Predicting MLB's 2 Expansion Teams and the 8-Division Breakdown with 32 Teams
During Sunday night's Little League Classic between the New York Mets and Seattle Mariners, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred talked about the possibility of not just expansion, but also a total overhaul of the leagues as we know them.
"I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign," he told ESPN. "I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. And I think our postseason format would be even more appealing for entities like ESPN, because you'd be playing out of the east and out of the west."
So, basically a Western Conference and an Eastern Conference, as is the case in both the NBA and NHL?
Naturally, most baseball fans revolted against the idea, as we tend to do every time any sort of change is suggested about our beloved pastime.
Rather than digging in our heels, though, and pouting about the tarnishing of the century-and-a-quarter history of the American League and century-and-a-half history of the National League, let's use these August doldrums to take a good, hard look at what that might look like.
First things first, which two cities would get added to the mix?
And once we nail that down, what would an eight-division map look like?
Candidates for MLB Expansion
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For at least the past decade, every time there has been even the slightest discussion of a team possibly relocating, the first city mentioned is nearly always Nashville, Tennessee. It almost seems inevitable that it would be one of the two cities added to the mix.
City No. 2 is much more open to debate, though.
A return to Montreal has often been floated as an option, including as a possible solution for Tampa Bay's lack of a permanent stadium this season. However, that didn't happen, and trying to replant seeds there isn't likely to happen, either.
Charlotte frequently gets mentioned as a candidate, too, but putting two new teams in what is already Braves Country feels pretty unlikely.
The likeliest location is either Salt Lake City, Portland or Vancouver, if only to give Seattle and/or Colorado some sort of geographical rival. (It also feels like the second new team needs to be somewhere out west, as there are already considerably more teams east of the Mississippi River than west of it.)
Of the bunch, Portland is arguably the best fit. For now, though, we'll just call it the to-be-determined Pacific Northwest team, or TBD PNW for short.
Western Conference Division A: Pacific Northwest
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The Teams: Seattle Mariners, San Francisco Giants, Las Vegas Athletics and TBD PNW
Might as well go ahead and call them the Las Vegas Athletics here, as we're talking about an expansion that almost certainly wouldn't be happening until they've left their temporary home in West Sacramento.
But that does segue nicely into what might be the biggest rational complaint about this whole geographic realignment idea: What happens if another team relocates?
Prior to the A's, there hadn't been a relocation since the Expos became the Nationals two decades ago, but it's always a possibility for a disgruntled owner. The A's once went from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland in the span of 15 years. MLB could always realign again if that happens, but it would defeat the purpose of trying to divide the country up into geographic octets.
But I digress.
We're starting out with what would probably be the weirdest division of them all.
There's certainly some Bay Area history between the A's and Giants, including the 1989 World Series. And there's at least some history between the Mariners and A's after nearly half a century together in the AL West. However, aside from 2000-03, there are hardly any examples where both teams were relevant in the same year.
Honestly, the best rivalry here might be a rapidly established one between Seattle and the TBD PNW team. That'd especially be true if it's Portland, as there is already one hellacious rivalry between those cities in Major League Soccer. Might as well get one in Major League Baseball, too.
Western Conference Division B: The Southwest
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The Teams: Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks
Geographically speaking, this is the most natural division, with no two teams separated by more than 400 miles of desert highway and no other particularly nearby teams to choose from—save for the A's.
The casualty here would be the storied rivalry between the Dodgers and Giants.
However, it's not like they wouldn't face each other anymore. A logical count of games played per opponent in this brave new world would be 14 per opponent within the division (42 games), six per non-division foe within the league (72) and three per opponent in the other league (48)—unless we're also talking about eliminating interleague games or changing the length of the season.
And at least we'd be preserving the Dodgers-Padres rivalry (which has left Dodgers-Giants in the dust in recent years) while also turning Dodgers-Angels into a more legitimate proximity hate fest.
Western Conference Division C: Tornado Alley
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The Teams: Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers and Houston Astros
Yes, the names of the divisions will need some workshopping, but the geography here at least makes some sense.
Would love to have two pairs of nearby rivals together here with Rangers-Astros and Royals-Cardinals, but darn it if we don't have to put the Rockies somewhere. This division is probably the main argument against the second expansion team going somewhere near Seattle, as Colorado could replace TBD PNW in Division A. But it does help balance everything else out.
Besides, the Rockies are closer to all three of the teams in this proposed division than they are to San Francisco or Seattle, and it's not like they ever forged any real rivalries with any of the teams out west over the past three decades.
Just about no matter how you slice it, though, in a geographic realignment, the Rangers-Astros rivalry will remain intact. And that's good for baseball, even if it isn't anywhere near as deep-rooted as many of the others in the sport.
