I really like getting rid of the AL/NL. My only question would be what would happen to the DH rule? Looks like a good setup, lets make it happen.

I don't like getting rid of AL & NL. I am a big fan of getting rid of the Wild Card though. The season is 162 games long, if you don't establish yourself as the best team in your division after that many games, I don't feel that you belong in the playoffs. I really like the NL & AL, and I like their exclusiveness. This is what makes the World Series so special, and the All Star game as well. Interleague was fun while it lasted, but I'd prefer to see it disbanded. I think interleague is what really screws up the schedules.

I like the idea. Makes a lot more sense than the current setup.

The only drawbacks I do see are (in order of triviality)

1) to draw big, you have to play well. but does this setup really allow teams to turn things around if they're struggling? I mean, if you're say, the Brewers, and at the bottom of your division, and are playing the DRays, Pirates, Mariners and Royals for 72 games, your attendance is going to be worse than Les Expos in 2004. this is probably pretty easily fixed in scheduling, but it's something to consider.
2) the DH question
3) the possible charge that by setting up the interdivision play like you do, you're just going to end up with a lot of .500 teams.
4) the question of home field advantage (how does the All-Star game work?)
5) awards? do you award only one of each major award? (MVP, Cy, RoY)

Some very secondary issues there, to be sure, but I think you'd get a lot of people complaining about it.

I bet you could figure out some damn cool ways to set up stuff like the All Star game though.

I miss the clearer distinction between the AL and NL -- I can't stand the fact that MLB is trying to market "players" and the overall "league" rather than "teams" -- I understand the motivation behind it, but I think it removes some of the community / city aspect of the game. Heck on mlb.com they don't even sort the scoreboard by AL / NL any more (I have no idea how they sort it) -- it makes it harder to find the score.

Scheduling aside, I'd prefer a 2 league / 4 division format as follows:

AL East

NYY
BAL
CLE
DET
BOS
TAM
TOR

AL West

CHW
KC
OAK
LAA
SEA
TEX
MIN

NL East

PIT
PHI
WAS
CIN
CHC
ATL
FLA
MIL

NL West

LAD
SF
COL
ARI
SD
HOU
STL

I'd also prefer no inter-league play... I want the All Star game and World Series to be more "special" for the league differences.

I also don't like the "clustering" of the current scheduling -- Teams should play each other in a more spread out fashion. For example, I hate stuff like the Yankees playing Minnesota early last year all in the same month -- without any late season meetings.

Hmm... you know it's not going to happen, David :-) What's the point of (1) getting rid of the AL/NL split, (2) rearranging the divisions, and (3) reworking the playoffs? Yes, your proposal is different, but I don't see how it's better. At the very least, the historical artifacts give people something to talk about. If you simply want a more uniform arrangement and some extra winning incentive, what about this?

- Keep the current division/league arrangement
- Move Houston to the AL West (or some series of moves to give us 6 divisions of 5 teams each)

Each team plays:

- 48 intra-division games (12 per opponent)
- 60 intra-league, inter-division games (6 per opp.)
- 45 inter-league games (3 per opp.)
- 9 extra games vs. teams of the same rank to encourage performance

Playoffs are unchanged.

It's nicely thought out, but I don't like it. I'd prefer to go back to 4 divisions (2 in each league) as Dominic described, w/ only two playoff teams in each league. I'd settle for 8 divisions (4 in each league).

I think interleague should be dropped altogether, I think the schedule should be reduced back to 154 games, I think record should determine home-field advantage and hell, while I'm laundry-listing, I'd like to say goodbye to the DH.

Oh, and I want a hard cap.

:)

Jason, with that idea, you'd have 15 teams in each league, so you'd have to have interleague games all season long, which would mean at least two teams would be playing interleague games at the end of the season. I'm not sure that attendance would be strong for the additional interleague games, either - for every Yankees-NL and Red Sox-NL series, you'd have Tigers-NL and Royals-NL.

As little as I'd like to see expansion, I'd prefer that and the eight four-team division with no wild card to a single league. I think baseball has to be distinctly different from the other major sports to continue to thrive; combining the leagues into one would make MLB's structure just like the NFL, NBA, and that one league we used to have.

I do dislike the DH. (reads JC's post) And record should determine home-field advantage. The All-Star game? Why not just base it on the league with the lesser number of players failing their steroid tests?

I don't like this. I think the AL and NL should exist, but I agree with not liking the divisions not having the same amount of teams. If the Brewers moved back to the AL both leagues would have an equal amount of teams (15). Then you could move the Royals to the west and the centrtal teams would all be grouped together geographically very closely.

