SBSQ #7: The perfect MLB realignment plan doesn't exist—
Plus, are presidential rematches more predictable?
Happy Easter Sunday, happy Elite Eight Sunday, and happy Silver Bulletin Subscriber Questions Sunday! This is the monthly post for paid subscribers to ask me questions about pretty much anything. It’s also a baseball Sunday, even if I can’t quite get over the fact that the MLB season begins in March now. And that’s the inspiration for our first question. In the comments, you should feel free to politely argue about this month’s answers or to ask new questions for April. March was (by far) the best month yet for this newsletter, and the aim here is to deliver a great experience for both free and paid subscribers. To sign up for either flavor of subscription, just use the link below.
In this month’s edition:
The Silver Bulletin MLB realignment plan
Are presidential rematches more predictable?
Is Trump benefitting from Trump Fatigue? (Yes.)
Can you really beat the sportsbooks?
PSA: You should visit Latin America
The Silver Bulletin MLB realignment plan
Joe asks:
Nate, if/when the MLB adds two more teams, how would you organize divisions? Would you do 2 conferences like the NBA, 4 divisions of 8 teams like the NHL, or 8 divisions of 4 teams like the NFL? Also, are you for or against MLB abolishing the NL and AL and having something of an Eastern/Western league?
This question is pure Nate Bait. As both a baseball fan and an American geography buff, I was inevitably going to spend far too much time on this. (Let’s not talk about exactly how much time.)
Initially, I assumed that I’d advocate for splitting MLB into fewer divisions rather than the current six. There’s something a little objectionable about the participation trophy vibes of hanging a banner for winning a division title; for instance, I’m in the 99.9th percentile of NBA fandom, and I’m not 100 percent confident that I could accurately tell you exactly which teams belong in the league’s six divisions.
The United States is divided into four Census Bureau regions — the Northeast, South, Midwest and West. Some of the boundaries are outmoded — Delaware is considered Southern by the Census Bureau, for instance. But I do think people underrate regional distinctiveness. I don’t quite buy the idea that, say, Vermont and Alabama are as different as two European Union countries (Finland and Slovenia?). Nevertheless, physical place is often a robust variable for explaining political and cultural differences. And for reasons ranging from cutting down on travel to cultivating regional rivalries, I think there’s some value in baseball teams battling more often against nearby opponents.
I also think there’s value in maintaining the distinction between the American and National Leagues. Personally, I wouldn’t have gotten rid of the DH in the NL, for instance. But teams also have traditional opponents, and baseball is a game that relies heavily upon nostalgia and familiarity. If you add two teams, bringing the total number of franchises to 32, your options are basically two leagues of 16 teams each — I could live with that, but to preserve any sort of geographic integrity, it would require more switches between the AL and NL than I’m comfortable with — 4 divisions of 8 teams, or 8 divisions of 4 teams. And I’m going for the latter, taking advantage of the Census Bureau regions while keeping league swaps to a minimum.
Here’s the plan:
I’m awarding expansion franchises to Montreal and Nashville. There are other options: I’m extremely tempted by Mexico City and I think the first from among the “Big 4” leagues that takes the plunge will be rewarded for it. But I’m trying to stick with a reasonable and prudent plan that baseball’s current leadership might actually approve. The South is badly underrepresented in baseball — outside of South Florida and Texas, which are sorta the South but also their own micro-regions, and Washington DC, which definitely isn’t culturally southern — the NFL has four southern franchises (the Jaguars, Titans, Panthers and Falcons), the NBA has three or four (the Hawks, Grizzlies and Hornets and maybe the Thunder — Oklahoma’s geographic affiliation is ambiguous) and even the National Hockey League has two (the Hurricanes and Predators). MLB has only the Braves. So we’re awarding one franchise to Nashville, although Charlotte would work fine too.
The other expansion team goes to Montreal, one of the truly great North American cities and one that got screwed over by the 1994 strike. I feel somewhat bad for Portland, Oregon, but Canada is considerably more populous than the Pacific Northwest and as you’ll see, this makes the geography more elegant. Here are the eight divisions:
American League East
Baltimore Orioles
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees
Toronto Blue Jays
This is the current AL East less Tampa, which has always been an awkward geographic fit.
American League Midwest
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland Guardians
Detroit Tigers
Minnesota Twins
Yes, I’m calling it the “Midwest” rather than the “Central” or the “North”. As you can see from the map, the Midwest is actually not particularly northerly. It is central, I guess, but so is Texas. There’s no “central pride” in the way that there is cultural affinity within the Midwest.
American League South
Houston Astros
Miami Marlins (league move)
Tampa Bay Rays (move to Mexico City if stadium deal falls through)
Texas Rangers
I said I wanted to avoid too many league moves, but the Marlins are our first exception. It’s not exactly as though either of the MLB Florida franchises has been a roaring success, so perhaps pairing them together will help a bit.
