How would you feel about perpetual realignment?

Rob Manfred’s recent comments on Sunday night baseball have engendered a bazillion thinkpieces on expansion and realignment. Everyone’s got their own “eight divisions of four teams each” proposal, and honestly, they all look a lot alike, varying only by which two localities are assumed to get expansion teams.

I’m going to throw something else into the ring. To me, the most interesting thing in baseball is roster construction. The current, bloated playoff landscape makes roster construction matter less than ever before, ergo, this is my least favorite era of baseball that I’ve lived through so far. But, what if there were a way to recoup some of that interest, even if MLB adds further playoff expansion to league expansion? To be clear, I know this will never happen, because MLB is stodgy, and because the powers that be believe that MLB’s path forward should be to move backwards to a reinforced continuity with decades long past, and not into something more modern and interesting that better reflects the way society and the world have changed. But, I’ll still throw it out there:

You could call it “perpetual realignment,” even though that’s a phrase I just made up when writing this post. I think of it as “stochastic divisions.” Basically, irrespective of the structure (eight divisions of four teams, four divisions of eight teams, literally anything else), the main idea is that divisions are redrawn every year. The kicker is that when divisions are redrawn adds substantial intrigue into the proceedings.

The reality right now is that, especially on a multiyear basis, teams have little incentive to construct great rosters unless the path is relatively open in the division and the team is willing to devote the additional resources to payroll that doing so might entail. So long as the Dodgers exist, no one except an AJ Preller-led team would bother going all in, when going kinda-in can still get you 87 wins and a playoff spot. Even if you could convince Stu Sternberg to spend more, there wouldn’t be much of a point so long as the rest of the AL East is what it is. But what if none of that were true? What if you didn’t know what division you were in, and moreso, it changed every year?

Basically, that’s the entire thought exercise here: what if divisions were randomly drawn before each season? If they were randomly drawn immediately after the World Series, Front Offices could immediately gauge their current competitiveness within their new, temporary division — and make offseason roster construction plans accordingly to maximize their playoff odds. Sometimes, that would entail a lot of spending; other times, with a “good draw,” modest upgrades could seriously bolster their team’s chances. But, my favorite way to think about this is creating a defined “offseason” after which no signings or major trades could be made, and doing the divisional draw after this offseason (say, partway through Spring Training). In this case, Front Offices would need to account, in some fashion, for all possibilities. Letting things ride could end up squandering a golden opportunity with a “good draw,” and a division stacked with juggernauts would be really fun the whole way through.

I know it won’t happen, not only for the logistical reasons but because, again, MLB is so touchy-feely with its past self that this idea would probably give half of their decision-makers a heart attack on the spot. But I think it’d be fun. More fun than, “do nothing in the offseason and hope we get 87 wins anyway.”