A Fun Realignment Exercise

The Astros have now played their first week in the AL, and are officially part of the Junior Circuit. The first team to switch leagues since 1998, the move was met with criticism from Astros fans, especially after Bud Selig's interview on the subject. Bud talks a lot about the geography factor being the primary reason for the move, and I have always thought it was fun to imagine a baseball league with all the division perfectly aligned. Unlike the MLB, the NHL and NBA divide the teams solely by their proximity to one another. In a perfect world, if we could all start from scratch, here are the 6 divisions that I think would make the most sense in terms of travel time. They would be split up into two leagues called the East and West.

Western League:

Pacific:	Mountain:	Midwest:
San Francisco Giants	San Diego Padres	Kansas City Royals
Oakland Athletics	Arizona Diamondbacks	St. Louis Cardinals
Los Angeles Angels	Colorado Rockies	Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Dodgers	Texas Rangers	Chicago White Sox
Seattle Mariners	Houston Astros	Chicago Cubs

Eastern League:

South:	Northeast:	Great Lakes:
Miami Marlins	Boston Red Sox	Pittsburgh Pirates
Tampa Bay Rays	New York Yankees	Detroit Tigers
Atlanta Braves	New York Mets	Cleveland Indians
Washington Nationals	Philadelphia Phillies	Milwaukee Brewers
Baltimore Orioles	Toronto Blue Jays	Cincinnati Reds

And there you have it! Awesome new divisions with shipping and handling sold separately! But in all seriousness, in terms of flight times these ones make a lot more sense than the old ones. Seattle was annoying to find a home for by virtue of its vast distance from all the other teams. If you really wanted to be exact, then you would move the Brewers to the west and slice the Chicago teams down the middle, but if MLB were to actually do some sort of realignment then I think they would put the two Chicago teams in the same questions.

Given the reputation of the ballparks in each league, the batting seems to favor to the East and the pitching seems to favor the West. The West has 5 of the 6 most run-suppressing parks due to the newer spacious parks with denser air in California. It would seem wise to assume that the Western league would be more of a pitcher’s league and the Eastern league as a batting league. However, according to ESPN the average park factor for runs on the West is 1.004 compared to 1.011 on the East. Ok, so there is not much of a difference. Maybe nothing would change in reality because Coors and Chase Field would balance out parks like Petco and Safeco.

Moving on to the talent, I constructed some preliminary starting lineups for some potential all-star squads. WAR values over the past 3 years in parentheses.

East:

C: Carlos Ruiz (12.3), Matt Wieters (10.8)

1B: Joey Votto (18.8), Prince Fielder (12.6)

2B: Robinson Cano (19.5), Ben Zobrist (15.8)

SS: Jose Reyes (12.5), Jimmy Rollins (10.7)

3B: Miguel Cabrera (19.8), Evan Longoria (16.2)

LF: Ryan Braun (18.8), Justin Upton (10.6)

CF: Andrew McCutchen (15.6), Michael Bourn (14.2)

RF: Jose Bautista (17.4), Jayson Heyward (12.9)

SP: Justin Verlander (21.8), Cliff Lee (17.8), Roy Halladay (18.0), Cole Hamels (16.9), David Price (16.8)

West:

C: Yadier Molina (13.2), Buster Posey (13.2)

1B: Albert Pujols (15.0), Adrian Gonzalez (14.0)

2B: Ian Kinsler (13.4), Howie Kendrick (10.4)

SS: Troy Tulowitski (12.9), Alexi Ramirez (10.1)

3B: Adrian Beltre (18.2), Chase Headley (14.0)

LF: Matt Holliday (15.7), Alex Gordon (11.9)

CF: Matt Kemp (11.7), Mike Trout (10.7)

RF: Josh Hamilton (16.4), Carlos Gonzalez (12.0)

SP: Jered Weaver (19.5), Clayton Kershaw (18.9), Felix Hernandez (16.9), Matt Cain (15.1), CJ Wilson (12.7)

You have to give it to the East here. They have better talent across the board, both in pitching and in hitting. The only places where the West have the advantage are in SS, C, and their number 2 pitcher. Even with the recent infusion of talent into the Los Angeles area, and the Western heavy World Series over the past 3 years (the only team from the East to be represented was the Detroit Tigers, who were swept by the Giants), the East clearly has the edge in top talent. Let’s see if this discrepancy is based off of payroll. According to Deadspin, the average payroll for the East would be around $109 million, and for the West it would be around $103 million. A noticeable difference, but not enough to explain the wide talent discrepancy. Perhaps this sort of thing runs in cycles, as it seems like back in the early 2000s the West was stronger, with powerful teams like the Giants, Mariners, Diamondbacks, Angels, Athletics, and Twins routinely advancing deep into the playoffs. In 2002 both Western divisions had a combined 6 teams with at least 92 wins apiece. Unless MLB seriously considers a radical realignment, which despite my dreams will never happen, we will never know what true East and West leagues would be like.