The Pointless Realignment Outpost

[Mac the Knife]

NHL: 5 divisions of 6 teams each - Atlantic, Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western. No conferences.

Regular Season:

83 game regular season. Each team plays the five other teams in its division 7 times (35 games). They also play home-and-home against the 24 teams from the other divisions (48 games).

Postseason:

24 qualifiers because, well, why the hell not? the 5 division champions are seeded #1 through #5. 19 other qualifiers, without regard to divisional alignment and seeded #6 through #24.

Seeds #9 through #24 play in a best-of-three Playoff Qualifying Series. The winners are then re-seeded to meet seeds #1 through #8 in a best-of-five Preliminary Series. Surviving 8 teams advance to Quarter-Finals, then 4 to the Semi's, and so on.

[McCall]

NHL: 5 divisions of 6 teams each - Atlantic, Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western. No conferences.

Regular Season:

83 game regular season. Each team plays the five other teams in its division 7 times (35 games). They also play home-and-home against the 24 teams from the other divisions (48 games).

Postseason:

24 qualifiers because, well, why the hell not? the 5 division champions are seeded #1 through #5. 19 other qualifiers, without regard to divisional alignment and seeded #6 through #24.

Seeds #9 through #24 play in a best-of-three Playoff Qualifying Series. The winners are then re-seeded to meet seeds #1 through #8 in a best-of-five Preliminary Series. Surviving 8 teams advance to Quarter-Finals, then 4 to the Semi's, and so on.

Don't believe teams would go for a plan involving an odd number of games. Half the league would have to play one less home game and one more road game, losing revenue even by one game. Probably wouldn't fly with them. In the 4 major leagues, you pretty much gotta have an even split of home and road games.

[DaytonBlue]

Here's a nuttier NHL realignment idea I came up with tonight (based on 32 teams, yes I know):

Campbell Conference

Pacific: SEA Coyotes, LA, SJ, ANA, CAL, EDM, VAN,

Central: STL, CHI, MIN, WPG, DAL, NAS, COL

Wales Conference

Atlantic: NYR, NYI, NJ, PIT, PHI, CAR, WAS, CLB, DET

Eastern: TB, FL, BOS, BUF, TOR, Markham Not the Leafs, OTT, QUE, MTL

Season format: out of division 2x, all other games in division (4 or 5 meetings in the Wales, 5 or 6 in the Campbell)

Campbell Conference Playoffs:

Pacific Champion vs. Wild Card

Central Runner-Up vs. Pacific 3

Pacific Runner-Up vs. Central 3

Central Champion vs. Wild Card

Reseed based on record for 2nd round.

Wales Conference Playoffs:

4 wild cards instead of 2, wild cards play one game to determine who advances, then playoffs run like Western Conference

Campbell teams have a 57% chance of making playoffs. (8 of 14)

Wales teams have a 56% chance of making playoffs, including the play-in games (10 of 18)

Everyone except Colorado, Calgary, and Edmonton is in a division of teams in the same time zone. Colorado is behind the rest of their division so games starting at 6 p.m. MT is not as big of a deal.

[Cosmic]

If the league did some kind of no-conference, 1-16 type playoffs, what do you guys think about teams choosing their opponents in the first round? #1 seed picks their opponent first and so on. If you are on the East Coast and you don't want to travel to the West Coast, choose a different team if it's really important to you. I think it would add an interesting new level of drama. Would teams really pick around the hot team that "nobody wants to play"? Plus, we'd get to blame our GM/coach for picking the wrong team.

[McCall]

Here's a nuttier NHL realignment idea I came up with tonight (based on 32 teams, yes I know):

Campbell Conference

Pacific: SEA Coyotes, LA, SJ, ANA, CAL, EDM, VAN,

Central: STL, CHI, MIN, WPG, DAL, NAS, COL

Wales Conference

Atlantic: NYR, NYI, NJ, PIT, PHI, CAR, WAS, CLB, DET

Eastern: TB, FL, BOS, BUF, TOR, Markham Not the Leafs, OTT, QUE, MTL

Season format: out of division 2x, all other games in division (4 or 5 meetings in the Wales, 5 or 6 in the Campbell)

Campbell Conference Playoffs:

Pacific Champion vs. Wild Card

Central Runner-Up vs. Pacific 3

Pacific Runner-Up vs. Central 3

Central Champion vs. Wild Card

Reseed based on record for 2nd round.

