Sox, Cubs, Brewers, Twins paired together in future?

[caulfield12]

2 hours ago, greg775 said:

Will we go to playing the Cubs 20 times? That's ridiculous. I thought baseball fixed this realizing it was a mistake to have the Sox play KC 19 times a season (by the way I was right about the Sox again turning KC's season around; they now are locks for the wildcard and mite even win the division after boatracing the Sox and regaining swag). If the Sox are gonna be in the same division as the Cubs just have them break away from MLB and play each other 150 times a spring/summer. Dumb decision Manfred.

19 was the old AL Central unbalanced schedule…it would probably be roughly 12 and as many as 15 games though with eight divisions of four teams each

[greg775]

11 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:

19 was the old AL Central unbalanced schedule…it would probably be roughly 12 and as many as 15 games though with eight divisions of four teams each

Baseball is best with AL teams playing everybody in the AL and just a few interleague games. Playing the Cubs so many times is absurd. And frankly playing Detroit, Cleveland Minnie, Milwaukee a ton of times is flat out boring. Who cares about travel issue mentioned by Manfred? It works well now with private jets. Teams are making plenty of money flying around.

[77 Hitmen]

18 hours ago, reiks12 said:

Losing the AL and NL would be a big mistake, and having the Cubs and Sox in the same division would be too much for the city to handle (same for Yanks/Mets). Its just not necessary.

My guess is that the Cubs/Sox matchups will become boring if there's something like 12 games (or more) every year.   Two series per year (one at each park) is probably optimal.  Double (or more) the number of crosstown games and I bet the Sox wouldn't even sell out all of them.  Ask many true Cubs fan and they'll say the team they hate the most is the Cardinals.  

 

[southsider2k5]

21 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

My guess is that the Cubs/Sox matchups will become boring if there's something like 12 games (or more) every year.   Two series per year (one at each park) is probably optimal.  Double (or more) the number of crosstown games and I bet the Sox wouldn't even sell out all of them.  Ask many true Cubs fan and they'll say the team they hate the most is the Cardinals.  

 

I think we have already started to see that in the last few years. 

I also think the slow walk from distinct leagues to intraleague, to making rules match between leagues has been a purposeful attempt to eventually radically change the teams in the leagues around to achieve more of a geographic balance while minimizing the "league history" factor as they do it.

[77 Hitmen]

6 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:

I think we have already started to see that in the last few years. 

I also think the slow walk from distinct leagues to intraleague, to making rules match between leagues has been a purposeful attempt to eventually radically change the teams in the leagues around to achieve more of a geographic balance while minimizing the "league history" factor as they do it.

Unfortunately, it sure looks that way.  The universal DH was probably inevitable anyway, but the "play every single team from the opposite league every single year" scheduling is a good way for them to try to make the AL and NL as entities appear irrelevant.  

But IMO, it'll be a very sad day for baseball if/when Manfred succeeds in this plan just so that the league, which has $12B in revenue, can save some travel money.  Oh, they might keep the AL and NL names and make them geographical based, but any world where, for example,  the White Sox are an NL team and the Dodgers are an AL team would render the names meaningless.  You may as well call them Western and Eastern Conferences at that point. 

 

[77 Hitmen]

Stephen Nesbitt of the Athletic has an article on MLB realignment.  His proposal is the same as what I suggested earlier in this thread.   And I didn't come up with it because I'm exceptionally bright (I'm not!), it was because that alignment makes too much logical sense and it doesn't take much effort to come up with an alignment that groups teams by geography without taking a torch to tradition.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6560635/2025/08/19/mlb-expansion-realignment-leagues-projection/

I hope this is the direction MLB takes after expansion.  But I'm not holding my breath as it looks like Manfred has no qualms with obliterating the American League and National League. 

