MLB Expansion Is Coming and Realignment May Follow

[Cody Christie]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

Major League Baseball has not exactly stood still under commissioner Rob Manfred. The pitch clock reshaped the pace of play. The shift ban changed how hitters and defenses interact. The ghost runner became a permanent late-inning companion. Next season, the automatic ball strike challenge system arrives. On Thursday, the commissioner floated something that could dwarf all of that.

Appearing on WFAN’s The Carton Show, Manfred spoke openly about expanding the league to 32 teams, ending a run of nearly 30 years with 30 franchises. It was not framed as a distant hypothetical either. He made it sound like a natural next step for a sport that still sees demand in multiple markets.

“When people want your product, you ought to try to find a way to sell it to them,” Manfred said. “It’s kind of basic.”

Expansion itself is not a surprise. Manfred has been comfortable talking about it for years and reiterated recently that he hopes to choose two new cities before his planned retirement in 2029. The new wrinkle is what comes next. Once those teams are added, the commissioner made it clear that the current league structure would be on the table and likely needs to be adjusted.

That likely means moving away from the American League-National League framework that has defined the sport for more than a century. Instead, MLB could follow the NBA and NHL's model, with conferences or leagues organized primarily by geography.

The driving force behind that idea is travel. Manfred emphasized that reducing the physical grind on players is a major motivation. It is also a way to get the MLBPA on board, as it benefits their clients and creates more jobs.

“It does a ton for us from a format perspective. You would realign, you would do it along geographic lines, which could alleviate a ton of the travel burden that’s on players.”

“Remember, we ask our players [to play] 162 times in 186 days. So most of the [time] between 162 and 186 [is] travel right? So you can eliminate a lot of that travel, make it less burdensome, which would be a great thing in terms of player health and safety.”

While the American League and National League have existed for 125 years, they have not truly operated as separate entities for a long time. Different rulebooks and umpire crews disappeared decades ago, and interleague play has been standard since the late 1990s. From that perspective, the historical barrier is already more symbolic than functional.

Manfred also pointed to the postseason and the way games fit into fans’ schedules. Geographic alignment could clean up some of the awkward start times that come with cross-country playoff series.

“You know we have those four window days that I love, right? You get four baseball games in a day. It’s awesome. But when you think about the fans in the individual markets, you always end up with, because of the way we’re set up, you know, you get Boston versus Anaheim in one of the early rounds. So you’re either going to be too late for the fans in Boston or too early.”

“So if you realign geographically, you would look more like other sports where you play up East into the World Series and West into the World Series. And that 10 o’clock game on the West Coast that sometimes is a problem for us becomes a prime-time game on the West Coast for the two teams that are playing. So there’s a lot of advantages to it.”

Manfred described a possible structure of eight divisions, each with four teams, and an effort to keep clubs from the same city out of the same division. If we assume one expansion team lands in the East and one in the West, a rough, very unofficial sketch could look like this.

NL East: Phillies, Mets, Nationals, Pirates
NL North: Cubs, Cardinals, Reds, Brewers
NL South: Braves, Marlins, Rays, East expansion team
NL West: Dodgers, Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks
AL East: Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, Blue Jays
AL North: Tigers, Guardians, White Sox, Twins
AL South: Royals, Astros, Rangers, Rockies
AL West: Angels, Mariners, Athletics, West expansion team

To be clear, MLB has not said how the division would realign. There are some obvious issues to iron out with any realignment plan. This version is simply a way to illustrate how dramatically the landscape could change if this plan moves forward.

Expansion and realignment might not be the only structural ideas on the commissioner’s whiteboard. Manfred was also asked about the NBA Cup and the idea of an in-season baseball tournament. He acknowledged that the league has discussed similar concepts, but sounded far less enthusiastic about the idea.

“We’ve talked about split seasons we’ve talked about in season tournaments. We do understand that 162 [games] is a long pull. I think the difficulty to accomplish those sort of in season events you almost inevitably start talking about fewer regular-season games.”

“It is a much more complicated thing in our sport than it is in other sports because of all of our season-long records. You’re playing around with something that people care a lot about.”

Manfred again confirmed that he expects to step down when his contract ends in January 2029. Whether he completes all of these changes himself or hands some of them to a successor remains to be seen. Either way, the next commissioner may not just oversee baseball’s future but be tasked with guiding a sport that has already begun to redraw its own boundaries.

How will expansion impact MLB? How would you realign the divisions? Leave a comment and start the discussion.

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[twinstalker]

It's always been the obvious play to move Col and TB to the other league.  I don't really see what this does, though, for travel.  To cure the perceived travel problem, they'd have to eliminated the leagues to go to west and east.  Or assign a league to east or west.  Your solution doesn't fit the premise, just the expansion.  In one of my posts from maybe in the last year, I laid out the 8 divisions with expansion to each of Montreal, Nashville, SLC, and Portland.

There wasn't a lot of difference from what you have, except you can't put Montreal in the South, so I think I left Pit in the NL Central and Cin in South.  If both Montreal and Nashville were added, Nashville goes to AL South and Colorado to AL West.

But none of this solves travel issues if you really want to make it better.  There was also a scenario where Min and Mil were in same division.

Then there's the solution where there are four divisions instead of eight, and Min and Mil are both in West divisions.  The current western Central teams get screwed by this, but we're flyover country.

AL West:  Sea, LAA, LV, Hou, Tex, KC, Min, ChA

NL West:  SF, SD, LAD, Ari, Col, StL,Mil, ChN

Any expansion team in west would go to the AL so that Stl, ChN, and Mil could stay together (and perhaps so Mtl could be in NL if it's chosen).  White Sox would be the likely candidate to move east.

For the Twins, this is as it used to be in the old AL West, unless they lose ChA to the east.  

[old nurse]

Travel times to home to airport and next airport to hotel doesn’t change. The more balanced schedule means the same travel to far away places as before.  So the main difference is saving an hour of flight time for a few flights at the start or end of a road trip 

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, old nurse said:

Travel times to home to airport and next airport to hotel doesn’t change. The more balanced schedule means the same travel to far away places as before.  So the main difference is saving an hour of flight time for a few flights at the start or end of a road trip 

I largely agree with this. Probably $1-2MM in annual savings per team in travel costs, though. I'm sure that's the biggest part of "wear and tear" owners are concerned about.

That said, I believe the rivalry and fan traveling improves substantially keeping things regional as well. The Twins being in the same division as the Brewers would definitely improve attendance at Target Field.

Not sure how the breakdown would end up. I'll assume Salt Lake City and Nashville are the expansions cities.

American League
Coastal
Baltimore
Boston
Miami
New York Mets
New York Yankees
Philadelphia
Tampa Bay
Washington
Central
Atlanta
Chicago Cubs
Cincinatti
Cleveland
Detroit
Nashville
Pittsburgh
Toronto

National League
Central
Chicago White Sox
Colorado
Houston
Kansas City
Milwaukee
Minnesota
St Louis
Texas
Coastal
Arizona
Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Dodgers
Las Vegas
San Diego
Seattle
San Francisco
Salt Lake City

[Permanent Twins Fan]

I think if MLB is going to expand to 32 teams, they need to have 8 divisions of 4. I think that 8 teams in one division is signifigantly too many. I would love to see a world with Milwaukee and Minnesota in the same division, but I don't know if that is possible.