Wales Conference Playoffs:

4 wild cards instead of 2, wild cards play one game to determine who advances, then playoffs run like Western Conference

Campbell teams have a 57% chance of making playoffs. (8 of 14)

Wales teams have a 56% chance of making playoffs, including the play-in games (10 of 18)

Everyone except Colorado, Calgary, and Edmonton is in a division of teams in the same time zone. Colorado is behind the rest of their division so games starting at 6 p.m. MT is not as big of a deal.

Why are there 2 divisions of 7 and 2 of 9? Doesn't make any sense when you can go all divisions of 8.

[DaytonBlue]

I was trying to think of a way to keep all the teams in their own time zone as much as possible, especially DET and CBJ.

It was inspired from the way the ECHL used to do playoffs where the different conferences had different bracket setups to minimize excessive travel.

[AlexWilson]

I think I've figured out a realignment for the NHL that makes some sense, given the screwy geography and potential relocation of the Coyotes and eventual poorly thought out expansion.

Conference 1 - Pacific/Smythe/Gretzky conference

Vancouver

Edmonton

Calgary

Colorado

San Jose

Los Angeles

Anaheim

Phoenix

Eventually Seattle by relocation or expansion

Conference 2 - Great Lakes/Norris/Howe Conference

Winnipeg

Minnesota

Chicago

Detroit

Toronto

Buffalo

Ottawa

Eventually Markham by relocation or expansion

Conference 3 Northeast/Adams/Orr Conference

Montreal

Boston

NY Rangers

NY Islanders

New Jersey

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

Eventually Quebec City by relocation or expansion

Conference 4 - Southern/Patrick/Hull Conference

Columbus

Washington

St. Louis

Carolina

Nashville

Dallas

Tampa Bay

Florida

Once the relocation/expansion is done, each conference could be split into two divisions

The Pacific into North and South divisions

Great Lakes into East and West

Northeast into North and South

Southern into East and West

The purpose of the divisions would be for seeding and keeping travel costs down with an unbalanced schedule.

Top team in each division would get an automatic playoff berth, with the top two remaining teams in each conference getting the remaining playoff berths.

You sadly need a 34th team. 33 teams equals an odd number, which would make the playoffs almost impossible.

[rams80]

I think I've figured out a realignment for the NHL that makes some sense, given the screwy geography and potential relocation of the Coyotes and eventual poorly thought out expansion.

Conference 1 - Pacific/Smythe/Gretzky conference

Vancouver

Edmonton

Calgary

Colorado

San Jose

Los Angeles

Anaheim

Phoenix

Eventually Seattle by relocation or expansion

Conference 2 - Great Lakes/Norris/Howe Conference

Winnipeg

Minnesota

Chicago

Detroit

Toronto

Buffalo

Ottawa

Eventually Markham by relocation or expansion

Conference 3 Northeast/Adams/Orr Conference

Montreal

Boston

NY Rangers

NY Islanders

New Jersey

Philadelphia

Pittsburgh

Eventually Quebec City by relocation or expansion

Conference 4 - Southern/Patrick/Hull Conference

Columbus

Washington

St. Louis

Carolina

Nashville

Dallas

Tampa Bay

Florida

Once the relocation/expansion is done, each conference could be split into two divisions

The Pacific into North and South divisions

Great Lakes into East and West

Northeast into North and South

Southern into East and West

The purpose of the divisions would be for seeding and keeping travel costs down with an unbalanced schedule.

Top team in each division would get an automatic playoff berth, with the top two remaining teams in each conference getting the remaining playoff berths.

