With the recent news that Mickey Mouse Club/*NSYNC veteran Justin Timberlake has joined the “MLB to Nashville” movement, here’s my plan for 32-team realignment with expansion to Nashville (Stars is the reported nickname) and Charlotte.
Can’t have the NL East without the Braves! Flipping the Rockies and Astros splits the 8 western clubs evenly between the leagues. Plus both Texas teams leave their West Coast division and reunite with old foes.
Each team gets ONE annual interleague rival. For the expansion clubs, yearly pairings are Nashville-Detroit (Music City vs. Motor City) and Charlotte-Atlanta. If the Rays someday move to Montreal, then Charlotte and Toronto could swap divisions to get the Canadian teams together, but what about interleague? Expos-Pirates revival, perhaps?
Annual interleague pairings: TOR-PIT, BOS-PHI, NYY-NYM, BAL-WSH, DET-NSH, CLE-CIN, CHA-ATL, TB-MIA, CHW-CHC, MIN-MIL, KC-STL, TEX-HOU, COL-ARZ, SEA-SD, OAK-SF, LAA-LAD
Scheduling for 162-game season:
20 games each against 3 division rivals (60 total)
7-8 games against 12 league rivals (86 total)
16 interleague games:
3 against every team from one division (6 home, 6 away)
4-game home-and-home against annual interleague rival
Using the Orioles and Nationals as an example: When AL East faces any NL division other than East, the O’s play those four NL clubs (12 games) and the Nats (4 games). When AL East meets NL East every four years, the O’s play 3 each against the entire NL East including the Nats, and they also have their annual Nats home-and-home, hence 7 O’s-Nats games total. If their 3-game series is in Washington, then 5 of their 7 games are there. Four years later the O’s host the 3-game series.
As for Charlotte-Atlanta: When NL East faces AL East and Atlanta’s division rivals play 7 versus their annual opponents, the Braves get their usual 4 with Charlotte. Only when NL East takes on AL Mideast do we get 7 of Atlanta-Charlotte.
Postseason: In non-COVID years 10 teams out of 30 make the postseason (33% of the clubs). Post-expansion I’d go with 12 out of 32 (37.5%). Two wild cards per league travel to the two lowest-seeded division champs’ ballparks for a best-of-3. Winners advance to face the two higher seeded division champions in a best-of-5 LDS, followed by the usual best-of-7 LCS and best-of-7 World Series.