Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred wants expansion.
And if he gets the two more teams he wants, MLB may proceed to totally realign, doing away with the American League and National League in favor of an East and West format.
Manfred spoke about the idea on WFAN on Friday.
"It does a ton for us from a format perspective," Manfred said of an East-West arrangement. "You would realign, you would do it along geographic lines, which could alleviate a ton of the travel burden that's on players. Remember, we ask our players [to play] 162 times in 186 days. So most of the [time] between 162 and 186 [is] travel, right? So you can eliminate a lot of that travel, make it less burdensome, which would be a great thing in terms of player health and safety."
The expansion sites aren't set in stone, but Nashville is believed to be a frontrunner. A popular West Coast pitch is Portland.
MLB currently has 30 teams, split into six divisions of five teams each. The AL and NL each have an East, a Central and a West Division.
With 32 teams, the logical breakdown would be eight divisions of four teams each.
MORE: How Tigers, Tarik Skubal have reached a record-setting contract conflict
Would MLB put together a division with Boston and both New York teams in one quartet? They'd certainly have the option of doing so.
You could have the Dodgers and Angels in one division, or the Cubs and White Sox.
There would also be ways to avoid such setups if MLB didn't want to lean that far into the setup.
Manfred thinks the East and West arrangement would also help with postseason viewing.
"When you think about the fans in the individual markets, you always end up with, because of the way we're set up, you know, you get Boston versus Anaheim in one of the early rounds. So you're either going to be too late for the fans in Boston or too early," Manfred said. "So if you realign geographically, you would look more like other sports, where you play up East into the World Series and West into the World Series. And that 10 o'clock game on the West Coast that sometimes is a problem for us becomes a prime-time game on the West Coast for the two teams that are playing. So there's a lot of advantages to it."
MORE: Angels could be facing a Mike Trout contract 'nightmare'
The way Manfred speaks about this, it sounds like something he would like to see happen following expansion.
It would alter a lot of history. Teams have occasionally swapped from the AL to the NL or vice versa, including the Brewers and Astros in relatively recent times.
But what would happen to AL and NL records? Babe Ruth's AL home run record was broken by Roger Maris, which was broken by Aaron Judge. Will there be a place in the record book for Judge's AL home run record to be broken, or does it sort of get fossilized in place?
Lots of questions, and lots of time to figure them out. It's certainly a fascinating idea to ponder from the commish.
More MLB news:
- Team USA's projected WBC lineup is incredible
- Dominican Republic's projected WBC lineup is fierce
- Reds have a promising prospect named Ichiro Cano
- It's a good day to remember Bob Feller's brilliance and his time in the U.S. Navy
- How Aroldis Chapman is able to pitch for Great Britain in the WBC
- Hunter Pence's nephew has the best name and a 100 MPH fastball