Future Mlb Realignment
Does baseball need realignment and/or expansion in order to be more sound geographically & competitive?
San Antonio, Portland, San Juan, Monterrey, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, Las Vegas, and possibly Buffalo could be MLB markets in the future? One idea would be to move the D-Backs to the AL West, move the Pirates to the NL East, and move the Rangers to the NL Central. Another plan would create 8 4-team divisions with no wild card. Divisions would look like this: AL East (DET, TOR, NYY, BOS), AL Southeast (BAL, TB, MIA, WSH), AL West (POR, SEA, LAA, OAK), AL Central (CHW, CLE, MIN, KC); NL East (NYM, ATL, PHL, PIT), NL West (ARZ, SD, SFG, LAD), NL Central (STL, CHC, MIL, CIN), NL Southwest (SA, TEX, HOU, COL).
I don’t think MLB needs to expand to another 2 teams unless they take care of franchises with attendance issues (Oakland, Washington DC, Cleveland, etc). The talent level is a bit diluted right now. If there’s no expansion, I don’t see a need to realign.
If you are talking about competitiveness, it seems like MLB owners don’t really care. As we have seen from Florida and Pittsburgh’s finances, these teams seem to be profitable by losing. The current revenue-sharing plan is a dis-incentive to win. Unfortunately removing this plan could make things worse… Imagine if the Yankees can spend whatever they want with no consequence, while Pittsburgh gets no revenue sharing = The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Two ideas that should happen:
1) Implement a minimum and maximum salary cap. If a team goes over the maximum (like the Yankees), make them share two dollars for every dollar they go over…
2) Implement a draft pick contract scale (like the NBA). If a team can’t sign the pick, you can’t get that pick again next season like today’s system. There are numerous cases where a poorer team does not draft a player because of an agent’s (contract cost) demands, and ends up drafting a lesser and cheaper player.
MLB Realignment – No Divisions?