The Tuesday Discussion: Realignment

January 13, 2026.

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Rob Manfred is talking changes again.  He would like to see baseball expand to 32 teams and have eight four-team divisions.  But, different from the idea floated last summer, a division would not have two teams from the same city:

"The big takeaway there is that Manfred likes the idea of moving away from the American and National Leagues and instead toward East and West leagues. However, he did say he would want to keep the two-team cities "separate." That is to say that the Cubs and White Sox, Mets and Yankees and Dodgers and Angels, respectively, would remain in different divisions. "

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mlb-realignment-expansion-east-west-manfred/

This week we asked our writers the following:

How would you set-up the expansion and the divisions with this new scheduling idea?

Here are their replies...

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Paul Semendinger - I played around with this for a little while and it would be a mess. It would be throwing tradition out the window and starting a brand new type league. As someone who appreciates baseball's long history and tradition, I would hate to see this happen.

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Ed Botti - Having graduated from the school of it If it ain't broke, don't fix it academy , I really don’t have much to contribute to realigning the League.

But one thing I would do, is get rid of Rob Manfred. IMO, he is the biggest problem this league has.

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Tim Kabel - Honestly, I would vigorously oppose parts of this plan. I would primarily be opposed to the elimination of the National and American Leagues. They need to remain in place. I don’t have a problem with having four regional divisions in both leagues for a total of 16 teams in the National League and 16 teams in the American League.They could name them Northern Eastern, Central, and Western. I agree with the idea of not having both teams from the same city in the same division, or in the same league. I think it’s fine to change certain things, but one of the things that makes baseball, beautiful and well, baseball is tradition. I would be vehemently opposed to getting rid of the National and American leagues.

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Cary Greene - I don't like the idea of making big changes to Divisional alignments and even changing the American and National Leagues - it all seems sacrilegious -- all because MLB is adding two new teams? The Divisions are excellent as they are currently, why fix what isn't broken? Is Manfred's goal to make MLB like the NFL? The better way of adding two teams to MLB is simply to stick each team in an existing division. "Problem" solved. Manfred is over thinking things as usual. 

Part of the fun of Baseball is seeing a team win a Division title - doing so over a good number of other teams. Having four 4 team Divisions minimizes the feat of winning a Division and it further dilutes the playoffs for that reason. Think of it from a Yankees perspective. Do Yankees fans want to see the Red Sox moved to a different Division (or League). How about the Blue Jays and/or the Orioles? Fans have even warmed up to having the Rays in the AL East, it took a while (they joined the AL East in 1998 in their inaugural season), but there's a good rivalry going now between the Rays and the other teams in the Division. 

Now think of it from the perspective of the NL Central Division. We've got the Reds, Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals and Pirates all slugging it out. The NL central is fantastic. Leave it alone please, Mr. Manfred! Look at the other Divisions as well - they're all really set up great, with lots of rivalries and complete with challenging Divisional scheduling gauntlets that each Divisional rival has to compete through in order to win said Division. 

In 1994, MLB added a third Division to each League and a few teams were moved around. In 1998, the Diamondbacks joined the NL and that same season, the Brewers moved from the AL To the NL Central, balancing the two Leagues. Since an expansion team's success would depend on it's ability to generate maximum revenue, hosting well known big market teams would be beneficial to their success. Look at the Rays joining the AL East for example. If Yankees fans weren't attending games when the Rays hosted the Yankees, imagine what that would do/have done to the Rays ability to stay afloat and generate enough revenue to operate? 

Therefore, adding the two new teams to existing Divisions would help the two new teams, as they would have five Division rivals on their home schedules (currently Divisional rivals play each other 13 times a season). 

Adding two teams to two Divisions would "unbalance" the Divisions for sure, but it would be preferable to a complete restructure and reset and here's the main reason why - what happens to a reset of four 4 team Divisions when one or two or three new teams are added in the future? Balance would be thrown off again right? That's why a complete realignment makes little sense. MLB has six current Divisions. There's room for six new teams to be added in the next decade (or two) and each time a new team is added, they have five Divisional rivals to help them get established instead of only having three. This is a safer and better way to grow - opposed to blowing up MLB Leagues and changing all the Divisions.