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 The game of baseball has relatively been unaltered for 60 years. Sure, there have been some changes regarding the pitching mound and the size of some ballparks, but ground rules and spirit of the game has remained untouched. Sure, some sports need a bit of tweaking from time to time but baseball is great because of its purity and overall balance.
One area that baseball does need to open its eyes and change is the league alignment. Right now there are 30 total teams. This means 30 teams in two leagues means 15 teams per league, right? Not at all. The American League has 14 teams while the National League has 16. I’m no mathematician but those numbers don’t seem fair.
The biggest unjust is upon the N.L. Central which has six teams (Cubs, Cards, Brewers, Reds, Pirates, and Astros) vying for just one playoff spot while the A.L. West has only four teams (Mariners, Angels, Athletics, and Rangers) going for first place. One division has to beat-out five teams while the other only three. Seem fair?
In 1998 the Brewers changed Central divisions when they left the A.L for the N.L. I’m not exactly sure why this happened, especially since it was the first league switch in the 20th century. Maybe Bud Selig (former Brewer owner and former team president) thought it gave his old team a better chance at going to the playoffs. I’m clueless.
Regardless of the reasoning behind the Brewers move, the result is the now unbalance of the leagues. There are three answers to solve this mathematical wrongdoing: addition, subtraction, and a mix of both.
The A.L. can add two teams and then have the total number of teams in the MLB be at 32. I don’t see this happening because the proposal will take years to happen and even longer for an already diluted talent pool to become competitive.
Another answer would be to have the N.L. simply resolve two teams and have their players divided amongst the rest of the league. This could create quite an uproar as to which teams deserve to stay and which don’t (* cough* Washington Nationals and Pittsburgh Pirates * cough*). This idea, while it does make better sense than the prior suggestion, will never happen because the MLB will lose the revenue of those two cities and the almighty dollar is…well, almighty.
So that leaves us with the last, easiest, and most reasonable suggestion: take one team from the N.L. to the A.L. and then realign the divisions.
At first glance, graphically the best idea I could come up with would be to move the San Diego Padres to the A.L. West and then move the Houston Astros to the N.L. West. By doing this you don’t have to move any of the tradition-rich franchises like the Dodgers or the Giants to the A.L. The A.L. West has two other California teams (A’s and Angels) just like the N.L. West so it won’t be that big of a jump.
In the kill-two-birds-with-one-stone department, the Astros could leave the N.L. Central and cut that division to just five teams and join the West. The Astros would be a lot closer to their division opponents in terms of distance as well. No more flights to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati.
By this simple adjustment both leagues would have 15 teams and all three divisions of both leagues would have five teams. This seems too perfect and makes too much sense to work out. I’m sure there are reasons beyond my understanding as to why this realignment won’t ever happen but on paper and in thought everything looks to be in harmony. Teams don’t have to travel as far and spend more money on flights, there’s balance in the league, and no real division rivalries are broken-up, so tradition is upheld.
Harmony is created for all. Now if you excuse me, I’m going to fill-out my commissioner of baseball application.
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