Also, interleague play should be abolished. It wasn't a good idea then and it still isn't now. The Subway series would have been better had they not played each other already. Yes, there wouldn't have been the Clemens/Piazza thing going on, but it would have been more intriguing if they hadn't played in the regular season. At the least, it couldn't have gotten worse ratings and I suspect would have gotten better if for the novelty factor alone. And the "natural rivalries" or what ever MLB calls them are ludicrous for the most part. Especially when they mess them up, ie., Expos-Blue Jays being played in Puerto Rico. Somebody better have been fired for that bit of genius.

As long as it stays the way it is I don't think the wild card can be rid of until the unbalanced schedule is gone and there are either two divisions per league or four. I find it tough to swallow that the Twins were more deserving than the Sox simply because they won a bad division. The Sox divisional opponents had a .488 winning percentage to the Twins .452. In 2002, the wild card team was Anaheim, with a 99-63 record. The Twins finished 94-67. Anaheim's divisional opponents sported a .551 winning percentage to the Twins' opponents' .420. As long as teams are playing intradivisional teams more than others, you have to let teams that play tougher schedules and finish second still have a way into the playoffs over first place teams with weak schedules.

That being said, I like the idea of two wild card teams per league playing a one game playoff to advance to the real playoffs. This rewards teams who do win their divisions by allowing them to rest their starters and forces the other teams to use their top starter, who subsequently won't be available for begining of the next series.

"with that idea, you'd have 15 teams in each league, so you'd have to have interleague games all season long"

Uh... no you wouldn't. You could play them in one contiguous 45-day block if you wanted to:

- each team plays 15 three-game series
- number the teams in each league 0 to 14
- for series # x, AL team y plays NL team (y+x mod 15)

I'm a casual fan, but I love interleague play because it brings NL teams and players that I wouldn't otherwise get to see to my home (Seattle). And I know that interest in interleague play has died down, but isn't it still the biggest attraction for most teams? I'd go the other way: Cancel the all-star game to make interleague play more special!

Why are the New York and Chicago two-team markets (as well as StL-KC and Bal-DC) split up and the West Coast two-team markets lumped together?

No possibilities for Bay Bridge or Freeway World Series...

I'd like to go back to 24 teams, where some of the smaller markets are collapsed into one team that plays home games in each city. For example, TB and Miami could be truly the Florida Marlins.

I don't mind this, although you will never get NY/Chi to give up something LA/LA and Oak/SF get to keep. But what's so bad about expanding to 32 and doing either 4 divisions of 8 or 8 divisions of 4? I guess you'd need better revenue sharing so that you're not bringing in two new Kansas Citys into the league.

You are right about the b.s. of the current schedule, however.

I don't like the way you have the schedule planned because it's so unbalanced. I understand and am okay with teams playing more games against division rivals but I think the gap needs to be closed some, maybe like 14-15 games under the current division structure.

Abolishing the league structure is too much, even though the other major sports don't have the strict divide that MLB does they all still maintain a two conference system for structural purposes.

I'd like to see two more teams in existence and eight divisions of four teams. You'd still have the same number of teams in the playoffs but you can't get in while finishing second. A better revenue-sharing system would be necessary as Chris Marcil mentioned, but that needs to be done anyway. There needs to be more revenue redistribution and some sort of salary floor to ensure that the Naimoli's and McClatchy's of the game can't use the revenue-sharing for payroll and pocket a lot of the other revenues while crying poor.

I didn't see a way of breaking up the LA or Bay Area teams without having them travel a very long distance. I'm sure there are other designs that would accomplish that.

You *would* need to have interleague games all season long with two leagues of 15, unless you wanted one team in each league to sit down and not play for a 3-day period all year. 15 teams in a league means 7 games + one team left out. Since teams play series of 2-4 games, that means there'd be 2-4 day stretches of no teams to play for one team in each league. I don't think anybody wants that. The only alternative is for those two teams played each other. Which would be... interleague play.

The easiest thing, conceptually, is to expand to 32 teams (Las Vegas, Norfolk, Portland, Monterrey, Mexico City, and San Juan are all possibilities) and have 4 divisions of 8 or 8 divisions of 4. Everything would divide into each other easily.

I've never understood this hatred for interleague play. Why is it so bad for the A's to play the Phillies, or for the Red Sox to play the Giants? There is a 1/224 chance of seeing any particular matchup in the World Series. Why should anyone have to wait 224 years for a Subway Series?

If two leagues that never play each other is so great, why not take the idea further? How about eight four-team divisions, with all games within divisions against one of three possible opponents?

