Houston, preferably to a different league altogether. Do you have the *** set up? I kid and also I mean in Minecraft.

With the expansion, I don't know, I feel like the South is still a largely untapped market: if MLB suddenly decided to do a big expansion you could definitely put teams in both Nashville/Memphis and Charlotte (this is a world where other sports owners have poisoned the city in question of course) and maybe even New Orleans. I feel like Portland is too close to Seattle, although both cities have grown a lot over the past decade; I might add a team in Vancouver, BC instead though. Also of course Montreal. Indianapolis is just not that big of a metro area; the city itself looks large on paper because it sucked up a bunch of its suburbs but I don't think it'd compete on a ML level. I'd probably think towards adding teams in Austin or Buffalo or even Columbus or Louisville before going there.

[cheo25]

I live about an hour from New Orleans. It barely has the infrastructure and corporate support for the 2 pro sports teams it currently has. I know it was a popular thought for expansion when the Superdome first opened, but the building is almost 50 years old. It's been renovated a few times and has held up for its age, but its baseball configuration wasn't ideal. You would need a new stadium. The New Orleans outdoor climate is slightly worse than Houston's with probably more rain on a regular basis in the summer. So it would have to be a dome or a retractable roof (though you probably wouldn't play with the roof open much) and neither New Orleans nor Louisiana could afford that without some private contributions.

But, this is OOTP, so, thankfully, you can do whatever you want!

[JudgeGio]

Yes, New Orleans’ AAA team failed, making an expansion MLB team there a near impossibility.

[crowhop]

Originally Posted by JudgeGio

Yes, New Orleans’ AAA team failed, making an expansion MLB team there a near impossibility.

While true today, things could be different in 2064.

I like to expand to Havana, Cuba and Monterrey, Mexico, along with Vancouver and Montreal.

Havana, in my world in the next 50 years, becomes an island paradise of freedom and capitalism. Maybe New Orleans could experience a similar thing..ha

[The Game]

My current teams. Last expansion was in 2032, I think.

[sdw1000]

On a related, unrelated note....I think the Oakland A's should move to Salt Lake City.

[Pelican]

For 2024 I added an expansion team to each Division, so 36 teams in all, with six-team Divisions, which works well. It is hard though to play all 35 other teams in 162 games.

Expanding with six new teams at once is chaotic, in a good way. I keep the number of protected players for established teams at twelve (toggle off adding a new protected player for each player drafted), with the default of all players with less than three years service protected. That yields a decent draft pool, but spread among six franchises. I give the expansion teams healthy budgets, so they can (and do) sign free agents.

I move the Pirates to New Orleans, where they become the Buccaneers.

Rays bolt for Montreal, turning into the Mounties.

The A's, duh, move to Las Vegas.

The Buffalo Wild Wings (60-50 at this writing) join the AL East. Natural rivalries with the Yanks and Montreal.

The Charlotte Web Gems (remember "Charlotte's Web" as a kid?) join the NL East. They are holding their own at 57-60. Potential rivalry with Atlanta.

The Memphis Volunteers (46-65) are in the NL Central.

The Nashville Notes (58-53) are in the AL Central.

Your Portland Pioneers bring up the rear in the AL West (43-68).

And the stunning San Antonio Scouts lead the NL West (67-44).

It's been fun.

[Le Grande Orange]

The top fifty markets in the United States using the following measurement metric:

The metropolitan statistical area's 2020 population is multiplied by its per capita income. The result is effectively the pool of money in that area from which a ball club could potentially draw. The greater that amount, the better the team's financial prospects, all other factors being equal.

The rating number is determined by assigning the smallest existing major league market a value of 100 and adjusting the other areas accordingly.

Here is the list:

Rank       Metroplitan Statistical Area                   Rating
----------------------------------------------------------------
 1   MLB   New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ             1,340
 2   MLB   Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA               806
 3   MLB   Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN                  609
 4   MLB   Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX                  454
 5   MLB   Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV     431
 6   MLB   San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA                430
 7   MLB   Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands, TX               428
 8   MLB   Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD      415
 9   MLB   Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH                   373
10   MLB   Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL        366
11   MLB   Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, GA                361
12   MLB   Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA                      293
13   MLB   Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ                        261
14   MLB   Detroit-Warren-Dearborn, MI                      255
15   MLB   Minneapolis-St Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI           240
16         San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA               217
17         Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA             209
18   MLB   Denver-Aurora-Centennial, CO                     195
19   MLB   San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA               194
20   MLB   St Louis, MO-IL                                  182
21   MLB   Baltimore-Columbia-Towson, MD                    178
22   MLB   Tampa-St Petersburg-Clearwater, FL               169
23         Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, NC-SC                166
24   MLB   Pittsburgh, PA                                   153
25         Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA              150
26         Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, TX                 147
27   MLB   Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN                             142
28         Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, CA                  139
29         Indianapolis-Carmel-Greenwood, IN                137
30         San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX                    134
31         Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN   133
32   MLB   Kansas City, MO-KS                               133
33         Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford, FL                    130
34   MLB   Cleveland, OH                                    128
35         Columbus, OH                                     127
36         Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, NV          123
37         Bridgeport-Stamford-Danbury, CT                  102
38   MLB   Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI                           100
39         Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk, VA-NC          99
40         Providence-Warwick, RI-MA                         98
41         Jacksonville, FL                                  92
42         Raleigh-Cary, NC                                  92
43         Richmond, VA                                      85
44         Oklahoma City, OK                                 83
45         Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, CT          77
46         Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN                77
47         Memphis, TN-MS-AR                                 76
48         New Orleans-Metairie, LA                          75
49         Salt Lake City-Murray, UT                         73
50         Buffalo-Cheektowaga, NY                           67