Western Conference Division D: The West Midwest
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The Teams: Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals and Minnesota Twins
All four of these Central Time Zone teams are closer to the Eastern Time Zone than the Mountain Time Zone, let alone the Pacific Time Zone. Yet if you drew a line right down the middle of the country to try to split the Eastern and Western Conferences, you'd end up with nine teams in the west and 23 in the east.
So, if this expansion and realignment occur, get ready for some extremely non-Western teams in the Western Conference.
This would be kind of an awesome baseball division, though, right?
Cubs-Cardinals. Cubs-White Sox. White Sox-Twins. All solid rivalries. And it surely wouldn't take much for a Cardinals-Twins conflict to ignite.
All four teams have roots back to at least 1901, too, so tons of general history independent of any head-to-head history.
Eastern Conference Division A: The East Midwest
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The Teams: Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Guardians
Originally toyed with the idea of a "Northern Border" division consisting of Milwaukee, Detroit, Minnesota and Toronto, but this one just fits a little better with everything else around it.
What a small-market division it would be, though. Detroit really should have the means to spend more than it has lately, but Cincinnati, Cleveland and especially Milwaukee have never particularly had the luxury of spending much money.
Then again, that's the current state of the American League Central, which produced three playoff teams just last season, so it's hardly a disqualifying factor as we try to map Manfred's Monster together.
Definitely like the idea of further fostering a Reds and Guardians rivalry, though. The Ohio Cup has been an annual showdown (usually multiple series per year) since interleague play was introduced in 1997, but most baseball fans outside of Ohio don't appreciate how much these two fanbases don't like each other.
A late-season showdown with a divisional crown on the line could be incendiary.
Eastern Conference Division B: The Southeast
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The Teams: Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays and Nashville Expansion Team
Assuming either Nashville or Charlotte (but not both) is part of the expansion to 32 teams, it's hard to imagine this wouldn't be one of the divisions. Maybe there could be a Gulf of Mexico/America division featuring the two Texas teams and the two Florida teams, but that's just about the only alternative.
But while a Cubs-Cardinals-Twins-White Sox division would feature four teams that have been around for well over a century, this Southeast Division would be something of an "Atlanta and the Whippersnappers" situation.
The Braves go all the way back to 1876, but the others only have roots to 1993 (Marlins), 1998 (Rays) and brand-new roots for the expansion team. And though the Marlins have spent all but their first season of existence in the same division with Atlanta, that rivalry has never risen to anywhere near the same level as Atlanta's long-standing rivalries with the Mets and Phillies.
Braves and Rays in the same division could be something, though. They both have a knack for identifying talent and fleecing trade partners, to the point where they have refused to negotiate an actual "players going in both directions" trade with each other in the past 15 years. That is a rivalry waiting to blossom.
Eastern Conference Division C: Mid-Atlantic
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The Teams: Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto Blue Jays and Washington Nationals
Going into this exercise, I expected the Mariners to be the toughest team to place in a division, simply because there isn't presently another team within 800 miles of Seattle.
For whatever reason, though, Toronto was the square peg/round hole conundrum that didn't neatly fit anywhere.
It ends up being kind of a fun "culinary" division, though.
Labatt Blue and Tim Horton's.
Iron City and Primanti's.
Natty Boh and crab cakes.
And...Washington D.C., but at least the Nationals and Orioles make sense together. Also, Canada's team waging divisional war against what used to be Canada's other team could be fun.
There are also some good NFL and NHL rivalries involving various combinations of these cities, so the baseball fans wouldn't need a whole lot of nudging to start rooting against their new division rivals here.
Eastern Conference Division D: The Northeast
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The Teams: Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies
Even if you came into this thing vehemently opposed to the idea of expansion and realignment, this division almost makes it worth considering, no?
The Yankees-Red Sox and Mets-Phillies rivalries are already sensational theatre, but put all four of those teams in one division and just enjoy the fireworks display when one of the most passionate fanbases in the sport has to accept a last-place finish in this division each year.
As things stand, the two-team combination here with the least history (as well as the greatest distance between cities) would be Boston-Philadelphia. And yet, both travel so well that it would probably become a fierce rivalry within one year, three tops.
And what a polar opposite of a Tigers-Guardians-Reds-Brewers division this one would be. These four teams combined are projected to spend (including luxury-tax payments) just a shade under $1.4 billion in 2025, while those other four are looking at more like $575 million.
This would, of course, make it hilarious when the East Midwest division produces a wild-card team in a year when the Northeast does not.
All Divisions Snapshot
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West A: Mariners, Giants, Athletics, TBD PNW
West B: Dodgers, Angels, Padres, Diamondbacks
West C: Rockies, Royals, Astros, Rangers
West D: Cardinals, Cubs, Twins, White Sox
East A: Brewers, Guardians, Reds, Tigers
East B: Braves, Marlins, Rays, Nashville Expansion
East C: Blue Jays, Nationals, Orioles, Pirates
East D: Mets, Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees
