Since Major League Baseball expanded to thirty teams with the additions of Tampa Bay and Arizona in 1998, the American and National Leagues have been out of balance in regards to the number of teams in each league. That year, Tampa became an American League team and Arizona a Nation League team, and in order to keep from having an odd number of teams in each league, the Milwaukee Brewers jumped from the AL to the NL. As a result, there are sixteen teams in the NL and only fourteen in the AL. This causes some problems in the grand scheme of things. The problem lies in two areas: Interleague play and the playoffs.

The interleague play problem is only minor, but it basically entails that when all American League teams are facing a National League team in interleague play, two National League teams will have to play each other. The logistics of it all work themselves out, but it is frustrating to me as a fan of baseball and of interleague play when every other team is playing an AL team and the Cardinals are stuck playing the Pirates.

The playoff problem, on the other hand, is much greater. Using basic math and statistics (and cutting several corners, like the differing size of the divisions in each league) an AL team has a 4/14 (or 28.6%) chance of making the playoffs in a given year. A NL team, on the other hand, has a 4/16 (or 25.0%) chance of making the playoffs. The difference is slight, but important. That is why I have come up with the following plan:

Major League Baseball needs to expand to 32 teams by adding two AL teams, and split into four divisions per league consisting of four teams each. This would also eliminate the Wild Card, and set up a much better scheduling system: 27 games each against the three other teams in your division (81 games), 6 games against the non-divions teams in your league (72 games) and 9 interleague games. That way half of your games will be against your direct competition for a playoff spot, but you will still see every other team in your league and keep interleague play intact. Seems like a perfect plan, doesn't it? Well, now comes the tricky part, where to expand.

Looking at the ranking of the United States' largest metropolitan areas, the top ten metro areas that do not currently have a major league baseball team are (with 2007 population in parentheses):

Portland, OR (2,175,113)
Sacramento, CA (2,091,120)
Orlando, FL (2,032,496)
San Antonio, TX (1,990,675)
Las Vegas, NV (1,836,333)
Columbus, OH (1,754,337)
Indianapolis, IN (1,695,037)
Virginia Beach, VA (1,658,754)
Charlotte, NC (1,651,568)
Providence, RI (1,600,856)

Every city in that list is currently growing steadily. However, I would consider several of those cities unlikely locations for baseball for different reasons. Orlando (Tampa/Florida), Columbus (Cincinnati), Indianapolis (Chicago/Detroit), Charlotte (Atlanta), and Providence (Boston) all are well within the market of other major MLB teams. Las Vegas would be unlikely because of the gambling stigma. So that leaves Portland, Sacramento, San Antonio, and Virginia Beach as possible locations for expansion. Taking a look at my projected division re-alignment, you can see that there are potential vacancies in the AL South and AL West divisions. Of course, these divisions can be re-aligned to fit whatever city MLB decides would make for a better expansion team, but this is what I came up with:

NL East     			AL East

NYM         			NYY
PHI				BOS
WAS				BAL
PIT				TOR

NL South			         AL South

ATL				TAM
FLA				TEX
HOU				KCR
CIN				

NL North			         AL North

CHC				CHW
MIL				DET
STL				MIN
COL				CLE

NL West				AL West

ARI				SEA
LAD				OAK
SFG				LAA
SDP				

The most logical choices would be to put a team in Portland for the AL West and in San Antonio for the AL South. One city that is not in the above list that could be considered a good choice would be Oklahoma City, and it could replace San Antonio as the AL South team.

Anyways, I just thought this would be a fun little excercise and hopefully would generate some discussion. Thoughts?

Cardinals vs. Brewers

Looper vs. Sabathia

The next two games are of grave importance to the Cardinals. Even though the last couple of losses were gutwrenching, with a little luck and some solid play, we can come back and be right back where we were when this series started; in the Wild Card lead by a game. As it stands right now, we're behind the Brewers by a game in the Wild Card and the Cubs by two games for the NL Central. We need to win at least one of the next two games.

Let's Go Cardinals!!

Hello, everyone.

I thought I would create this Fanpost to allow VEB users to discuss trade rumors or trade ideas instead of seeing separate Fanposts on all the different ideas. We did this back in December during/leading up to the Winter meetings, and I thought it was a good idea.

So please, if you have any trade chatter you'd like to pass on to the users of this blog, use this Fanpost instead of starting a new one.

To lb and the other editors: If you disagree with me, feel free to delete this, I just thought it would keep non-trade rumor Fanposts on the front page longer.

