The Mets swapping the Braves for the Yankees as divisional foes? Goodbye to the Dodgers vs. Giants rivalry as we know it?
Geographic realignment in MLB is more likely than you think. Or, more likely than previously thought, after commissioner Rob Manfred surprisingly discussed the subject on Sunday.
With expansion expected before the end of this decade, there could be a major shuffling to help address concerns over travel schedules. Candidates include Nashville, Salt Lake City, or an MLB return to Montreal. There’s also Mexico City (elevation at 7,349 feet!) to rival the Rockies’ Coors Field as the park that pitchers would most hate to see on the schedule.
But with Manfred’s emphasis on geography, two cities – Charlotte and Portland – would make the most sense. And with hypothetical franchises in the Queen City and the Rose City, we can ask: What would a realigned MLB look like? We’ve got an idea.
Eight divisions with four teams each, which is a huge shift from today’s six divisions with five teams. The American League gets condensed (confined to the heavily populated East Coast out to the Great Lakes region), while the National League stretches out for far more square mileage.
Okay with that? Well, let’s talk about the why of each division.
American League
New York Yankees
New York Mets
Boston Red Sox
Philadelphia Phillies
A division that places together four of the largest, loudest cities in the region — don’t worry, that’s a compliment. This division also has maybe the strongest “we’re so back/it’s so over” energy of them all, too, given how these fan bases tend to engage with their teams’ highs and lows. Keeping the Red Sox and Yankees together was paramount, but this setup also has the bonus of letting the Mets and Yankees rivalry grow that much larger, since it won’t just be for New York supremacy, but also for the divisional kind.
Breaking up the Mets and Braves is disappointing, but the Phillies-Mets rivalry is no slouch. Also, it’s not as if the Braves and Mets will never play in important games. They’d both be American League teams now, and will play often enough to ruin each other’s regular seasons, while also leaving open the possibility of matching up in the postseason.
Baltimore Orioles
Washington Nationals
Pittsburgh Pirates
Cleveland Guardians
The Orioles and Nationals don’t share a city, but they are close enough to share the same regional sports network — a fact that’s been a point of contention between the two in the past. The two are already paired up as designated rivals by MLB, so keeping them together here makes sense. The Pirates and Guardians are both charting newer territory, but it’s because they both make more sense here than in other divisions. Pirates fans, if you feel odd not being in the Central anymore, consider that you’re no longer haunted by the Cubs or Cardinals or this season’s Brewers this way.
Minnesota Twins
Milwaukee Brewers
Detroit Tigers
Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays and Tigers used to be rivals in the ’80s and ’90s due to their hotly-contested fights for the AL East crown, a fact celebrated by their being designated rivals in the eyes of MLB in the present. Sure, some rivalries are being lost because of this geographic shift, but others can be reignited — great timing, too, because both of these clubs are the most competitive they’ve been in ages right now, and have the young rosters to keep that going.
As for the Brewers, it’s a return to the American League — they switched to the NL in 1998, when the then-Devil Rays and Diamondbacks joined MLB as expansion teams. This also would arguably be the first time the Twins were in a division that aligned with their location: they are central, sure, but a little out of place with the rest of the division, and were previously in the AL West before the ’98 switch to six divisions.
Atlanta Braves
Miami Marlins
Tampa Bay Rays
Charlotte (Expansion)
The first space where an expansion team is necessary for filling out a division. We’d lose the current Mets vs. Braves divisional rivalry, but it does create an opportunity for Atlanta and the new squad, Charlotte, to come to blows given their relative proximity. Putting the two Florida teams together might help foster a rivalry there, too, but part of this is pure geography as per Manfred’s edict. Did you know that driving from Charlotte to Atlanta actually takes the same amount of time as a trip from St. Petersburg to Miami? Florida is a long state, folks.
National League
Chicago Cubs
Chicago White Sox
St. Louis Cardinals
Cincinnati Reds
Like New York’s duo, Chicago can see their two teams face off far more regularly about who is the pride of their city. The Cubs get to keep their designated-by-MLB rival in the White Sox, and without losing their historic rival, the Cardinals. The Reds get to keep a couple of familiar faces they’re used to sparring with around, and while they do lose the Pirates and Brewers, in the grand scheme of things, those three were not in the same division for that long: the Reds used to be in the NL West before the wild card era, and the Brewers were in the AL until the 1998 season.
Colorado Rockies
Kansas City Royals
Texas Rangers
Houston Astros
There are two ways to look at this division. The first is that some cracks in the geographic realignment plan are showing a bit, owing to how these teams are distributed around the country — there are teams from three different existing divisions here. The second is the way that you should be thinking about it: this fixes some longstanding issues!
Why were the Rockies in the NL West? There wasn’t anywhere else to go, despite being in a different time zone than the California clubs and closer to the NL Central clubs. Why were the Astros in the AL West? Because there were just four AL West teams when they made the switch from the NL in 2013 – despite Houston being significantly closer to Boston than it is to Seattle. The Rangers also get to move out of their oddball AL West designation while preserving their Texas-based rivalry, and the Rockies join a division with the team actually closest to them, the Royals.
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
Los Angeles Angels
Arizona Diamondbacks
Three of the four remaining California teams — this exercise assumes the Athletics will be in Las Vegas in 2028 — get into this one division, since they’re all close together in what’s a massive state. Manfred said the Red Sox and Angels facing off in the postseason isn’t ideal for MLB or its fans. But the Angels and Dodgers fighting for a postseason spot or spoiling each other’s season or facing off in October would be! The Padres and Dodgers get to keep their bloodfeud going in this arrangement, too. The Diamondbacks still aren’t in the right time zone, but that’s the nature of the geographic beast: they’re at least aligned distance-wise with the rest of this crew.
Seattle Mariners
Las Vegas Athletics
San Francisco Giants
Portland (Expansion)
The A’s and Giants can renew their former Bay Area rivalry, even if it is which team from the Northwest division is the best. Yes, the Giants lose the Dodgers rivalry, but like the Braves/Mets and the emphasis towards more geographically-oriented scheduling, those two will still be seeing a ton of each other, and will be able to face off in the postseason, as well.
An expansion team in Portland narrows the lonely gap between the Mariners and the next team south, and since there are some historic sports rivalries between the two cities — Seattle Sounders/Reign/SuperSonics and Portland Timbers/Thorns/Trail Blazers fans, hello — the seed is already planted for transferring those feelings onto a new MLB team.
Postseason: What Would It Look Like?
Rather than three division champions and three wild card teams, the setup here would feature four division winners and a pair of wild cards. There would still be an NL side and an AL side to the postseason bracket, which means that the league could avoid the scenario Manfred brought up when extolling the virtues of geographic realignment — the Red Sox (or Phillies, or Mets, or Braves or Blue Jays or whichever team) wouldn’t have to fly out to the West Coast for Division Series or Wild Card round games in a packed postseason broadcasting schedule that inevitably cuts fans out from watching their favorite teams.
MLB could choose to change things even further, both in the postseason or in a divisional format — what if they scaled back divisions, or used straight seeding, or something akin to the NBA’s setup and so on — but the alignment is already disruptive: this feels like the best possible balance between what already is and what should be, with the emphasis on geography espoused by MLB.
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