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I recently read an article that talks about the upcoming Major League Baseball expansion—detailing its contributing factors, the possible teams, and the realignment. This inspired me to put together my own thoughts regarding the upcoming MLB expansion in a couple years and what I would do if it were up to a crumb like me.

First, we have to acknowledge how we got here. For years, there were many differences between the American and National Leagues, from the size and makeup of the ballparks, to one league holding all the pitching and one with all the sticks, and, of course, the Designated Hitter (DH) rule, to name a couple.

Today, I don’t see much of a difference between the two leagues besides the storied clubs that have represented each one for decades, respectively. When it comes to realigning the senior circuit, I don’t think the decision makers need to pine about keeping, let’s say, the Tigers in the American League. I would keep them there, for the record, but nostalgia/history is the only reason I would leave them in the AL.

Basically, once they get to that point, MLB’s “realigners” shouldn’t focus on the history of the league, but instead, look forward to the next 100 years of baseball.

I get it. Some franchises won’t see a lot of change because the revenues they bring in are too important (to the clubs and their cities). I’ve kept that in mind. However, when adding two new teams, it’s going to shake things up.

For example, in 1998, after the league added the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, they asked the Milwaukee Brewers to move over to the NL. This was the first time in the 20^th Century MLB asked a franchise to change leagues. The club built Miller Park and the rest is history.

A more recent example would be the Houston Astros. They spent nearly 30 years in the old National League West (1969-93). When the league expanded in 1994, the ‘Stros moved into the NL Central. From 1998 to 2012, the AL consisted of 16 teams to the NL’s 14. MLB thought it best to move Houston into the AL to balance the league, and potentially igniting a rivalry with the nearby Texas Rangers. While that feud hasn’t really “heated up” in the last decade, both teams are currently two of the more competitive in the AL. Who knows? One thing is for certain, changing leagues (and cheating) turned the Astros into World Series Champions a couple times over.

What I’m saying is: this isn’t necessarily going to be a bad thing if teams end up swapping leagues. I’m not saying it could be, but for the sake of this article, it won’t because they are all staying put (for now). I’m simply stating that I have no problem with change in baseball. The new rules implemented this season haven’t gummed up the game besides putting more of an onus on the umpires’ varying strike zones. Change is good, more or less.

EXPANSION!

Currently, there are six cities who would like to have an MLB club bring in some money. Nashville, Portland, Charlotte, Orlando, Salt Lake City, and Montreal. All six allegedly have the room for a surefire, state-of-the-art baseball park. The main issue is, like with any planning/zoning effort, who will pay for the stadium? Where will it be located? And, who is going to the ballpark once its ready to go?

Based on the piece I mentioned and what I’ve read and heard on other sports media outlets, it looks like Nashville and Portland are the frontrunners. Nashville has former A’s/Blue Jays pitcher Dave Stewart lobbying hard for Nashville to get a team. He has his former skipper Tony LaRussa and another baseball great, Don Mattingly, in on the deal. Only snag right now is funding. The city said a stadium would have to be built privately. I’m not sure if the current group, “Music City Baseball,” has enough cashola to this point. One good thing for Nashville is the absence of Las Vegas being a contender for an expansion team. “Sin City” recently landed the A’s who will call Vegas home as late as the 2027 season.

Portland is an interesting market. Out of the nearly 70 sports cities in the U.S., Portland ranks just outside of the top 20. Just above them—also with only one major sports franchise is Charlotte. I think the main issue with Charlotte is MLB adding Nashville and Charlotte. The two cities are fairly close to one another when trying to establish a new market for pro baseball.

The allure of Portland, I think, comes from its location on the map and that’s it. Just north would be the Seattle Mariners, and the next closest teams to the M’s are the San Francisco Giants and the Colorado Rockies. Adding a Portland club would bring another organization to the Pacific Northwest. From what I hear but have yet to experience, the PNW in summer is really nice… if you can avoid the rain.

That brings up a similar issue with Portland, as I’ve read with Nashville. A group known as the Portland Diamond Project has spent “years” looking for a location if MLB said, “Yes, Portland, you get a team.” One problem is that the group can’t tell the citizens when it’s going to happen. Another problem is where in the heck they would build the stadium, and (like Nashville) who would fit the bill. If you ask PDP, they’ll run off a list of places, but it sounds like this has been going on for quite some time in The Rose City. All I ask is that if the city does get a team, that they “call up” the Portland Pickles to the senior circuit. Oh yeah, and they’ll need one of those retractable roofs, or they’re “playing two” quite a bit.

Another team on the move could be the Tampa Bay Rays. I’m just not sure if it’s up the road or across the border. If Major League Baseball, the Rays, and the City of Tampa can come to an agreement on a new facility for the team (and it seems like they’re close), that makes the likelihood of outsiders like Charlotte, Salt Lake, Montreal, and definitely Orlando, out of the running for potential relocation. How does this tie into league expansion?

Right now, the Rays are the only other team with clear-cut “stadium issues” (how the Angels aren’t higher on the priority list boggles my mind). Or, at least, they’re on the top of the league’s priority because it’s “Tampa” and Tropicana Field is a total dump. Before recent talks picked back up regarding the Rays staying in Tampa, I was lobbying to no one but me and my dad for Montreal to get involved, dumping the Rays and reigniting the vaunted Expos from the ashes.

I think the main issue with Montreal is where the franchise was before relocating to Washington, D.C. in 2005. No one was filling the seats and no top tier major leaguer wanted to go tear it up in the chilly “514.” As a kid who grew up watching the Expos play my favorite club regularly, I would love to see them return for the nostalgia, but after that, I would wish them nothing but the worst.

