MLB: Primary Divisional Rivalries

[drednot57]

Rivalries is what keeps sports interesting particularly baseball. There are a few obvious ones, but here are my thoughts on the best inter-division rivalries by division:

AL East: Red Sox - Yankees.

AL Central: Indians - Tigers (going by geography and history).

AL West: A's - Angels (you know, the LA - Frisco thing).

NL East: Braves (when they're good) - Mets.

NL Central: Cubs - Cards. Reds - Pirates ain't too shabby either.

NL West : Dodgers - Giants


Any thoughtful discussion?

 

[Cy$]

Red Sox - Yankees the one with the most hatred between the 2.

Cubs - Cards is the best rivalry given how good the teams are.

 

[go1970cy]

Cubs - Cards is the best rivalry given how good the teams are.

Tough for my Cards to have a real rivalry with a team that has won nothing since 1908.

 

[clonetone]

For the sake of the best rivalry in the NL, it's nice to see the Cubs not entirely useless now.

 

[CY88CE11]

Rivalries is what keeps sports interesting particularly baseball. There are a few obvious ones, but here are my thoughts on the best inter-division rivalries by division:

AL East: Red Sox - Yankees.

AL Central: Indians - Tigers (going by geography and history).

AL West: A's - Angels (you know, the LA - Frisco thing).

NL East: Braves (when they're good) - Mets.

NL Central: Cubs - Cards. Reds - Pirates ain't too shabby either.

NL West : Dodgers - Giants


Any thoughtful discussion?

Just an FYI, these are all intra-divisional rivalries. Inter-divisional would be rivalries outside of their own divisions.

 

[SoapyCy]

Just an FYI, these are all intra-divisional rivalries. Inter-divisional would be rivalries outside of their own divisions.

Twins - Brewers

mets - yankees

sox - cubs

dodgers - angels (maybe?)

 

[CY88CE11]

Twins - Brewers

mets - yankees

sox - cubs

dodgers - angels (maybe?)

As a Braves fan, I've always considered the Red Sox a very minor rival, since our franchise started there.

 

[clonetone]

This isn't exactly on topic (at all) but I have been following MLB expansion and realignment for a little while. It sounds like Manfred is serious about going from 30 to 32 in the not-too-distant future.

That might also include an existing team or two moving somewhere - for example there is some smoke about the Rays moving to Montreal. I could see that happening along with new teams in Charlotte and perhaps Mexico City.

Then MLB would need to realign divisions probably to an NFL-style setup with four divisions of four teams per league and use it as an excuse to expand the playoffs and copy the NFL's structure as well (division winners plus two wild cards; top two division winners get first-round byes).

4-team divisions could shake things up quite a bit. For the sake of argument, the Rays move to Charlotte (their AAA team is already in North Carolina) and Montreal is an NL expansion team while Mexico City is AL. Things might look like this. The only team that seems out of place here IMO is Colorado. This could be solved by trading Colorado to the AL for Kansas City. If that happened it might also make sense to trade St. Louis and Cincinnati between divisions, which would strips the Cardinals and Cubs of being in the same division but would put both STL and KC in the same division. I'm not gonna mess with that and just deal with the Rockies a little out of place.


AL East
Baltimore
Boston
New York Yankees
Toronto

AL North
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland
Detroit
Minnesota

AL South
Charlotte
Houston
Mexico City
Texas

AL West
Kansas City
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland
Seattle




NL East
New York Mets
Montreal
Philadelphia
Washington

NL North
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
St. Louis

NL South
Atlanta
Cincinnati
Colorado
Miami

NL West
Arizona
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego
San Francisco

 

[CycloneWarning]

This isn't exactly on topic (at all) but I have been following MLB expansion and realignment for a little while. It sounds like Manfred is serious about going from 30 to 32 in the not-too-distant future.

That might also include an existing team or two moving somewhere - for example there is some smoke about the Rays moving to Montreal. I could see that happening along with new teams in Charlotte and perhaps Mexico City.

Then MLB would need to realign divisions probably to an NFL-style setup with four divisions of four teams per league and use it as an excuse to expand the playoffs and copy the NFL's structure as well (division winners plus two wild cards; top two division winners get first-round byes).

4-team divisions could shake things up quite a bit. For the sake of argument, the Rays move to Charlotte (their AAA team is already in North Carolina) and Montreal is an NL expansion team while Mexico City is AL. Things might look like this. The only team that seems out of place here IMO is Colorado. This could be solved by trading Colorado to the AL for Kansas City. If that happened it might also make sense to trade St. Louis and Cincinnati between divisions, which would strips the Cardinals and Cubs of being in the same division but would put both STL and KC in the same division. I'm not gonna mess with that and just deal with the Rockies a little out of place.


AL East
Baltimore
Boston
New York Yankees
Toronto

AL North
Chicago White Sox
Cleveland
Detroit
Minnesota

AL South
Charlotte
Houston
Mexico City
Texas

AL West
Kansas City
Los Angeles Angels
Oakland
Seattle




NL East
New York Mets
Montreal
Philadelphia
Washington

NL North
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
St. Louis

NL South
Atlanta
Cincinnati
Colorado
Miami

NL West
Arizona
Los Angeles Dodgers
San Diego
San Francisco

Hope this does not happen. This scenario would be horrible for the Royals.

 

[clonetone]

Hope this does not happen. This scenario would be horrible for the Royals.

The division alignment is a 100% guess but the MLB is serious about going to 32 teams maybe by 2020.