I've thought about this a lot over the years, and I think it's time to think big. MLB keeps trying expansion to grow the game, and it hasn't worked. So I would challenge the league commissioners and presidents and labor officials and Bob Costas to get together and agree to throw out the existing structure and start over in the year 2030 (picked only because I think that's realistic). And I'm thinking HUGE here, but I think that's what the game needs. But there are a lot of rules needing addressed to make this happen--on the field and off (like salary caps and player taxes and expansion drafts and stuff). But in the end everyone gets richer and the game truly grows in popularity and fan base. And some cities are going to lose their franchise (until someone buys a team who is struggling 8 to 10 years later). For now I'm just moving the Marlins and the Rays. Are you sitting down? (Not because this is a long entry, but because all division rivalries are going to disappear...and as a Cards fan I hate that. But it is a long entry, too. And it starts screwy, but then it gets way better...trust me.)
So if you're ready (or not), here we go
I want to see 2 leagues of 32 teams each. For now we'll call them the Apple League and the Banana League (A & B for short). The A League is the top tier and they are competing for the World Chapionship. The B league is a step below and they are playing for a lesser prize we'll call "The Big Banana" for right now. We've got 8 years to design that trophy...I'd like to assign that task to Joe Buck if there are no objections. And if he comes up with a better name, then that's fine too.
Each league has 2 divisions.of 16 teams each. We'll call them the Yak and Zebra divisions (Y & Z) in both leagues for now. So now a team in the Apple Yak division is AY and a team in Banana Yak is BY and Apple Zebra has 8 teams shown as AZ. Still with me?
And then each division of 16 has four subdivisions of four teams. I'm going to give them the letters of A, E, O and U. You'll see why later. This letter will be the last letter in the three letter code for each team. And I apologize now if there is an unforeseen swear word made when we start putting these together.
And where will all these teams be based? Well the following is just one hypothetical way that things could pan out for these leagues, and I'm keeping the current NL and AL together (although I think it cannot be the case when the year 2030 comes around). But here you go:
Apple League (32) Banana League (32)
Yak Division (16) Zebra Division (16) Yak Division (16) Zebra Division (16)
AY-U (4) AZ-U (4) BY-U (4) BZ-U (4)
St. Louis Cards Detroit Tigers New York Mets New York Yankees
Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox Washington Nats Boston Red Sox
Cincinnati Reds Cleveland Indians Philadelphia Phils Baltimore Orioles
Milwaukee Brewers Minnesota Twins Pittsburgh Pirates Toronto Blue Jays
AY-O (4) AZ-O (4) BY-O (4) BZ-O (4)
LA Dodgers LA Angels SF Giants Seattle Mariners
SD Padres Houston Astros Arizona DBacks KC Royals
Colorado Rockies Oakland (Vegas?) A's Monterey Marlins San Juan (PR) Rays
Atlanta Braves Texas Rangers Mexico City Aztecs (exp) Santo Domingo Santos (exp)
AY-A (4) AZ-A (4) BY-A (4) BZ-A (4)
Seibu Lions (J) Tokyo Giants (J) Hanshin Tigers (J) Hiroshima Carp (J)
SoftBank Hawks (J) Chunichi Dragons (J) Yakult Swallows (J) Orix Blue Wave (J)
Rakuten Eagles (J) Nippon Ham Fighters(J) Yokohama DeNA Stars (J) Chiba Lotte Marinos (J)
SSG Landers (K) Samsung Lions (K) LG Twins (K) Doosan Bears (K)
AY-E (4) AZ-E (4) BY-E (4) BZ-E (4)
London Bridges (exp) Madrid Matadors (exp) Paris B.C. (exp) Frankfurt Urbans (exp)
Manchester Divided (exp) Barcelona Battlers (exp) Marseilles No Sox (exp) Benelux Locos (exp)
Athens Olympians (exp) Milano Alyssas (exp) Vienna Waltzes (exp) Copenhagen Mermaids (exp)
Lisbon Artists (exp) Roma Pontificos (exp) Prague Babies (exp) Oslo Brrrrrrrrrs (exp)
OK--U is USA, O is other americas, A is Asia and E is Europe. I chose to keep all 12 NPB teams from Japan and only 4 of the 10 Korean teams, but honestly those leagues would be involved in the negotiations and could come to an amicable agreement of 10 and 6 or 8 and 8 or whatever. The other teams who don't make this cut could be a new AAA level league (which will be diluted because of all those expansion teams I've added above). And I admit I'm quite proud of a few of those European team names. They wouldn't all have to be in Europe, though--I could see 9 Euro and then Montreal, Havana and Ottawa or something.