Hey, that's creative, but why damn the best teams by making them play only each other. That's some really uneven scheduling there. And your point about attendence draws is entirely, well, unproveable at this point.

Not bad, but it seems to me a lateral move. What are the benefits?

Odd how an accident of geography: Our especially wide and tall nation with lots of North-South barriers (Rockies, Appalachians, Mississippi, Coasts) results in very similar regional league breakdowns in everyone's ideas. Very odd...

I agree it is different, but I don't see any benefit either. Also, why split up rivalries like Mets/Yankees?

I'm awaiting 2 more teams and 32 total. That will be good for all.

David, Adam: point taken. Wasn't thinking about the desire to have all teams active during intra-league play...

One thing I hate about divisions, is when a team that's OBVIOUSLY not in the named division, is in it. For example...when Cincinnati & Atlanta were in the NL west, they were farther east than Chicago & St Louis, which were in the Eastern division.

I understand about old rivalries needing to remain in tact when divisions were set up, but that just seems ridiculous. Why name a division after geographical locations, when that's OBVIOUSLY NOT being held to? It's ridiculous.

Which brings up a question about your divisional arrangement........shouldn't the Orioles be in the East Coast Division and the Phillies be in the Northeast? And why is Toronto in the upper mid-west while Cincinnati should be there? St Louis & Chicago WS should be switched too. Why did you arrange it like you did? Why can't teams in the same areas, be in the same divisions? Wouldn't that even help rivalries?

David you should bid to do the schedules fro next year. It's quite a handsome contract. That being said....

Change is inevitable.... except in baseball.....

Someone mentioned a hard cap... As though that solves a problem.... A hard floor would solve more problems... Just as the florr did in the NFl and made the worst franchise ever (Tampa Bay) finally competitive.

So lets say we have a cap. It effects the Yankees for instance.. so what prevails ??? George pockets some of his own money rather than giving a middle reliever 6 million.... ok great... but I pose this question...

How does controlling the financial spending of a few teams make the Pirates, Royals, D-Rays or Reds any better ???? They wont be forced to spend money.. All a hard cap would do is bring down the level of play of a few teams.... It wouldnt muck the suckie franchises any better.

HARD FLOOR is what we need.

Devon,

We could name the divisions after baseball greats. The Jackie Robinson Division, the Babe Ruth Division, the Hank Greenberg Division, the Christy Mathewson Division, the Roberto Clemente Division. As for splitting teams up, I tried to maintain what MLB has now, where two teams in very close proximity are in different leagues. Since Baltimore bisects the distance between Philly and DC, I put that in the other division.

I toyed with the other idea as well, putting the Mets and Yankees in the same division with Baltimore, Philly and DC. but then you run into having a Pitt, Cle, Cin, Atl, TB and Fla division, which made no geographic sense. If you go with non geographic names, however, it doesn't matter.

I love it, really love it. This why you should be Commissioner David, and I could be your second in command. ;-)

Think of the possibilities, no DH, have a different All Star format each year (international against US, young against old, East vs. West), market the league based on what's good about the game instead of how horrible it is, open up the Hall of Fame voting process, the awards, create a real partnership between the PA and the owners, force the teams receiving revenue sharing and luxury tax money to use it on their teams, allow teams to trade draft picks and/or sell players for big bucks.

GET THE GAME INTO THE 21ST CENTURY!!!!

Brought to you by the Citizens for Pinto campaign office

All-Star game...

The players from the 8 teams that were in the playoffs last year against players from the 22 that weren't.

Larry

I've never understood this hatred for interleague play. Why is it so bad for the A's to play the Phillies, or for the Red Sox to play the Giants? There is a 1/224 chance of seeing any particular matchup in the World Series. Why should anyone have to wait 224 years for a Subway Series?

I don't hate interleague play, I just don't see the value that it adds as a whole. There are certain series that are interesting (to most people), like Mets-Yankees; there are other series that will pit quality teams against each other, like the two you mentioned; but you can't have fair scheduling and Mets-Yankees without Nationals-Devil Rays and so on ...

David, I like the idea of naming the divisions after greats, except that it doesn't seem to work long-term. The NHL gave up on it after 20+ years because no one remembered what the divisions and conferences meant. Granted, those were contributors, not players, so maybe it would have been different if they'd had the Richard, Howe, Orr, and Sawchuk divisions ... the NFL also gave up on generically-named divisions fairly quickly in the late '60s.

That being said, I still think it's better to use a name that isn't wrong. Devon's right - how funny was the five-team NFC East, with Dallas and Arizona in it? I'm sure they could find any number of player names to use for division names.

P.S. Too many Daves around here ...