On Saturday, a story broke by ESPN’s Buster Olney that Major League Baseball is considering realignment in the future as part of labor talks. Being talked about is moving a team from the National League, which has 16 teams, into the American League, which has 14 teams. The Houston Astros and Florida Marlins have been mentioned as that possible team. The last team to move from one league to another was the Milwaukee Brewers who moved from the American League to the National League in 1998.

What would happen is the leagues would no longer have divisions and would just be two 15 team leagues. The top five teams in each league would qualify for the postseason and one team would play an interleague series at one time which means interleague play would take place at any point during the season. The players union is reportedly very open to the idea of realignment.

I actually like the idea of having the two leagues being even at 15 teams,it is a great idea. It has long baffled me why one league had more teams than the other and it seems very ridiculous to have one division with six teams (NL Central) and another with just four (AL West). I would like to see the divisions stay solely because last year’s race in the NL West was so exciting. If we eliminated the divisions, we wouldn’t have excitement like Game 162 at AT&T Park anymore, and I would be very sad. 

The idea of two 15 team leagues is intriguing, although I would have six teams in each league make the postseason. Five teams in each league would just be…odd. Plus, there are many teams that have great seasons and miss out on the postseason that should make it. A lot of baseball purists would probably disagree with me and say that there would be too many teams and the season is already long enough. I say that 12 teams out of 30 sounds just right to me. You can have one new Wild Card round where the top two teams in each league get a bye and the remaning four would play in the new Wild Card round in a best of 3 (or 5) series. Then you move onto the LDS, the LCS,and the World Series.

I think realignment is a great idea, I know it would be a drag for a team to have to switch leagues but it only seems right to have an equal number of teams in each league.