{"id":5101,"date":"2011-12-06T13:11:14","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T18:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leavittbrothers.com\/blog\/?p=5101"},"modified":"2011-12-06T13:11:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T18:11:14","slug":"re-alligning-mlbs-leagues-and-divisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/?p=5101","title":{"rendered":"Re-aligning MLB&#039;s Leagues and Divisions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Since MLB is moving the Astros to the AL, they should consider other changes that make sense. Here&#8217;s how I would re-align MLB&#8217;s leagues and divisions.<!--more--><br \/>\n<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">First the criteria I established for myself.<\/span><\/p>\n<ul> <span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><\/p>\n<li>Make as few changes as possible. I&#8217;m don&#8217;t want wholesale changes &#8211; just a couple moves that make sense.<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<li>When moving teams, keep rivalries together as best as possible. This keeps the Yankees\/Red Sox, Cubs\/Cardinals and Dodgers\/Giants together.<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<li>As much as possible, keep AL teams in the AL and NL teams in the NL.<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/li>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<li>Continue separating teams in the same city (or close to the same city). This means the two teams in the following cities\/areas will be kept separate: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington DC, San Francisco.  \/li&gt;<\/li>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<li>Except for the California teams, when two teams reside in the same state but not in the same city, put them in the same division. This means the following teams will be put together: Rangers\/Astros, Cardinals\/Royals, Marlins\/Rays, Phillies\/Pirates, Indians\/Reds.<\/li>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"> <\/span><\/p>\n<li>When in doubt, consider the alignment of other sports to determine where rivalries exist and what teams should move.<\/li>\n<p><\/span><\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>The West:<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">This is an easy one. The Astros will join the AL West to be with the Rangers. Everything else stays the same. The teams highlighted in <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">yellow<\/span> have <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> moved league or division. <\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">AL West: <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Angels<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Athletics<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Mariners<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Ranges<\/span>, Astros<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">NL West: <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Dodgers<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Giants<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Padres<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Diamondbacks<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Rockies<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>The Central:<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">I want to keep the Cubs\/Cards together, the Cubs\/Brewers together and move the Royals in to be with the Cardinals. The Astros have been moved to the West to be with the Rangers, the Pirates moved to the East to be with the Phillies and the Reds to the AL Central to be with the Indians. This leaves 4 teams in the NL. Keeping  the Indians, Whites Sox and Tigers together (and adding the Reds) leaves 4 teams in the AL. That left the Twins and one team from the East to move over. For geographic reasons, the Jays make sense to make the move. The easy thing would have been to put them in the NL, but I kept them in the AL and moved the Twins to the NL because of the rivalry between the Vikings and Packers&#8230;and because of the rivalry that could form between the Tigers and Jays. Coincidentally, from a geographic standpoint, the AL is a pseudo AL Central East and the NL an NL Central West with the only overlap being in Chicago.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">AL Central: <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Indians<\/span>, Jays, Reds, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Tigers<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">White Sox<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">NL Central: <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Brewers<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Cardinals<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Cubs<\/span>, Royals, Twins<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>The East:<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">The Jays have been moved to the Central. The Marlins have been moved to the AL East to be with the Rays. The Pirates have been moved to the NL East to be with the Phillies. Pretty simple.<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">AL East: Marlins, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Orioles<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Rays<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Red Sox<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Yankees<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">NL East: <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Braves<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Nationals<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Mets<\/span>, <span style=\"background-color: yellow;\">Phillies<\/span>, Pirates<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Summary<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Number of teams changing leagues: 6 &#8211; Astros (to AL West), Reds (to AL Central), Marlins (to AL East), Jays (to AL Central), Royals (to NL Central), Twins (to NL Central)<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Number of teams changing divisions within the same league: 1 &#8211; Pirates (to NL East)<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">So only 7 teams have moved.<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">More readable format:<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>American League<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>East<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Marlins<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Orioles<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Rays<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Red Sox<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Yankees<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Central<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Indians<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Jays<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Reds<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Tigers<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">White Sox<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>West<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Angels<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Athletics<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Mariners<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Ranges<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Astros<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>National League<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>East<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Braves<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Nationals<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Mets<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Phillies<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Pirates<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>Central<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Brewers<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Cardinals<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Cubs<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Royals<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Twins<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\"><strong>West<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Dodgers<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Giants<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Padres<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Diamondbacks<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Rockies<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Your thoughts?<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: medium;\">Jason Leavitt (jason_leavitt@yahoo.com)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since MLB is moving the Astros to the AL, they should consider other changes that make sense. Here&#8217;s how I would re-align MLB&#8217;s leagues and divisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.leavittbrothers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}