Rob Manfred: Fours work better than Fives for scheduling

[ExileAngelos]

AMERICAN LEAGUE

East

NY

NY

Boston

Philly

Toronto

Montreal

Baltimore

Washington

South

Tampa

Miami

Atlanta

Texas

Houston

Austin

Kansas City

St Louis

NATIONAL LEAGUE

Midwest

Chicago

Chicago

Minnesota

Milwaukee

Detroit

Cincinnati

Cleveland

Pittsburgh

West

Seattle

San Fran

Oakland

Colorado

San Diego

Arizona

LA

LA

If they do blow it up and it becomes American League is the east half of the country and National League is west then there are a few things to keep in mind:

- There entire purpose of doing this would be not to reduce but to essentially ELIMINATE cross country travel. Otherwise why do it? This isn't the NBA or the NHL (and to a lesser extent the NFL) where the teams all play each other every season. Baseball is the one sport where the two "conferences" pretty much are separated.

- I believe Interleague play would be eliminated with this set up. Simply would not be worth the hassle at this point and would probably not be a big outcry from it.

- All Oriole fans who live out west would basically no longer be able to see their team play in person.

[MDtransplant757]

I like how MLB has it set up, but I can see why people would want change. The AL and the NL will probably stay, but what I'd like to see is MLB set up an east and a west for both leagues. The east rarely plays the west, and set up the playoffs bracket style like the NHL and NBA do, but instead of 4 from each side, do it by best record for better the matchup. The winner of both leagues then plays in the WS, and whoever wins that is the winner.