Greetings gentle denizens of VEB

As you may or may not know, I have never been to a Cardinals game in Busch. I've never even been to St. Louis for that matter. I know that needs to change, but in the past odd years I've either been too young, too poor, or a combination. Now that I'm making at least a (very) little bit of money (saving like crazy, though) I've begun to look into a possible weekend trip to the STL later this summer. Right now the dates I'm looking at are 7/18-7/20 and 8/1-8/3, series against the Padres and Phillies, respectively. Right now, roundtrip (nonstop) airfare from Atlanta to St. Louis for those dates is running at $188 for American Airlines, Delta, and AirTran. So what does this have to do with anything, you might be asking? Here's why I'm making this a fanpost...

Does anybody want to go to a game either of those weekends? Most of my friends here either don't make the money to make a trip like that, don't like baseball, or a combination of the two (lots of combinations in this fanpost, no?). I'd rather not go alone, although I'd do it just to get to a game in St. Louis. I'm also searching for some advice on hotels and accomodations (not to steal the thunder from yer dog first's post a few days ago), so if you live in the area and know a great (cheap) hotel to stay or know someone (or yourself) who would like to put up a complete 24-year-old stranger from the internet for a couple of days, I'd like to hear from you.

Either respond to this fanpost or shoot me an e-mail at the following address:

jdhogan1605 -AT- yahoo -DOT- com

If you e-mail me, make sure you give me your VEB user name in it so I know whom I'm talking to.

I'll even buy you a brat and/or a beer at the game, if you'd like. Thanks everybody, and of course, GO CARDS!

Sincerely,

Mr Redbird

There wasn't one up so I thought I'd take some of the bandwidth pressure off the main thread for today.

PHI Pitcher: Adam Eaton (2-3, 4.62)

STL Pitcher: Kyle Lohse (7-2, 3.92)

Let's go Cardinals!! Beat those Phillies!!

Um, trying to get to 75 words...let's not give up 20 runs tonight, I hope Lohse has a revenge game today, and let's have multiple HRs from Ankiel, Ludwick, Glaus, Molina, hell even Kennedy!

Hello, everyone!

Every day I come to this blog for the excellent insight and the camaraderie that I've found with the many users who also frequent it. It is my favorite blog on the web, and a multiple-times-per-day stop for me. The material found in the main posts is always relevent and well-thought out, and many of the fanposts offer a new and/or different outlook on certain things concerning the Redbirds or baseball in general. However, I though it would be nice to take a break from the endless number crunching and the implausible and/or tireless trade proposals (aren't the Giants looking for a left-handed 1B?) and focus on something different, namely the following question:

Why are you a Cardinals fan?

Continue reading this post »

I just ventured over to stlcardnials.com and saw the following headlines. It seem like either the person who wrote them is a VEB regular, or can see through the TLR bs:

"Cards' Izturis given long leash" - Not "He’s playing very well defensively. So, the errors — I don’t have any problems with. If you’re going to evaluate people on the number of errors in spring training, over time you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. There’s some guys who can’t play, but not him. Hitting, I think he’s getting better." (from Goold)

"Cards' Thompson starts strong as usual" - It's like they're saying how many times does Brad Thompson have to prove himself before we stop giving people like Jason Marquis, Kip Wells, and probably Anthony Reyes and Todd Wellemeyer, maybe even Mark Mulder the nod over him. I am by no means a major proponent for Brad Thompson, but he's been steady and reliable everytime he's toed the rubber.

Am I reading too much into these, or do you guys agree?

I know the WWL isn't very popular in these parts, but I was perusing around their website today and found this nice little article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/baseball/flb/story?page=mlbdk2k8stlpreview

Call me overly optimistic, but I disagree with the sentiments in this article. Specifically, the section labeled "Fearless Prediction". The following lines stuck out to me:

"This could easily be the worst team in the National League. (...) This is an old team full of bad contracts and health risks that's poised to miss the playoffs by a country mile. Expect La Russa and Pujols to land with another franchise soon so that the rebuilding can commence in earnest. St. Louis fans should hunker down over a slab of ribs from C & K and start wondering if the Rams will be any good this fall."

The guy who wrote this article is Will Harris (someone I've never heard of) and the article is supposed to be a fantasy overview of the team. I don't think we'll be a playoff team or even a playoff contender by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think we'll finish better than last in the NL. Is his statement on Pujols finding another team soon based on any statements from the front office or a suggestion on how to proceed into the future? That's possibly the last thing I want to see. Anyway, I thought it was interesting, and would love to hear what the community has to say regarding it.

Unless you've been living under a rock over the past several months, you should understand that the Cardinals are beginning a rebuilding period. The moves of Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen for younger, cheaper players prove this. The off-season so far has got me thinking about the future of the organization, and I want to pose a poll question: When will be the next season our boys in Red are still playing in October?

Continue reading this post »