Geographic realignment would make the new playoff plan a much more comprehensive improvement.

MLB is missing the boat with an otherwise pretty creative playoff redesign. This post will build to the geographic issue, so hang in there.

Major League Baseball has 30 teams. Currently there are two "leagues", each with three divisions of only five teams, which is ridiculous for a 162 game regular season. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has half as many games.

It would make MUCH more sense for MLB to change to two divisions in each "league". Each division would have 7 or 8 teams. Not ideal but still much better than only five teams in a division, which means that each of those teams has only four opponents.

Teams now play each of its division rivals 19 times. That comes out to 4 * 19 = 76. Half of the 162 games = 81, so only 76/162 = 47% of games in division.

With so few, it drastically undermines fairness, although not nearly as much as the remaining games not having the same opponents. For instance, the Yankees played four games against the Mets. The Red Sox do not play the Mets at all. The Red Sox played four games against the Phillies, the Yankees none. What the heck? And people are concerned about the current one and done wild card game?

Then there's the difference between two division rivals playing the same opponent before and after the opponent tanked in late July. Let's say the Red Sox play Cleveland in mid June and the Yankees in the first week of August after Cleveland has tanked by trading several of its best players. How the heck is that fair? Solution: no trades during the season.

So, if you're going to the trouble of correcting that, you might as well organize teams geographically. And in doing that, stop pretending that the old American League and National League survived into this millennium. They did not. And so it's OK to put the two New York teams in the same division. And the two Chicago teams.

And even if that's not acceptable, MLB can still re-align geographically. This would reduce travel and time zone differences. In the 2000 five game ALDS the Yankees played the As, so both teams were flying back and forth across the country between New York and Oakland. And Yankee fans were watching those 8:00 PM games in Oakland starting at 11:00 PM in New York.

Come on. Do a much more comprehensive improvement.

New MLB playoff proposal v. my 2009 playoff plan. Tuesday, February 11, 2020 9:55 AM