Obviously this isn’t specifically related to the Pirates, but I wanted to bounce this around and see what everyone thought.

My buddy told me that Buck Showalter suggested a pretty radical theory on MLB realignment the other day on Baseball Tonight. Apparently he proposed 2 leagues with 2 divisions of 7 teams. That sounds reasonable to me, but he also suggested playing each team 6 times in 2 series of 3 games a piece. To me that makes no sense, but I think he was on to something with the 2 leagues 2 divisions portion.

With that in mind (and the idea of contracting Oakland and probably Tampa) I began thinking of how to make an equitable baseball schedule with 28 teams. This is what I came up with.

One 3 game series with each team (14) in the other league: 42 games.

Two 3 game series with each team (7) in the opposing division within your own league: 42 games.

And lastly, four 3 game series with each team (6) in your division: 72 games.

Of course this adds up to 156 games, but you could certainly argue that the season is a bit too long to begin with. Realigning the teams would be easy with two divisions (North and South or East and West) in each league. The DH can stay and not really cause any problems. It’s a balanced schedule, and you would have an equal number of home and away games for every team. With the season being shorter you could also have 6 teams make the playoffs from each league with a bye going to the two division winners, although I’m not sure about that one…

I guess I could go on, but I really just wanted to get some opinions on this. I’m sure there is some reason why this wouldn’t work (as I’m sure someone will point out), but this seems to be the best case scenario I’ve seen in a while.

Does anybody know how long the Pirates have been courting this kid?

I'm obviously suspicious of the idea that Littlefield could identify a talent that is likened to Pujols and Ramirez, much less pursue him. So if my suspicions are correct, does anyone really think that a year and a half relationship could be the deciding factor in where he signs?

I hope that I'm wrong in this regard, but as the days go by I'm becoming more and more concerned....