Killing the AL and NL just because of how they started a century ago is just as senseless as maintaining it just because it’s “always been that way.” The reason to keep the leagues is because of the rivalries that already exist between the teams in those divisions & leagues. There’s no good reason to break up all of those rivalries.

Having said that, I think that there are a couple problems that could and should be solved now with minor realignment. The two big ones I see are that Texas is in a division with everyone else two time zones away, and (more importantly) there’s one division 50% larger than another (6 vs 4).

Balance the leagues – create six 5-team divisions by sending someone from the NL to the AL (Houston probably makes the most sense). Have interleague series the entire season, with a couple of “interleague weeks” during the season to finish the rest of the IL games. Play 72 division games, 70 non-division league games, 18 interleague games, for a total of 160 regular season games. It’s simple, it cuts a couple games off of the schedule to allow a little more time for the “wild card series” that will happen soon, and it’s fair.

MLB and the NFL have non-geogrphic leagues/conferences because each represents the combination of an established league with a successful competitor. The NBA’s competitor was unsuccessful, and the established league absorbed a few of the competitor’s teams within a geographically-based league. Same for the NHL

I’m not buying the argument that because something existed 110 years ago, it must be continued indefinitely. I see no harm in having each MLB team play a few games each season against teams from the other league. We still have a World Series, and each league has its own playoffs.

As for deciding home field in the World Series with an exhibition game, it makes no sense.

Those repeated long flights to division games (in green) takes a toll on the players. Hopefully moving Atlanta to Winnipeg will change this. Geography should come first when creating divisions, if games against divisional opponents will be occurring more frequently than against others.

But there is something I like about the National League and American League. Maybe its old fashioned but it just feels right.

You can definitely design a system that will have one of those qualities. You can probably design a system that has two of those qualities. It seems impossible, however, to design a system that has all three of those qualities – at least not without creating, moving, or eliminating teams.

problems < profits