3 Reasons Why Expanded Divisions Are Ideal for the Twins

Tough division for our Twins. Who cares, right? I will keep praying for baseball, not sweat the details, and hope for the best.

Yeah...Atlanta is a LITTLE farther EAST than Pittsburgh...

Yeah, the Atlanta thing kind of defeats the purpose of limiting travel it seems.

It seems to me that it’s an attempt to rig things slightly to benefit the East. They don’t want to set it up in a way that could would guarantee the exclusion of one of the Yankees, Nationals, Red Sox, Phillies, or Braves from the playoffs.

If that’s the case....why not keep the same format and limit games to be within AL/NL East, etc.? That would be much less travel.

This is just gerrymandering to maximize the odds of the leagues preferred playoff matchups. It has almost nothing to do with minimizing “travel.” If that were the case, you wouldn’t have teams from Texas going to the state of Washington - well over 2,000 miles. Atlanta to Toronto is less than 1,000. Atlanta to NY less than 900. It’s a much shorter distance from Texas to NY, for example, than to Seattle.

If you want to minimize travel, make 4 divisions.

Part of me just wants to hate this because I hate Manfred. The other part of me hates it because it doesn’t make sense, unless purely from a way to drum up excitement/playoff matchups.

Yeah, the Atlanta thing kind of defeats the purpose of limiting travel it seems.

It seems to me that it’s an attempt to rig things slightly to benefit the East. They don’t want to set it up in a way that could would guarantee the exclusion of one of the Yankees, Nationals, Red Sox, Phillies, or Braves from the playoffs.

If that’s the case....why not keep the same format and limit games to be within AL/NL East, etc.? That would be much less travel.

This is just gerrymandering to maximize the odds of the leagues preferred playoff matchups. It has almost nothing to do with minimizing “travel.” If that were the case, you wouldn’t have teams from Texas going to the state of Washington - well over 2,000 miles. Atlanta to Toronto is less than 1,000. Atlanta to NY less than 900. It’s a much shorter distance from Texas to NY, for example, than to Seattle.

If you want to minimize travel, make 4 divisions.

Part of me just wants to hate this because I hate Manfred. The other part of me hates it because it doesn’t make sense, unless purely from a way to drum up excitement/playoff matchups.

What???! MLB putting the proverbial thumb on the scale to help their preferred teams? Unpossible!!! 

Great article, especially the part about hoping baseball will be back in a month or so for early summer training.

Agree with those above that Atlanta should be in the East and Pittsburgh in the Central. Biggest question to me is what they are going to do with rosters if there is no minor league play. Expect each team will carry their entire 40-man roster with 26 dressing for each game or series or whatever. Don't know how the other 15 will see enough action to keep them sharp and continue their development. Maybe the 15 not on the active roster for each series will play a game or two against the 15 not active players from the team they are playing. Start it at 10 in the morning and it is over hours before the scheduled game starts that evening.  One problem is this would require another 15 players traveling to away games and the cost associated with that.  But replacements for injuries and poor performance are going to have to come from somewhere.

Yes, Toronto makes more sense than Atlanta. Of coarse a bad option is better than no baseball but this last option is more political. Areas like NYC which didn`t take  the virus serious & the cases exploded which IMO was a big factor in shutting down baseball. These areas will take longer to be ready for MLB, they want to delay baseball for the whole country until they are able to have home games. This plan also draws out the season that MN will have to unfairly play their last games in  neutral stadiums taking away home field advantage, so why do more responsible areas like MN be penalized? I think the AZ plan was to appease those who didn`t want any baseball. I still believe it`s still a viable plan to start earlier & finish earlier (to be sure the season would be complete if something flares up when the weather become colder). As some areas would be ready before the July 2 due date so as not over strain AZ. So I hope the AZ plan isn`t totally scraped. AZ plan could be a temporary plan until the teams are liberated by their states 

Great article, especially the part about hoping baseball will be back in a month or so for early summer training.

 

Agree with those above that Atlanta should be in the East and Pittsburgh in the Central. Biggest question to me is what they are going to do with rosters if there is no minor league play. Expect each team will carry their entire 40-man roster with 26 dressing for each game or series or whatever. Don't know how the other 15 will see enough action to keep them sharp and continue their development. Maybe the 15 not on the active roster for each series will play a game or two against the 15 not active players from the team they are playing. Start it at 10 in the morning and it is over hours before the scheduled game starts that evening. One problem is this would require another 15 players traveling to away games and the cost associated with that. But replacements for injuries and poor performance are going to have to come from somewhere.

Those extra players wouldn't need to travel with the team. They could all stay back and keep playing practice games, etc... Only the guys who need to play would travel. If someone got hurt you could fly one replacement dude in if the road trip is a long one.