You sadly need a 34th team. 33 teams equals an odd number, which would make the playoffs almost impossible.

Tell that to the NHL from 1978 to 1991

[troy_3223]

You sadly need a 34th team. 33 teams equals an odd number, which would make the playoffs almost impossible.

Sorry I didn't make this clear enough - I'm running under the assumption that Phoenix is going somewhere, whether that is Markham, Seattle, or Quebec City. It's 32 teams, and I would hope that expansion would happen after the relocation of Phoenix to one of those three destinations.

[joechicago]

It's actually pretty easy to schedule and have a playoff with an odd number of teams. Consider this (preferable to current model) 25-team league with 5 divisions of 5:

Northeast: Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Boston, Montreal

Atlantic: NY Rangers, NY Islanders, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh

Central: Chicago, St. Louis, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Detroit

Frontier: Washington, Tampa Bay, Dallas, Nashville, Colorado

West: Calgary, Vancouver, Edmonton, San Jose, Los Angeles

Home-Away v. everyone not in division = 40 games

4 Home/4 Away v. everyone in division = 32 games

5 add'l home games v. 1 other division = 5 games

5 add'l road games v. 1 other division = 5 games

= 82 games.

16-team playoff. Divide the playoffs into East-West and seed to avoid divisional matchups. Thus, if the teams finished as I listed them above, the playoff might look like this:

Calgary (W2) v. Winnipeg (W7)

Toronto (W3) v. Dallas (W6)

Chicago (W1) v. Edmonton (W8)

St. Louis (W4) v. Vancouver (W5)

NY Rangers (E1) v. Boston (E8)

NY Islanders (E4) v. Tampa Bay (E5)

Washington (E2) v. Buffalo (E7)

Ottawa (E3) v. New Jersey (E6)

[JackieMoon]

Although the new NHL realignment proposal is a step in the right direction (4 divisions instead of 6), I really think it could be tweaked a little more to accomodate two future expansion teams.

EASTERN - ATLANTIC

Carolina Hurricanes

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Tampa Bay Lightning

Washington Capitals

EASTERN - NORTHEAST

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

Columbus Blue Jackets

Detroit Red Wings

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Quebec Nordiques (Florida Panthers)

Toronto Maple Leafs

WESTERN - CENTRAL

Chicago Blackhawks

Colorado Avalanche (temporary)

Dallas Stars

Minnesota Wild

Nashville Predators

St. Louis Blues

Winnipeg Jets

AVAILABLE MARKETS: Houston, Kansas City, Saskatchewan (2/3 awarded franchises and Colorado goes to the Pacific)

WESTERN - PACIFIC

Anaheim Ducks

Calgary Flames

Edmonton Oilers

Los Angeles Kings

San Jose Sharks

Seattle Totems/Metropolitans (Phoenix Coyotes)

Vancouver Canucks

Playoffs: Each conference (two division winners and six wildcards)

[Top Shelf]

AAA Baseball realignment, anyone? This combines the International League and the Pacific Coast League into one entity:

EASTERN CONFERENCE

NORTHEAST DIVISION

Buffalo Bisons (Blue Jays)

Pawtucket Red Sox (Red Sox)

Rochester Red Wings (Twins)

Scranton/Wilkes Barre RailRiders (Yankees)

Syracuse Chiefs (Nationals)

ATLANTIC DIVISION

Charlotte Knights (White Sox)

Durham Bulls (Rays)

Gwinnett Braves (Braves)

Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Phillies)

Norfolk Tides (Orioles)

CENTRAL DIVISION

Columbus Clippers (Indians)

Indianapolis Indians (Pirates)

Louisville Bats (Reds)

Nashville Sounds (Brewers)

Toledo Mud Hens (Tigers)

WESTERN CONFERENCE

MIDWEST DIVISION

Iowa Cubs (Cubs)

Memphis Redbirds (Cardinals)

New Orleans Zephyrs (Marlins)

Oklahoma City Redhawks (Astros)

Omaha Storm Chasers (Royals)

MOUNTAIN DIVISION

Albuquerque Isotopes (Dodgers)

Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Rockies)

Round Rock Express (Rangers)

Salt Lake Bees (Angels)

Tucson Padres (Padres)

PACIFIC DIVISION

Fresno Grizzlies (Giants)

Las Vegas 51's (Mets)

Reno Aces (Diamondbacks)

Sacramento River Cats (Athletics)

Tacoma Rainiers (Mariners)

[JackieMoon]

I really like that AAA. Never understood why they are in two separate leagues anyways (when their corresponding MLB teams don't line up).

