Floating Realignment

[J-Beck]

Stupidest idea ever, or just somewhere in the top 10 stupidest ideas ever?

 

Link: http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/2681/floating-realignment-interesting-impractical

[Dojji]

More info required. For all I know right now it might even surprise us and be an average idea.

[J-Beck]

Basically teams can switch divisions year by year based on salary and performance.

One example of floating realignment, according to one insider, would work this way: Cleveland, which is rebuilding with a reduced payroll, could opt to leave the AL Central to play in the AL East. The Guardians would benefit from an unbalanced schedule that would give them a total of 18 lucrative home dates against the Yankees and Red Sox instead of their current eight. A small or mid-market contender, such as Tampa Bay or Baltimore, could move to the AL Central to get a better crack at postseason play instead of continually fighting against the mega-payrolls of New York and Boston.

 

Divisions still would loosely follow geographic lines; no team would join a division more than two time zones outside its own, largely to protect local television rights (i.e., start times of games) and travel costs.

 

Floating realignment also could mean changing the number of teams in a division, teams changing leagues and interleague games throughout the season, according to several sources familiar with the committee's discussions. It is important to remember that the committee's talks are very preliminary and non-binding.

[Dojji]

OK yyeeaaaahhhhhh no.

[26 to 6]

OK yyeeaaaahhhhhh no.

I think it's so stupid to do a realignment based on financial factors. It might seem typical for me to say that as a Yankee fan, but I genuinely think divisions should be based on geographical location. I've come up with tons of realignment ideas over the years, some better than others, but all of them would be better than these ideas we've heard lately, both from Rosenthal as well as this article.