American League West
Arizona Diamondbacks (league move)
Las Vegas A’s (pending move from Oakland)
Los Angeles Angels
Seattle Mariners
The Diamondbacks also get moved — they’re a relatively new franchise so it’s not like we’re violating some longstanding tradition. I think they’ll appreciate the cross-desert rivalry against Las Vegas. Onto the NL:
National League East
Montreal Expos (expansion)
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Washington Nationals
I don’t love the current NL East, which is awkwardly divided between the Northeast (Mets, Phillies, Nationals) and South (Braves, Marlins). This is a little bit more geographically coherent; Montreal is much closer to the US border than you might assume.
National League Midwest
Chicago Cubs
Kansas City Royals (league move)
Milwaukee Brewers
St. Louis Cardinals
The Royals are our third and final league move. As a Kansas City fan, I found it hard to place the Royals in a way that didn’t put them in an awkward spot. Here at least, they’re locked into a division with the cross-state rival Cardinals. Plus, something about the Royals and their historic emphasis on speed and defense rather than slugging has always felt vaguely NL-ish.
National League South
Atlanta Braves
Cincinnati Reds
Nashville Stars (expansion; Charlotte works fine too, I guess)
Pittsburgh Pirates
Here’s where I’m going to bring out the trolls — PiTtSbUrGh Is NoT tHe SoUtH. And maybe Cincinnati isn’t either. But this is a geographically coherent division, as you can see from the map, and the Pirates have historic rivalries against both the Reds and the Braves. The Nashville franchise is named for the former Negro League team, plus “Stars” is a great name for the city that was the birthplace of the country’s biggest pop star.
National League West
Colorado Rockies
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego Padres
San Francisco Giants
This is the former, 4-team NL West, recreated. You could do other things with the Rockies, but they have historic rivalries with the Giants and Dodgers.
And here’s the 162-game schedule format:
16 vs. teams in division x 3 opponents = 48 games
6 games vs. teams in other divisions within same league x 12 opponents = 72 games
6 games vs. team in geographic counterpart division in other league x 4 = 24 games
4-5 games vs. team in rotating division in other league x 4 = 18 games
Last year, MLB expanded interleague play to the point where a third of the schedule is played against the other league and every team plays every other team every year. To which I say: screw that. Yeah, I suppose it’s not ideal that, say, Orioles fans aren’t guaranteed a matchup against Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers. But if they really want to see him, they can travel to Washington or Philly — or they can make the World Series. I’d rather cultivate geographic rivalries, and this schedule accentuates that, including by having teams in geographic counterpart regions (say, the Cubs and White Sox or Expos and Blue Jays) play one another every year rather than relying on some “designated rival” gimmick.
Although I’d prefer to reduce the number of playoff teams from the current 12, I recognize that’s unlikely given the league’s perception that more playoff rounds = more money. So instead we’ll go with the following. Six teams make the playoffs in each league, as follows:
4 division champions
2 wild cards
Teams are seeded 1-6 by record regardless of divisional standings
Teams must win 52 percent of games, rounded (84-78 in a standard 162-game season) to qualify for playoffs, otherwise they forfeit their spot to any wild cards that meet the threshold.
By requiring 84 wins — yes, a somewhat arbitrary threshold that last year’s Diamondbacks just barely met — this cuts down on the participation-trophy aspect of 4-team divisions. If you’re in a weak division, you’re already benefiting from a soft schedule. So I don’t think it’s asking too much to require you to exceed the .500 mark by a few games.
Are presidential rematches more predictable?
Brian A. Coakley asks:
Normally, general election polls taken in March of the election year aren't terribly predictive of the end result. I've read multiple pieces that indicate the polls often shift 8-10 points from mid-March to early-November.
But is there reason to believe that 2024 is likely to be different from prior cycles? Biden and Trump are both extremely well-known, so there is no "name ID" issue. It's a rematch from the prior election, so many remember how they voted last time. Political polarization has only increased. Biden's approval rating has been historically stable (much like Trump's was for most of his term). And both primaries are already over (essentially)! Based on these factors, would you expect there to be much LESS change in how the polls go from their current point?
This is a great question, but I think you’ve actually threaded several slightly different propositions together here, Brian. First, is public opinion generally more stable nowadays, e.g. because there’s more polarization and therefore fewer swing voters? Second, when in the calendar do presidential general election polls become more reliable? And third, is this year’s election more predictable because it’s a rematch between Biden and Trump?
I’m going to ignore the first question for now — that’s something that would require its own post — and only briefly address the second: a good general heuristic is that general election polls begin to have predictive power once the primaries are over. So the fact that we now know the matchup is going to be Biden-Trump — and that this has been obvious for a while, frankly — is a reason to take the polling a bit more seriously
So that leaves us with this: are presidential rematches more predictable, holding other factors constant?