[The_Admiral]

Travel concerns, obviously.

Pointless NHL realignment idea:

Western Conference

Division A: Los Angeles, Anaheim, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, San Jose, Phoenix

Division B: Chicago, Nashville, Dallas, St. Louis, Minnesota, Winnipeg, Colorado

Eastern Conference

Division C: Detroit, Ottawa, Boston, Toronto, Montreal, Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Florida

Division D: New York, Long Island, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Washington, Columbus, Carolina

All four division winners make the playoffs, along with the second and third-place teams in each division. Teams are seeded 1-8, with the two division winners being seeded 1 and 2, the two next best teams after the top three teams in each division being seeded 7 and 8, and the second and third-place teams being seeded 4 and 5 if their division winner is seeded 1, and 3 and 6 if their division winner is seeded 2. What I really like about this thread is that it allows you to throw out some really crazy hypothetical concepts.

[Magnus]

I counter with this:

5 division winners and the next best 3 from the conference make the playoffs. Also, seed them 1-8 based ON THEIR RECORD - don't reward them with a higher seed for winning a weak division.

Also, here is MLB's new scheduling formula:

19 games × 4 opponents in own division (76 games), 6 or 7 games × 10 opponents in other divisions within league (66 games), 20 inter-league games

Now, why didn't they just go with something simpler?

9 games vs each team in your league (126)

9 games vs natural rival (9, 135)

3 games vs natural rival's division opponents (12, 147)

3 games vs one of the other two divisions (15, 162).

The difference is 36 inter-league games in my plan vs 20 in the current plan. It's almost double the number, but considering 36/162 games is less than a quarter of the season, I don't think the impact on pennant races will matter all that much.

Edited March 29, 2013 by Magnus

[Nyk33]

If Seattle gets an NBA expansion team to keep both Sacramento and Seattle happy

WESTERN CONFERENCE

NORTHWEST

Seattle

Portland

Minnesota

Denver

Utah

PACIFIC

Lakers

Clippers

Sacramento

Golden State

Phoenix

SOUTHWEST

OKC

San Antonio

Dallas

Houston

New Orleans

EASTERN CONFERENCE

SOUTHEAST

Memphis

Miami

Orlando

Atlanta

Charlotte

ATLANTIC

Washington

New York

Boston

Brooklyn

Philadelphia

Toronto

CENTRAL

Milwaukee

Chicago

Cleveland

Detroit

Indiana

[withina]

spam

Edited July 20, 2013 by Joshawaggie

[Kramerica Industries]

I've refused to delve into this thread before, but it really dawned on me while thinking about Trout/Cabrera from the 2012 MVP discussion (yeah, that still happens with me) earlier today about how MLB could benefit from a simplified two division format than the somewhat cluttered three division format. This thinking was also inspired by the NHL re-alignment, which, for many of the problems I have with its execution (which I've discussed in the NHL thread), I do like the premise of.

Of course, the first question would be - why realign at all?

A: Kinda like how the NHL at times tends to have one weak division get an automatic high seed (Southeast Division almost every time), this also happens regularly in baseball, and seems to happen quite a bit with the AL Central. Detroit won 88 games in 2012, which was fewer than Texas (93), Tampa Bay (91), and Anaheim (89), all teams who missed the playoffs. In 2009, Minnesota won 87 games, but had a worse win percentage than Texas (due to playing a Game 163; Minnesota and Detroit won 86 games in the 162 game slate). In 2008, Chicago eked past Minnesota in a Game 163, but had a worse win percentage than the Yankees (89-73 vs. 89-74). Obviously, the 2005 NL West is the most egregious example, when 82-80 San Diego got in the playoffs (and then got BLASTED in the NLDS), and the 2006 Cardinals winning the Central at 83-78 is also pretty memorable (for some wrong reasons).

