What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

[soamazen23]

What if we were able to expand two teams and break down the league into the following divisions:


East: Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Washington.

North: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Montreal (Expansion), both New York franchises and Toronto.

Midwest: Both Chicago franchises, Colorado, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Texas.

West: Anaheim, Arizona, Los Angeles, Oakland, Las Vegas (Expansion), San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

Playoff format would be as followed:

-The four first-place teams in each division to advance to the
postseason, and having play-in games against the eight remaining teams
with the best records.

-The winners of the four wild card games would advance to the Division
Series, which would feature a wild card team against each division
champion.

-Those four winners would advance to the Championship Series, and the
winners of that round would meet in the World Series.




Doing this would require several changes like making the entire league have a DH but just imagine having the Mets and Yankees battle all year for a division title. Or having Baltimore and Washington go at it or even both Canadian franchises. This format would add more interest to the regular season. I wish in future games we have the ability to make such changes. It would be cool to at least try out different things.

[StillFunkyB]

Re: What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

MLB is very picky with their license, and I think it would be a cold day in hell if they ever allowed something like this.

I'm sure the dev team has a lot of ideas for things they could do but are restricted by MLB.

The ability to create a team(s), and stadium would be awesome. Expansion draft, etc. It's a great idea.

[Swede_1954]

Re: What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

Hey, my Indians got away from the "East Coast Bias," and now you want to put hem in with BOTH New York teams, the Red Sox AND all of Canada...NO THANK YOU!

[JPCaveman13]

Re: What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

You'd still need to deal with the AL vs NL debate and the whole DH thing. As it is now, it makes for good strategies in interleague games (especially in the World Series in NL parks). It'd probably be easier to work with four divisions of four teams in each league:

AL:
East: Baltimore, Boston, NYY, Toronto
West: LAA, Oakland, LV, Seattle
Midwest: CWS, Detroit, Cleveland, Minnesota
South: Texas, Houston, TB, KC

NL:
East: Philly, NYM, Montreal, Pitt
Southeast: Atlanta, Miami, Wash, Cincy
West: Arizona, LAD, SF, SD
Central: StL, CHC, Mil, Colorado

You could make a case for this AL:

East: Boston, Baltimore, TB, NYY
Midwest: CWS, Detroit, Cleveland, Toronto
West: LAA, LV, Seattle, Oakland
Central: Texas, Houston, KC, Minnesota

depending on how you want to assign Tampa Bay. Although, most likely, they are a team that would be relocated to the front-running expansion cities of LV or Montreal because of all the issues surrounding Tropicana in St. Pete. So if there's a Tampa relocation (to a new city not on the expansion list), NOLA, Nashville, or Oklahoma might be a spot for the AL South or further north along the region for the AL East (like NC, Virginia, western/up-state NY, or Quebec City).

[underdog13]

Re: What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

Screw four team divisions, 8 team divisions or bust

[coach422001]

Re: What do you guys think of this expansion Idea?

Hey, my Indians got away from the "East Coast Bias," and now you want to put hem in with BOTH New York teams, the Red Sox AND all of Canada...NO THANK YOU!

Yes why not the Ohio teams battling each other out like the Chicago, New York, California and Canadian teams?

I did something like this with a text based football simulation a long time ago, putting the Jets and Giants in the same division, finally deciding that Dallas wasn't really in the east, etc. I don't know if you can do it with OOTP (especially expansion) but I always liked the idea of realigning based on region for fun. Don't like play-in games. With 154 or 162 games especially if weighted toward your divisional games of 8 teams I'd just leave the division winners advancing to the playoffs.