OK, so here's the deal for this much expansion...teams are going to break up, and the USA minor league structure will as well (maybe they all need to be independent rather than have affilliations?...tough questions to deal with when this big of a change is made!) Let's say for the draft each team's major league and AAA affiliate rosters are combined (so maybe 60 people?) and then they can protect only 15 or so. And when one gets drafted then you can protect one more. or something like that...Bob Costas is pretty smart and he'll figure it out. Japan/Korea have to get rid of their limitation rules on the # of foreign born players permitted on rosters. Or alternatively maybe every team in this league needs a rule of minimum 8 Asian players and 12 Latin American and 12 US/CAN and 4 Europeans on their 40 man rosters, and then some other split for the MLB 26. There's plenty of talent in Asia...not as much in Europe, maybe.
So again Apple Yaks and Apple Zebras are the cream of the crop--the upper league. Their teams finish 1-4 in each subdivision:
AYA1, AYE1, AYO1 and AYU1 all go to the playoffs and stay in Apple League next year.
AYA2, AYE2, AYO2 and AYU2 stay in Apple League next year
AYA4, AYE4, AYO4 and AYU4 all get relegated to the Banana League next year. They are replaced by BYA1, BYE1, BYO1 and BYU1.
And then for the 3rd place finishers we could either keep them steady or relegate them to the other league, or my thought is that the 2 worst 3rd place teams go down to Banana and the 2 best 2nd place Bananas go up to Apple. But they may not come from the same Asia/Europe/USA/Other category, so you could end up with Barcelona and Tokyo in the same division after a number of years.
Note that as I explain playoffs below it is possible that a team makes the playoffs but still gets relegated....that might need to be addressed, I reckon. But a 4th place finish with a high Winning Percentage could get you in the playoffs.
Interleague play goes away in this new world. It shouldn't exist in ours today, either, but one step at a time. Here's my proposed season for the Apple Yak Division. You can figure all the others would parallel.
All AYA's play each other 12 times - 6 @ home and 6 away. They also play every AYO, AYU and AYE team in a single 3 game series either at home or away. That's 36 + 12 + 12 + 12 games = 72 games....that's the first half of the season. There's a week off for four Apple all-star games, one in Asia, one in Europe, two in the Americas. Likewise there are four Banana all-star games at other sites. Now the 2nd half of the season you have another 72 games except the home/aways go the other way this time. 144 games isn't much for a season, is it? Well we have to accommodate a lot more travel and rest days due to the international side of things. We're spreading 17 time zones here (or so). And the playoffs may take longer for similar reasons..
Each DIVISION has 10 playoff teams (6 don't make it):
----Each Subdivision has a 1st place winner for the first half of the season, and a 1st place winner for the second half of the season. Those teams both get playoff spots. That makes up at least 4 and as many as 8 of the 10 playoff spots I'm envisioning. So if you get 3 teams winning their subdivision in both the first and second half, then the fourth subdivision had different teams win the two halves...those 5 teams advance.
---Now take all the remaining 11 teams and rank them by winning percentage. The top 5 get the extra playoff spots.
---We have 10 playoff teams in Apple Yak. Now those 10 need to be ranked by winning percentage for the full season (1-10). #1-#6 get first round byes and #7-#10 are considered Wild Cards and have to play a best of 3 series AT A NEUTRAL SITE to advance. #7 plays #10 and #8 plays #9.
---Winners move on to pool play in the 2nd round with 2 pools--1/4/5/lowest wild card remaining and 2/3/6/highest remaining. These are single round robin games within the pools, again at a NEUTRAL SITE. I'm trying to get other non-MLB sites involved, like the best Minor League stadiums or other foreign cities without a team. Pool play is typical World Cup Soccer style with 3 for a win and 1 for a loss. Top 2 finishers in each pool move on.
At this point, any team that remains in the final 4 of each division have only played 150 games or less. Remainder of the playoffs go back to the team's home stadiums for 2-2-1 and 2-3-2 series. Top seed plays lowest remaining in a 5 game series (155 max) and then the two winners play a 7 game for the Apple Yak Championship. They've now played a maximum of 162 games and should be ready to play 7 more in a 7 game world series against the Apple Zebra Championship team. And the Banana League has all this same thing going on at the same time, but with lesser quality teams (based on the prior year's records, at least).
Yes--you could have the New York Yankees and the Tokyo Giants playing these games, so even with the fewer games we may need two rest days for travel. We may still end up in November, I guess, but I hope not.
Oh--that's another thing. The beginning of the season in this league will be done smarter than today. Teams with mild climates and/or domed stadiums will host all games the first two weeks of the season. Then those teams go on a two week road trip and the colder climates get to host their home openers.
I'm sure I forgot something, but man I'd really like to see this concept worked on. If you're a purist and want to close the MLB record books in 2029 and start new ones in 2030. It's a whole different game now anyway. 2022---it's all HRs and Ks and 100mph pitchers and DHs. 2000---steroid era, so HRs were crazy. 1980s---speed and astroturf. 1960s--pitchers ruled. 1950s---finally integrating and bringing the best talent in. 1940s--war years and segregation. Before 1920---dead ball. Yet we still compare Pujols with Aaron and Ruth. So why not start bringing Suzuki and Gonzales and Von Trautmann into the game more for future generations worldwide?
Kent