A Good Bit of Nonsense-Relegation in the US

So after following the live updates of the Hoofdklasse Play Downs and watching Mampaey The Hawks be relegated to the second division baseball group, I thought about how often this might have happened in the MLB if they employed the same practice. In the MLB, and in most other US leagues, the relegation is non-existent. Lower level teams are considered farm teams, excepting the few Independent leagues in the country.Even in baseball abroad (to my knowledge), the Netherlands is the only country whose baseball leagues still do this, Italy having abandonded it back in 2010.

I'm not the only person who's looked at this, the reason why it doesn't exist in the MLB and the US as well is long entrenched in professional sports, and it's been court approved, at that. But if we look at say, the English Premier League as an example, most of the Second division teams have much affection from their fans, though some of that might be from the idea that their teams are not just fodder of rookies and players struggling or recovering from injury. And in the EPL and other European leagues, there are plenty of farms teams too. The minors (themselves comparitive leagues before they started struggling in the early parts of the last century) are one of the hardest bits to get around on the concept of MLB relegation, and I've come up with some controversial suggests on how to work around that.

So first of all, I think the most important part of making this move is the dissolution of the separate American and National Leagues. Blasphemy, you say! Yes, but if we're already throwing out the non-use of relegation, why not go ahead with knocking the rest of those boundaries down. This is science! We will break things for the science! So no National and American League, no

So that's the first step. The second is, when? So for me I said, let's say we did this at the end of the 2013. So all my numbers from where we started are based off of this. The second thing I said was, let's split them up into two tiers. All of it is still Major League Baseball, but Division I and Division II or perhaps, better names. Couldn't I have done AL/NL? Sure, but I'm sure someone would claim preference on who's on top. So the top 14 of the MLB would be D1, the bottom 16 D2. The playoffs for both would be a 5 team playoff to determine the champion.

But how about we throw a couple of other ringers into this? We've got the Blue Jays in here representating Toronto, but I thought "Why not have at least one representative from both Canada AND Mexico included?" How would we do this? The Mexican League is a AAA recognized but unaffiliated league of Mexican teams. So I thought, hey, let's introduce the top team from this league into the standings. If they become subject to relegation, then they would be replaced by the top team from that year of the Mexican League. I'd like to do the same with a Canadian team, to keep things fair. But there's not really a Canadian league, and aside from one minor league team, most baseball teams in Canada are either semi-pro or independent leagues. So I used those as an example. So the Canadian and Mexican teams would stay in the D1, unless facing relegation and moved back to the Mexican or Canadian league respectively. In the model we're using from 2013, this is the Quintana Roo Tigres, and since the Blue Jays would have been outside of D1 based on their 2013 record, they would be looking at being replaced by the Quebec Capitales, currently of the Can-Am independent league. In actual play I think it would only be fair for the Blue Jays to fight for their right to a continued MLB existence, but for the sake of argument I'm just sending them down.

Now since we've already hit one of the main concerns: how does that affect big market teams like the Blue Jays? Well, for these smaller leagues, it's a boost, suddenly their market is nationally known, or at least made more aware in the area for that team. For the regulated team, never has the inspiration to do better been accentuated. And think of it this way: they've finally got a chance for a championship, if they've been mired in years of no wins.

So continuing on. Here's how the two would break down, alphabetically.

Division 1:

• Atlanta Braves
• Boston Red Sox
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cleveland Indians
• Detroit Tigers
• Kansas City Royals
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Oakland Athletics
• Pittsburgh Pirates
• Quebec Capitales
• Quintana Roo Tigres
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Texas Rangers
• Washington Nationals

Division II:

• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Baltimore Orioles
• Chicago Cubs
• Chicago White Sox
• Colorado Rockies
• Houston Astros
• Los Angeles Angels
• Miami Marlins
• Milwaukee Brewers
• Minnesota Twins
• New York Mets
• New York Yankees
• Philadelphia Phillies
• San Diego Padres
• San Fransisco Giants
• Seattle Mariners

So following the 2014 year, The bottom two of the D1 go down to the D2 (Boston Red Sox and the Texas Rangers) and the top 2 from D2 move up (LA Angels and Baltimore Orioles). And finally, the Arizona Diamondbacks would fight for relegation against the AAA champion Omaha Stormchasers. Now one thing that we might see is both the regular and farm team in D2, but like most relegation systems, the AAA team would not be able to advance to D1. I'll be continuing to follow this for the next year, as it amuses me greatly. We'll see how it goes.