Yes, the 1972 Mets won a remarkably weak NL East with a miserable 82-79 record (and then beat the Reds juggernaut in the best-of-5 NLCS, showing the randomness of short series'). This is about the only memorable example of a two division format yielding a horribly weak division in the 25 years this lasted in MLB (1969-1993). Sometimes, random happens, but it happens much less often than it does now.

So, with that in mind, my proposal would be able to keep a four-team playoff in each league, while doing a better job at getting the best teams in the playoffs.

AL East:

New York Yankees

Boston

Baltimore

Toronto

Tampa Bay

Cleveland

Detroit

AL West:

Anaheim

Texas

Seattle

Oakland

Houston*

Chicago White Sox

Minnesota

Kansas City

NL East:

New York Mets

Atlanta

Washington

Philadelphia

Florida

Pittsburgh

Cincinnati

NL West:

Los Angeles

San Francisco

Arizona

Colorado

San Diego

St. Louis

Chicago Cubs

Milwaukee*

*I fully agree that the Brewers should've returned to the AL, not switching the Astros over after 50 NL seasons. But, since Milwaukee would go in the AL West anyway (geographic rivalries with Chicago and Minnesota), this is a very simple swap if you so wish it to be that way.

If this were applied to 2012, for instance, then the Yankees, A's, Rangers, and Orioles all get into the playoffs without any dispute, and in the NL, the Nationals, Giants, Reds, and Braves all do the same. In other words, the four best records in each league (...wait for it...) ALL REACH THE PLAYOFFS!

And, really, isn't that the way it's supposed to work anyway? Detroit, talent-wise, was one of the best teams in the AL, but they actually would've gotten punished for their immense underachievement in the regular season. So it goes.

And Mike Trout might've won the MVP award he so deserved, too.

[McCall]

The point of the Astros switching leagues was to even out the divisions. By going to 2-divisions in odd-numbered leagues, you've just created more unbalance. So that right there makes this plan less attractive than the actual current alignment.

And no the Brewers should not have switched leagues. Milwaukee, thanks to the Braves, was always more of an NL city anyway, plus they've formed much better rivalries with the NL Central clubs than they ever did in the AL. Either Colorado or Arizona should've been the ones to switch leagues.

Also, Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown, something not down for 45 years. I find that pretty damn deserving. His defense might not have been as stellar as Trout's, but he actually ended up being fairly adequate enough at 3rd base that it shouldn't have taken away from his offensive numbers, which were the best. Thus, the Triple Crown.

[Kramerica Industries]

That's just a strike against MLB deciding to even out the leagues then. Put Houston back in the NL, though it would create a mildly sticky situation about who to put in the NL East. Chicago is the only team I could think of, based on geography, but even then that's a team west of the Mississippi and also has a ton more rivalries in that division than they would in the East. Ditto with St. Louis and Milwaukee. I guess Houston?

I wanted to keep things within the general parameters of the league sizes and playoff qualification. In general, a two-division format will yield more teams that should've been in the playoffs than a three-division format does. It was pretty heinous last year that 7th place Detroit not only won their division, but they were actually the first AL team to clinch. Thus, they were able to set themselves up for the playoffs while the 95, 94, and 93 win Yankees, A's, Rangers, and Orioles had to duke it out to the finish line, and even a little bit beyond that.

Also, I don't want to insinuate that Miggy had a poor season or something in 2012. In most years, I would agree with being an MVP winner. But Trout's combination of power, speed, and top-flight defense at a premium position like CF, not to mention Anaheim's stellar record with him in the lineup, put him over the top, in my eyes. Miggy was not exactly as adequate as we think he was at 3B. He was one of the worst defensive 3B in the league.