It's Time For Baseball To Expand!

With the economy in a so-called shambles (depending on who you listen to and when you listen to them), any major sport would be criticized for even thinking about expanding.  So I wanted to be the first to float the idea and see what kind of traction it gets.

Major League Baseball needs to add two more teams to the mix to get to an even and symmetric 32 teams.  In addition, get rid of the three divisions we now have and go to four divisions in each league.

The schedule would fall neatly into 18 games against each team in your division (54), 9 games against the four teams (36) from the next closest geographical division (mostly teams from the old two division systems before the wild card era), and 6 games each against the other two divisions within the league (48).  Inter-league games would be against a division in the other league with natural in-state (NY vs NY and Cubs vs White Sox) every year (3 each for a total of 12) and the current rotation (3 each with a total of 12).  Add these together (54+36+24+24+12+12) and you get 162 games!

Now the really crazy part that will have purest screaming.  We would also have to switch some teams from one league to the other.  Here is the idea:

American League East---NY Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, and Toronto (nothing major here, the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry is in place keeping ESPN happy!)

American League Central---Detroit, C White Sox, Cleveland, and Minnesota (again, nothing major here and these teams really dislike each other)

American League MidWest---Kansas City, Texas, Houston, Cincinnati (OK, Houston and Cincy become American League teams.  But the State of Texas would love to have the Rangers and Astros play each other 18 times a year for the "State Bragging Rights")

American League West---LA Angels, Colorado, Seattle, Oakland (Colorado moves to the AL)

National League East---Philadelphia, NY Mets, Washington, Buffalo (Buffalo gets an expansion team in a new dome and draws a lot of fans from Canada)

National League SouthEast---Atlanta, Tampa, Florida, New Orleans (Tampa switches to the NL and sets up a "Battle of Florida".  New Orleans gets an expansion team called the "Hurricanes"....actually....that's a BAD idea.  Call them the "Cajuns" or the "Bad Boys of the Bayou")

National League Central---Milwaukee, St Louis, C Cub, and Pittsburgh (leaves the Cubs/Cards rivalry in tact)

National League West---LA Dodgers, San Fran, San Diego, Arizona (Nothing changes here)

Match the AL East and Central together and the MidWest and West together for the three 3-game series (alternating who gets 6 home games one year each year).  Match the NL East and SouthEast together and the Central and West together for the geographical 9 game sets.

Match the two East divisions together every year, the two Centrals together, the NL SouthEast and the AL MidWest, and the two West divisions every year for Inter-league play.  Rotate through the remaining three divisions year after year.

I guess the biggest change would be three NL teams bouncing to the AL and the NL getting two expansion teams.  Tampa moving to the NL would also be a change, but I think a good one as they resemble an NL team to me.

The biggest issue I have with my own system is that it makes way too much sense.  Kind of like the National Playoff idea for Division One college football.

Playoffs?  I forgot to mention the playoffs.  No more wild-card!  Four division winners (Seeded 1-4 by record with 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3) square off against each other in a best of seven followed by another best of seven series for the League Crowns and then a best of seven for the World Series.

I encourage feedback and comments.  What other cities do you think deserve a Major League Team in place of Buffalo and New Orleans?