Atlanta Braves could join AL East clubs in radical realignment plan

We’ve noted that every oddball idea for getting this season going is now on the table.  The latest? Have our Atlanta Braves play like it’s Springtime all year.

Under a new MLB plan floated in the media yesterday, the Atlanta Braves‘ new home in North Port might be one of the keys putting an ‘all Florida-all-the-time’ plan into motion.

As the Braves moved from Disney World to the Southwest corner of Florida this year, that relocation might have been helpful in this geographic realignment idea.

Last week, the idea was to have all thirty MLB teams muster around the greater Phoenix area to get the season going.  That plan seems to be losing steam as critics (including this one) jumped all over the idea as having too many potential obstacles – including the part about having 11 stadiums for the 30 clubs.

This week, Bob Nightengale of USA Today is reporting that essentially the same concept for starting the 2020 season is being considered, though with a change that as least overcomes the venue crunch problem.

This latest-leaked idea is to do the following:

• Regionally group the 30 teams into 6 brand new divisions based on their Spring Training sites.
• Ignore National/American League designations – which would require a universal Designated Hitter rule.  Call them the Grapefruit and Cactus Leagues if you want.

As Nightengale characterizes ‘one realignment structure’, it could look like this for Atlanta:

• Grapefruit League South Division
  • Boston Red Sox
  • Minnesota Twins
  • Atlanta Braves
  • Tampa Bay Rays
  • Baltimore Orioles

So the Braves would join 3 clubs from the (traditional?) AL East along with Minnesota – their closest rivals in Florida after the move to North Port.

Their new stadium actually makes this somewhat viable since the Braves would not be saddled with the worst travel considerations in the league – that would have been the situation coming from Disney World.