MLB Realignment Making The Game More Appealing

Sports betting enthusiasts and baseball experts alike are always trying to think of ways to make the game more appealing. Essentially, over the last 20 years, MLB betting handicappers have grown bored with the league, as certain teams remain in the basement while others always stay on top. One of the biggest arguments is that the divisions are not aligned properly, as certain teams get to beat up on others year after year. Today we will look at how realignment could make divisions fairer.

Aside from the obvious argument, that a salary cap should be instituted into the MLB, realignment has been discussed heavily over the past few seasons. Current baseball commissioner, Bud Selig discussed with reporters in the weeks leading up to this year’s All Star Game that realignment of the American and National Leagues could come as early as the 2012 season. However, Selig’s ideas on realignment and the average MLB scores fans idea seem to be two polar opposites.

On the one hand, Selig simply wants to move one of the National League teams to the American League, so that each league will have exactly 15 teams. After moving the team to the American League, Selig would abolish all of the individual divisions and have all the teams for each league in one super division. Playoffs wise, Selig proposes that five teams from both Leagues would qualify with the two winning teams facing in the World Series.

While Selig’s philosophy may work for some, it doesn’t fly with us. Rather, our idea for realignment would be a little bit more enticing to both fans and teams alike. Essentially we would institute the designated hitter into the National League. Then, we would divide the teams into four divisions, two in the American League and two in the National League.

One division in each league would have the top seven teams of the previous season, and bottom eight in the other divisions. There would be two Wild Card spots, so that the top six teams in each league could qualify for the playoffs, with the winners of each league’s playoffs moving on to the World Series.

However, before you ask how it would be entice teams to play harder, we have already taken that into account. For the reason that the two divisions in the American and National League would include the best teams from the year before, this would allow teams in the bottom eight divisions to move into the good divisions. In laymen’s terms, the bottom two teams in the good division one season, would move to the poor division and be replaced by the top two teams in the poor division each year.

In theory, this should entice the teams to want to play harder, since everyone would want to be in the good division instead of the bottom eight divisions. Since a salary cap isn’t likely in baseball, realigning the divisions as we just suggested, would bring excitement since every game would be meaningful.