Unbalanced Baseball Explained

One of the most common baseball questions I get asked by casual fans concerns the unbalanced nature of the game. Forget for a moment the unbalanced scheduling, which means teams like the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays must face the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays a combined 54 times. Instead, the questions usually surround the unbalanced divisional structure. "Why does the AL West only have four teams and the NL Central have six when everyone else has five teams?" Believe it or not, the answer is actually quite simple.

In 1998, Major League Baseball expanded to 30 teams with the addition of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Baseball had previously realigned to a six division format in 1993, with the addition of the Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins. In an ideal system, 30 teams would be divided into six divisions of five teams each. The problem, however, was that idea would place 15 teams in each league. Since baseball plays in series, there are no byes. That means that one team from the American League would play a team from the National League every day of the season; essentially interleague baseball year-round.

Major League Baseball's reluctance to make interleague a year-round occurrence explains the unbalanced divisions, but it still doesn't make the league fair. Since baseball sends the three division winners to the playoffs each year, plus the highest non-division winner as a wild card, it means that the road to the playoffs is more difficult coming from the national league. It also means that the four teams in the American League West have the greatest likelihood of earning a playoff berth. So what can be done?

One idea for fixing the problem is to follow the lead of the National Football League. When the NFL realigned in 2002, it took 32 teams and split them into eight divisions of four teams each. This plan would solve the interleague dilemma while also making the two leagues even with 16 teams each. Of course, Major League Baseball would need to expand by two teams in an arguably already saturated baseball market. As it stands teams like the Florida Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays can hardly get fans into the stadium. Reduction is also a possibility, although not necessarily a popular one. By reducing to 28 teams, two leagues of 14 teams could exist, but baseball would need to go back to the two-division format instead of four. This would essentially be admitting that they were wrong to expand in the first place and thus would likely never happen.

A final suggestion, and one that deserves merit in my opinion, is scrapping the divisions altogether. Leave the American and National Leagues as they are, with the intention of adding two new teams to the American League. Instead of divisional games where teams play unbalanced schedules, simply award the top four spots in each league to playoff teams. This resolves the unbalanced division problem, which hampers teams like the Blue Jays and Orioles. Although the American League would still have fewer teams than the national league, it would not discriminate against a single division. By awarding playoff berths to the top four teams regardless of division affiliation, it reduces the disadvantage that a 16-team league has over a 14-team league.

Will it ever happen? Probably not. The reason is because of money. With six divisions, it means that baseball has six division champions, and six cities that can proudly hang divisional banners and attract fans to the ballpark. Alternatively, a single division league means that about half of the cities could be out of playoff contention by June, which would be bad for baseball.

1998 Expansion, Baseball Expansion,Baseball-Reference.com

2002 Expansion, NFL Expansion,CNNSI.com