Punk Rockies

With the holiday season upon us, I find myself dream not of a white Christmas, but of an MLB expansion and realignment. Being a Rockies fan is seldom easy, but seeing the Dodgers sign Shohei Ohtani to a ridiculous $700 million/10 year contract is almost more than I can bear. Having never won a division title in their 30-year existence, the Rockies seem even further away after this signing and the likely spending escalation of the Giants to counter it.

Now that the Rays seem set to build a new stadium and the Oakland saga having been (terribly) resolved, it seems like the MLB may finally be closer to pulling the trigger on their next expansion. This new 32-team league will almost certainly need to be reconfigured to accommodate the new teams, and may force radically different divisions and playoff formats. With a move to four divisions of four teams each, there would be a balance that is missing today, and playoffs could largely remain the same with the extra division winner taking the spot of one of the wild card teams in the current configuration.

My assumption is that a realignment will follow the model of the previous two, with a western and an eastern city awarded a franchise. I’ve chosen Portland and Nashville, though you could easily replace them with Salt Lake City and Charlotte. I’ve avoided league-shifting and, since the league has a balanced schedule now, haven’t prioritized rivalries as much. Highest consideration has been given to actual geography and not market size, for better or worse (sorry, Pittsburgh and Cincy). That said, here is my well-considered realignment for 2026 or whenever the league gets around to it:

A lot of fans will likely be unhappy with the proposed realignment, but this is what makes the most sense from an actual geographic standpoint. Getting Colorado away from the likes of the Dodgers, Giants, and Padres is just the way it works out.