I touched briefly on Orlando. It would be cool to have a “Disney team” return to the bigs, but Florida can’t have three baseball teams, in my opinion. Lastly, Salt Lake City simply doesn’t have the population that could regularly fill a 35,000-45,000 seat ballpark. It wouldn’t work.

It feels like it’s down to Nashville and Portland, or bust.

REALIGNMENT! – Scheduling

Nashville and Portland set as the next two MLB expansion franchises make the most sense on paper, but it’s still going to take a lot to get that done. I’m looking forward to the day that announcement comes because it’ll bring new team names into the MLB lexicon and it also will call for the league to go from 30 teams to 32, like the league’s main domestic competitor, the NFL. Which likely means four divisions (or conferences, in NFL terminology) in each league consisting of four clubs in each division… right?

MLB has some serious choices to make when the time comes to expand and realign. As I previously stated, the “American League” and “National League” are merely names today. There’s no real separation in terms of rules or number of teams. Now that the league restructured the scheduling so every team plays eachother in at least one series each season, that further proves that it’s all one big league playing baseball on the highest level.

Some purists will tell you that it’s “not the same.” Some casuals will tell you that they’re glad fans have a chance to see some teams a little more regularly. MLB need to figure out who to side with and go from there, or, the smart move would be to take what’s the status quo, and tie in some of the classic elements of the league’s former alignment.

I personally like the way the league was formerly set up with the American and the National, and every team in each league was part of a league, no division. (Of course, back then, there weren’t as many clubs.) New rules are new rules and they were put in place for various reasons. I understand that having a steady DH in each league is the way to go. Some games take too long. A pitching clock is now a thing. I’m fine with that too now that we’re midway through the clock’s inaugural season.

Having 16 teams in one league is enough to fill one team’s schedule. It’s nice to watch a Phillies vs. Athletics series annually, but it has no bearing on the final tallies of the season besides wins and losses. There are currently clubs that need divisional games. (Phillies! Yankees! Any team in the AL Central!) I don’t think taking away divisional series is a good idea—unless divisions don’t really mean anything other than establishing seeding. If that’s the case, again, I say have the American and the National, and throw all 16 teams in each league with no divisions in each and let them play like it was 1968.

Confused a bit? It would kind of be like how the NFL does it, only teams in the American and the National would play everyone in their respective league, instead of matchups based on their finishing records from the prior year.

I don’t know about you, but I think keeping the leagues completely separate from one another’s schedule would make the All-Star Game and the World Series more special again. There’s not as much interleague play in the regular season with this setup I’m proposing, but again, does interleague play even matter? The separation of the leagues once made the game like no other American sport. I think it should be considered again.

REALIGNMENT! – The leagues, playoffs

With that in mind, I’m taking the 32 projected teams, based on what I’ve written, and making the “new” American and National Leagues.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Atlanta Braves

New York Mets

Philadelphia Phillies

Miami Marlins

Washington Nationals

Chicago Cubs

Pittsburgh Pirates

St. Louis Cardinals

—

Cincinnati Reds

Milwaukee Brewers

Los Angeles Dodgers

San Francisco Giants

San Diego Padres

Colorado Rockies

Arizona Diamondbacks

Nashville “Stars”

AMERICAN LEAGUE

New York Yankees

Boston Red Sox

Toronto Blue Jays

Baltimore Orioles

Tampa Bay Rays

Cleveland Indians

Chicago White Sox

Detroit Tigers

—

Minnesota Twins

Kansas City Royals

Houston Astros

Los Angeles Angels

Oakland Athletics

Texas Rangers

Seattle Mariners

Portland “Pickles”

In this setup/example, I would pass the top eight teams ( above the —) to advance to the postseason. From there, the opening round of the playoffs would be four, three-game series playing in the home stadiums of the top four seeds. Then, the second round would consist of two five-game (2-2-1) series in each league with the winners advancing to the respective, tried and true seven-game LCS’s (2-3-2), and so on to the World Series.

There’s even more room for a top seed to hit the wall in this set up, but if we’re looking at the this by leagues and how they would play out competitively, the eight teams vying to go to represent their league in the World Series will have a pretty good idea of their opponents due to my proposed “locked” play within the league. If a #1 seed loses to the #8, “that’s baseball.”

IN CLOSING!

You know, I keep looking at the “—” I added to separate the hypothetical contenders and now I’m thinking that just two divisions ( ex: “North & South”) in each league would still be fine at the splits. Setting up “NFL” style, four-team divisions isn’t the move, unless teams play those three other teams within their division more than any other teams.

As it stands, divisional matchups are less frequent, making the divisional role in the current setup for the MLB playoffs completely redundant. However, I’m not saying a realigned theoretical division consisting of the Yankees, Phillies, Red Sox, and Mets wouldn’t be interesting though. Or the Cubs, White Sox, Reds, and Guardians in another. Teams wouldn’t have to spend a lot on travel, that’s for sure. Still, four, four-team divisions in each league mirrors the NFL too much. MLB needs more individuality in terms of the structure of the league.

Baseball’s lost making the leagues mean more individually, but has a chance to find the magic once again. This realignment could be awesome, but the “realigners” need to look at the scope of the league, plan for the next century of play, all the while paying attention to how we got here.

As a personal preference, I wouldn’t mind seeing the Brewers and Astros swapping back to their original leagues. I know that’s a big ask, but it would be a nice touch. I would imagine the first year of 32 teams will be a rebranding opportunity for Major League Baseball. It could sort of be like a “reset” of the national pastime.

We’re still a fair way off from expansion in the majors. For now, it will be fun to see where teams #31 and #32 go and what it will mean for the game. Exciting times before MLB (hopefully) realigns.

~ Matt de Simone, Editor – The Fincastle Herald, The Vinton Messenger