Oh, I just re-read it and I see that you were thinking our 15 extra could play against the other teams 15. I was thinking the Twins could have their 40 man, plus another 15 guys that way they can stay back and just play scrimmage games against themselves. They they wouldn't need to travel with so many players.

Yes, Toronto makes more sense than Atlanta. Of coarse a bad option is better than no baseball but this last option is more political. Areas like NYC which didn`t take the virus serious & the cases exploded which IMO was a big factor in shutting down baseball. These areas will take longer to be ready for MLB, they want to delay baseball for the whole country until they are able to have home games. This plan also draws out the season that MN will have to unfairly play their last games in neutral stadiums taking away home field advantage, so why do more responsible areas like MN be penalized? I think the AZ plan was to appease those who didn`t want any baseball. I still believe it`s still a viable plan to start earlier & finish earlier (to be sure the season would be complete if something flares up when the weather become colder). As some areas would be ready before the July 2 due date so as not over strain AZ. So I hope the AZ plan isn`t totally scraped. AZ plan could be a temporary plan until the teams are liberated by their states

I also thought using the spring training sites with no fans was a decent option. I mean why open up those giant ballparks with no one in them. So might as well play in the spring training complexes, plus there is a lot of workout and practice areas right there. So might as well at least start like that and then move back to their parks when that time is able to come.

MLB really needs to think about this, I know this is going to seem egotistical, however, if the NBA or some other professional league gets back to playing before MLB then MLB will lose out on an opportunity to become the national past time once again. It seems to me that obviously the NFL and the NBA and maybe a few other sports have passed baseball in popularity over the last few decades. However, if MLB was the first professional league to get up and running everyone in the US would tune in to MLB especially if it's the only option for a period of time. People are dying to see live sports on TV and it would probably help people stay inside more.

Now I'm not saying to do something that is unsafe. I'm saying that MLB has to be 100% ready to go when sports are given the opportunity to open up without fans. It just seems like they throw ideas around and they don't seem to have a for sure plan that they are going to implement when the opportunity arises. They need to draw something up that is safe and go with it and try to be the most prepared when they are given the chance to play. So that way they can beat those other leagues to the punch basically by just being all on the same page and ready when the government tells them it's ok. The likely hood of all states being able to all go at the same time is almost nill. So if they have an Arizona plan or a spring training plan it is way more highly likely that Arizona will be completely open way before New York will, and since we will only be able to see it on TV it really doesn't matter if they play in their home parks or not.

Regardless, I can say that I am hoping for sure that at some point they can get started. Other sports too, I'd just like to see baseball get top billing for a week or two. Maybe guys like Ronald Acuna and Mike Trout or even a Nelson Cruz will become more of a household names once again. MLB could help their product out a ton by just having all of their ducks in a row and Uber ready to go when the ok is given.

I believe MLB is planning what to do if a city has a covid 19 virus outbreak. The players want to be close to their families. Perhaps the driving factor is what to do if all of a team's home games have to be played on the road, due to an outbreak.

The plan minimizes travel, particularly for the 10 west teams.

Look at Atlanta on a map. Barely closer to Cincy. St. Louis not too much farther away.

The two Florida teams would stay with the east. P'burgh is closer, on average, to the eastern teams. For example, in the northeastern 8 teams, look at the longest trip, Pitt to Boston. Now compare Pitt to KC, St. Louis, Twin Cities.

I'm not advocating, just trying to see the rationale. Imagine the season begins, and crisis erupts again. Now they are back on the fence, trying to sort out: Do we keep going, or cancel?

Perhaps the flexibility to play "home" games nearby (albeit on the road), with TV crews at the ready, in empty ballparks, is a consideration?

My personal take:  I'd watch it. Apologies to John de Vries' Desperate Housegraphs, but I'm unlikely to become a fan. Women dousing each other with champagne? I'd rather see Kepler & Sano.

I believe MLB is planning what to do if a city has a covid 19 virus outbreak. The players want to be close to their families. Perhaps the driving factor is what to do if all of a team's home games have to be played on the road, due to an outbreak.

 

The plan minimizes travel, particularly for the 10 west teams.

 

Look at Atlanta on a map. Barely closer to Cincy. St. Louis not too much farther away.

 

The two Florida teams would stay with the east. P'burgh is closer, on average, to the eastern teams. For example, in the northeastern 8 teams, look at the longest trip, Pitt to Boston. Now compare Pitt to KC, St. Louis, Twin Cities.

 

I'm not advocating, just trying to see the rationale. Imagine the season begins, and crisis erupts again. Now they are back on the fence, trying to sort out: Do we keep going, or cancel?

 

Perhaps the flexibility to play "home" games nearby (albeit on the road), with TV crews at the ready, in empty ballparks, is a consideration?