Edited August 28 by 77 Hitmen

[Lip Man 1]

1 hour ago, 77 Hitmen said:

Stephen Nesbitt of the Athletic has an article on MLB realignment.  His proposal is the same as what I suggested earlier in this thread.   And I didn't come up with it because I'm exceptionally bright (I'm not!), it was because that alignment makes too much logical sense and it doesn't take much effort to come up with an alignment that groups teams by geography without taking a torch to tradition.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6560635/2025/08/19/mlb-expansion-realignment-leagues-projection/

I hope this is the direction MLB takes after expansion.  But I'm not holding my breath as it looks like Manfred has no qualms with obliterating the American League and National League. 

Rothenthal on Foul Territory also endorsed his plan.

[77 Hitmen]

Speaking of Stephen Nesbitt, he also has a recent article where he takes a look at how various teams are progressing in their quest to land a MLB expansion team.  It's a good summary of various factors such as potential ownership groups lined up, public funding for a stadium, etc.  

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6577020/2025/08/27/mlb-expansion-cities-salt-lake-city-nashville-raleigh-portland/

I'd be shocked if MLB puts a 3rd team in Florida with an Orlando expansion team since the other 2 teams have had serious problems with attendance for years.  Maybe if the Rays move to Orlando, but IMO they'd be crazy to cram in 2 teams in the I-4 corridor.

 

[fathom]

4 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

Speaking of Stephen Nesbitt, he also has a recent article where he takes a look at how various teams are progressing in their quest to land a MLB expansion team.  It's a good summary of various factors such as potential ownership groups lined up, public funding for a stadium, etc.  

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6577020/2025/08/27/mlb-expansion-cities-salt-lake-city-nashville-raleigh-portland/

I'd be shocked if MLB puts a 3rd team in Florida with an Orlando expansion team since the other 2 teams have had serious problems with attendance for years.  Maybe if the Rays move to Orlando, but IMO they'd be crazy to cram in 2 teams in the I-4 corridor.

 

Stoney sure seems to think Rays will move to Orlando, with Barry Larkin taking over 

[Lip Man 1]

2 hours ago, fathom said:

Stoney sure seems to think Rays will move to Orlando, with Barry Larkin taking over 

if you are talking about his latest podcast appearance I think he said he is not saying the Rays would move to Orlando but that at some point in some way he thinks they will get a team. 

[nrockway]

6 hours ago, 77 Hitmen said:

Stephen Nesbitt of the Athletic has an article on MLB realignment.  His proposal is the same as what I suggested earlier in this thread.   And I didn't come up with it because I'm exceptionally bright (I'm not!), it was because that alignment makes too much logical sense and it doesn't take much effort to come up with an alignment that groups teams by geography without taking a torch to tradition.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6560635/2025/08/19/mlb-expansion-realignment-leagues-projection/

I hope this is the direction MLB takes after expansion.  But I'm not holding my breath as it looks like Manfred has no qualms with obliterating the American League and National League. 

This is pretty good, I don't hate it, but Kansas City is not a southern city and Pittsburgh is not a New England/eastern seaboard one. They're both midwestern cities. Pittsburgh is closer, culturally and geographically, to Cleveland than it is Philadelphia. Those mountains make a difference. Denver is obviously the west. AL South seems cobbled together with "leftovers" in this example. The NL South looks pretty good to me if including the addition of Nashville. But there's something cultural at stake. Toronto could just as easily join a 'Great Lakes' division (plus Minneapolis can tag along because I guess they're called the 'Minnesota' Twins and Duluth is an important Great Lakes city, woulda been more important than Chicago before the railroads). That could be a fun way to do divisions.

Maybe we don't even need divisions anymore. It's not like teams play their division very much anymore. Or that it's a particularly historical tradition. That scheduling change only bothered me because it changed playoff implications, not because I desire to watch Kansas City and Cleveland a bunch. It was probably a good change to make now that I've thought about it for a couple years.

Plus I kinda like all the Central teams, people in Detroit aren't my rivals.

Edited August 29 by nrockway