While he’s at it, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig should take this opportunity to realign all six divisions and allow National League teams to use the DH (allowing for traditionalists, at a competitive disadvantage, to continue allowing pitchers to hit).  The discrepancy between the AL and the NL would essentially disappear and bouncing a few teams from league to league would not be such a big deal.

Geographically, the MLB is heavily weighted by teams on the East Coast and in the MidWest.  There is another nice cluster of teams out on the West Coast, but Between Kansas City and California there is pretty much a baseball wasteland.* I know there are a lot of reasons why there are no teams out there, but it seems like a missed opportunity to add two more teams and have two 16 team Super Conferences, but I digress.

  *If a metro area of at least 1.5 million people is what’s needed to support a MLB franchise (That’s what they have in the Milwaukee area, the smallest metro area that is home to a team), then you should add a team in Portland, Oregon and Las Vegas, Nevada; maybe even stretch to get a team in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Salt Lake City, Utah; if you were really trying to expand to “western markets.”  

In the unlikely event that Bud Selig and the owners adopt such a strategy, here are the 6 new divisions they should adopt.  (more…)

er, I mean, this is all you need to know:

At least the Tigers lost, so no harm, no foul, though all of this losing was making me look like an idiot and I hate that. As you can see, the outcome of today’s game was a little more favorable:

Johan Santana was my favorite Twin back in the day, but good God am I glad the Twins aren’t paying him a bazillion dollars over the next four years. And that has nothing to do with, uh, some recent revelations about his character, either. As a mid-market team, it is imperative for the Twins to get more value out of their players than they are actually paid, and right now Johan is about as valuable as Carl Pavano, but for nearly twice the price.

Best hitter:

Delmon Young, .119 WPA. Dear Gardy: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE Move Delmon to the fifth spot. You won’t regret it, I promise.

Worst hitter:

Justin Morneau, -0.46. Eh, the Mountie’s been pretty good this year, but not in this game. He went 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts.

Best pitcher:

Carl Pavano, for the second consecutive start. He pitched a 3-hit complete game, surrendering one less hit than he gave up against the Phillies last Sunday.

Most important play of the game:

Delmon ‘Beast Mode’ Young’s double in the first, which scored a pair of runs and put the Twins up 4-0 (.130 WPA). I like it when the games are essentially out of reach in the first inning for the opposing team. It’s a nice change.