 

My personal take: I'd watch it. Apologies to John de Vries' Desperate Housegraphs, but I'm unlikely to become a fan. Women dousing each other with champagne? I'd rather see Kepler & Sano.

Hopefully Kepler and Sano are dousing each other with Champagne in October?

East: NYY, NYM, Bos, Bal, Phi, Was, Pit
Central: Tor, Det, Cle, Min, ChC, ChW, Mil, KC
South: Mia, TB, Atl, Hou, Tex, StL, Cin
West: Col, Ari, SD, LAA, LAD, SF, Oak, Sea

Play 42 games in your division, 46 outside, then an extra X (0-8) games against your rival, like Milwaukee for us. That's plenty of season, given what we're dealing with.

As much as I love baseball, I have zero interest in major league baseball starting, when my son has basically been locked in our house for two months, unable to play with friends or play baseball this summer on a team. I also have zero interest in major league baseball when Governors decisions are forcing the closures of small business. 

Damn near half the population so frickin scared to leave their house because they are afraid of a virus that unless you are very old or have crazy underlying issues there is a very good chance they wouldn't even know they had it.

If baseball is safe enough for major league players, then it should be safe enough minor league players, and if it is safe enough for professionals, it should be safe enough for the college players, and so on right down to little league.

I know I am in the minority but until everybody is honest with selves, this virus isn't going away for many, many months (at least 3 to 4 or at worst 18 -24), either by herd immunity or a vaccine, which really leaves us two choices, continue to lock down until it is gone, or try to get everything back to normal as soon as possible,  This middle ground is causing more damage IMO.

If limiting travel is the reasoning behind this plan, I am not understanding why we don't just leave the divisions alone - and play the regular season within the division?
20 games against each division rival and you have an 80 game season - add one extra wild card for a total of 6 teams reaching the playoffs in each league. The 2 division winners with the best regular season record get a first round bye. Is this too easy?

I don't see the need for re-aligning everything. Keep the integrity of the divisions and the leagues. Geography is why the divisions are the divisions in the first place. 

If limiting travel is the reasoning behind this plan, I am not understanding why we don't just leave the divisions alone - and play the regular season within the division?
 

Limiting travel and health are not the reasoning behind this, maximizing profit (which I don't disagree with) is the reason behind this, but MLB have the balls to say it.  MN having 10 home and 10 road games against KC, DET, CHW and Cleveland doesn't do that. (and the same can be said the same is almost all divisions.)

But the Yanks, playing Boston, Mets Washington, Philly almost ever night does, or the Dodgers, playing the Angels, Giants, A's does as well.

Also if this would happen and work, why ever go back?

Limiting travel and health are not the reasoning behind this, maximizing profit (which I don't disagree with) is the reason behind this, but MLB have the balls to say it.  MN having 10 home and 10 road games against KC, DET, CHW and Cleveland doesn't do that. (and the same can be said the same is almost all divisions.)

But the Yanks, playing Boston, Mets Washington, Philly almost ever night does, or the Dodgers, playing the Angels, Giants, A's does as well.

 

Also if this would happen and work, why ever go back?

Exactly

I agree the Atlanta in Central and not Pittsburgh makes little sense.  Even more so, when Rays are in the East and have to fly past Atlanta to get to most games.  Also, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are closer to each other than Pittsburgh and any of the other east teams.  However, there will always be some teams that have to travel further. 

Personally, I think the most viable option is the the Spring training homes would be best for play, but players have biggest push back.  The travel is the least, can be done via bus, you can use the minor league fields for the simulated games for minor league players for replacement due to injury and the like.  However, players and their families would not want this right now.

I am wondering how the DH rules will be.  Will they go like normal interleague play where home team rules apply, and of course have significantly more interleague games?  This really puts the Twins at a disadvantage when we would be relying on so much from our DH in the offense.  Now, half the road games would be played without DH, that is much more than the about 9 road games it was.  So then Cruz would be sitting 40 games just because pitchers would have to hit.  This would greatly affect his contribution to the team.  Additionally, depending on schedule he could have long stints of not playing at all, I bet if there was a 9 plus game NL road trip Mr. Cruz might have a sore ankle that lands him on the DL for 15 days.

 

I am wondering how the DH rules will be.  Will they go like normal interleague play where home team rules apply, and of course have significantly more interleague games?  

I guess it depends which plan is implemented. The first plan I heard of, which was to use Grapefruit and Cactus League parks, mixing NL & AL teams into divisions of five, called for universal DH. Which of course upset some people.

I don't know if the 3 divisions of 10 each format would also include the universal DH.

One thing I did like in that initial plan was using computers to call balls and strikes. I'm soo tired of seeing pitches far outside called strikes, or vice versa. Even if the digital strike zone isn't perfect, how could it be worse than what we've endured for years?