July 01, 2011

MLB......."lets shake it up"!!!

I love baseball. You love baseball. Everyone loves baseball right? Currently MLB is throwing around the idea of changing the playoff format and mixing up the divisions. One of their ideas is to have 2 divisions of 15 with the top 5 teams making it into the playoffs. That smells like Hockey and I hate it!! MLB is still wildly popular and even though the attendance league wide is down slightly the money from the fans is still pouring in. I have a great idea on how to move baseball forward and increase the entertainment value while keeping the long rich tradition intact.

A complete division realignment and an addition of 2 expansion teams would mean a 32 team balanced league.

Here is what I propose::

1st we need to add to teams south of St.Louis.....

Looking at potential target cities I have narrowed it down to these final 4 candidates. And for the purpose of our discussion I will pick the top 2.

Oklahoma City

Charlotte

Memphis

Mexico City

Again for the purpose of discussion I am going to place Oklahoma City in the American league and Charlotte in the National League. I am also switching Arizona to the AL WEST...other than that these moves will be very clean.

Here is how the division would breakdown

A L East                              A L North                            A L South                       A L West

NY Yankees                     Cleveland Indians                  Tampa Bay Rays                Anaheim Angels

Boston Red Sox                Minnesota Twins                   Texas Rangers                    Seattle Mariners

Toronto Blue Jays              Detroit Tigers                        Kansas City Royals            Oakland  A's

Baltimore Oriels               Chicago WhiteSox                Oak City Thunder               Arizona Diamondbacks

N L East                             N L North                            N L South                       N L West

NY Mets                              Cincinnati Reds                   Houston Astros                  SF Giants

Washington Nats                  Chicago Cubs                     Florida Marlins                   Colorado Rockies

Philadelphia Phillies              STL Cardinals                     Atlanta Braves                    San Diego Padres

Pittsburgh Pirates                  Milwaukee Brewers              Charlotte Wind                 LA Dodgers

Playoff format::

4 Division winners and 2 wild cards. Wild cards will simply be 2 non division winners with best record.

Top 2 Division winners get a bye.

next 2 division winners would play the wild Card teams in a best of 5.

**Wild card teams would get only 1 home game in the first series and if they were to advance they would get only 2 home games in the next 7 game series.

If the season ended today::

Division winners would be::

AL EAST NYY.AL NORTH Detroit..AL SOUTH Tampa..AL WEST Arizona.. Wild Cards: Boston,Cleve

1st round games:: NYY (bye#...TB #Bye#   Det vs Bost ... Arz vs Cleve 

NL EAST Philly.....NL NORTH Stl... NL SOUTH Atl...NL WEST SF...Wild Cards: Pitt,Cinn

1st round games:: Philly #Bye#...SF # Bye)... ATL vs Cinn.........Milw vs Pitt

I love it!!!!

What do you think??

what about Las Vegas?:  If Baseball ever Expands they will be in the top four for a expansion team if they ever build a stadium.  But the gambling Issue is a big problem MLB will want to outlaw baseball betting from the spootsbook and that will never happen