The powers-that-be are talking about expanding to 32 teams divided into 4 divisions. I’ve been thinking of how a schedule might be. This is what I’ve come up with. What do you all think of it.
Each team would play 3 games (home one year, away the next) with each of the other 24 teams. That makes 72 games, leaving 90 to be played inside their division. But 90 is not divisible by 7. But 91 is. So if the season is extended by 1 game, they could play 13 games with each team in their own division. Again alternating each season between 6 home and 7 away and the reverse, This will also mean that teams will alternately have 81 or 82 home games. But I like all the intra-division games. When I was growing up, teams played 22 games against each of their league rivals.
I hated all the intra-division games growing up. By August, I (Tigers fan) was always, “Geez O Pete, we’re playing the friggin’ Royals again?!” I like the new scheduling where there’s less games against division teams.
They almost certainly would just play one fewer game against one of the teams in their division. They don’t have a completely balanced schedule as it is now. But I think the problem with this schedule is it doesn’t have more games against non-divisional opponents in your league than the other league.
I suspect they’d be more likely to schedule 3 games against each team in the other league 3x16=48, 3 home and 3 away against each team in the other division in your league 6x8 = 48. The remaining 66 games would be 9 games against 4 teams in your division and 10 against 3 of them.
Or just have one interdivisional rival only play 12 games in any given year.
Personally I’d rather get rid of interleague play.
I don’t like the four division idea, because you either go back to four playoff teams per league or jump up to eight, which is far too many. If you stay at six, it’s weird; two division winners don’t get a bye but two do.
Consider a better idea; with sixteen teams, have two divisions of eight teams. The division winners get the bye, and they deserve it - they won a big division. Then you just hand out four Wild Cards to the next four best teams.
But there remains no easy way to get to 162. 12 in division is 84, so to get to 162 you need 9 with teams in the other division, an extremely inconvenient number. WITH interleague play, there is just nothing that works.
You know, you’re right. When I was a kid they weren’t, but they have been since the late 90s. For some reason it just always seemed like we were playing the same teams (KC sticks out in my mind oddly enough) over and over. I think in the 10s the schedule did change so there were more intra-division games. Maybe that’s contributing to my memory.
Doesn’t sound too popular. They were talking of four divisions. There is now no reality to two different leagues, now that the NL has adopted the DH.
In my day, there were two separate leagues, no inter-league games and each team played 22 games against each team in their league for a total of 7 x 22 = 154 games. I liked that and am trying, in a limited way to bring it back.
Frankly, I would argue MLB should shorten. 162 games is too many and dilutes the importance of each game. I’d prefer it to be something like 100-120 games. Of course, it would piss off many fans though because it would mean many records could never be broken again.
I don’t mind the idea of divisions of 8 x 4 for 32, but I do wonder who and what the new two teams will be.
With an aging, poorly-maintained stadium, a city that is not in good financial shape (and thus is justifiably reluctant to commit large sums of taxpayer money to invest in a new or renovated stadium), and another MLB team that plays 16 miles away, it’s very unlikely that the A’s will be replaced in Oakland after they leave.
One can find numerous articles with speculation on where MLB will expand to; the cities which are frequently mentioned on those lists include:
Austin or San Antonio, TX
Portland, OR
Charlotte, NC
Nashville, TN
Orlando, FL
Salt Lake City, UT
I’ve also seen suggestions of Montreal and Mexico City, as well as Sacramento and San Jose (which are still probably too close to San Francisco).
120 is very unrealistic, but my two-division plan would make 156 games convenient. 156 would lop a week off the season, which I’m fine with.
The answer to this question is always “Whichever two cities have billionaires or billionaire companies that can get a stadium built.” There are obviously some better candidate cities than others, but no matter how good you think a place like Austin or Nashville are, if you don’t have someone there willing to fork out big bux and able to get government to build a stadium, it ain’t happening.
It is obvious you could find sufficient markets for two more teams, or four, or six.
Especially now that the much-expanded postseason pushes the World Series into November.
That is undoubtedly the real answer. And, to that point, if some billionaire decides that they just love Oakland, and bankrolls a brand-new stadium there, MLB would roll out the red carpet.
