oth sides want expanded playoffs, most of what is discussed is pretty clumsy.

I wasted some time this morning with the idea "What if the MLB adopted a two league / four division model similar to the NFL?"

The good news about this idea: Eight divisions is a good number to create an expanded playoff system that includes three & seven game series with all division champions (no wild cards). This makes a lot of sense

The less good news: MLB has two fewer teams than the NFL - so two divisions will have only three teams.

Assuming that the MLB adopts the DH in the NL (which I hate, but I think is going to happen), we can move teams around without being in different rules sets / forced restructuring of lineup (that isn't happening anyway). But I'm going to set some rules

The rules:

1) Move as few teams as possible, but it's okay to move between leagues

2) League balance - not all big or powerful in one league vs the other. 15 teams in each league - each league must has one three team division

3) The regional names aren't a joke (except when following the NFL). Get regional teams closer together as possible (enabling car/train travel)

4) Except in strict geographic or market size determined groupings. Try to get same city teams (NYC, LA, SF/O) in different leagues which enables (rare but fun) subway series and doesn't have a good/bad team in one town as much - it's a tradition.

There are some regional "givens" - if you are going to have a team in Atlanta and division called "Southern" ... duh. and Florida is South of Atlanta. And some regional opinions: It's okay for Cincinatti, St. Louis, & Kansas City to be called "Southern".

Align as closely as possible with the NFL

- this is obvious and somebody is going to like it - I think it's stupid

Maintain rivalries

this is obviously subjective and if you think you can do better - go for it in the comments. Phillies fans may like this model as it puts the Phillies in a three team division

Geographic

obviously creates cross town rivalries of teams in the same cities, etc..

Market size

the idea here was to give smaller sized markets a chance by putting them in the same division with other smaller sized teams

Power Rankings

I'm not a big fan of this idea as power is temporal and changes - but I took the 12 year W/L record & two year run differential as those were handy stats I had around by team - I'm sure the reader can suggest a better measure, etc.. Beyond a dozen years I don't see anything as very relevant for current day performance. Powerful teams with powerful teams, less powerful teams with less powerful teams given the regional assignments, etc..

My recommendation:

sort of like the "maintain rivalries" with some geographic corrections

Comments very welcome - sorry if I gave up on trying to make the formatting look better (it's much better than the first cut)