How Rob Manfred’s geographic realignment could impact the Mets

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested the league could eventually pursue geographic realignment, which could alter the Mets' division rivalries.

Aug 1, 2025; Chicago, IL, USA; Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announces Major League Baseball and the Chicago Cubs will host the 2027 All Star game at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images | David Banks-Imagn Images

The New York Mets beat the Seattle Mariners in the Little League Classic last night, but the big headlines from the contest came during an interview ESPN did with commissioner Rob Manfred. The broadcast spoke to the commissioner about a wide range of topics, with one of them involving expansion and potential re-alignment.

Read More: Mets finally turning things around with Little League Classic win

Major League Baseball has been relatively stable in terms of divisions since 1998, when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay (then Devil) Rays were added to the league. Houston's move to the American League in 2013 ensured six divisions of five teams, enabling daily interleague play in the process, but Manfred suggested a bigger change could be in the mix for the future.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says expansion could spark major changes:

• Geographic realignment to ease travel
• A more appealing postseason format for partners like ESPN
• New opportunities in untapped markets

pic.twitter.com/5r0qXVYYni

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) August 18, 2025

There has been buzz about taking MLB up to 32 teams in the future, which could allow the league to create eight four team divisions in a similar model to the NFL. Manfred suggested that the benefits of realignment would be to create divisions based on geography, which could reduce travel for the players, and make it easier for the league to program postseason matchups with an East Coast-based game starting at 7:00 p.m. and a West Coast-based game starting at 10:00 p.m. ET.

How Geographic Re-Alignment Could Impact The Mets

The comments that Manfred offered suggested creating a league format where there are essentially Eastern and Western conferences, allowing the league to better balance its TV schedule and create more rivalries based on geography. The Athletic's Jim Bowden suggested a proposal for an East/West model back in 2023 and it created an interesting new division for the Mets.

Is it time to bring it back 👀

A realignment plan from the archives, via @JimBowdenGM: https://t.co/IF0oOia1OJ pic.twitter.com/rJPZYAWClS

— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) August 18, 2025

Bowden's East division put together the Mets, New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies. This format would ensure more Subway Series matchups and preserve two key rivalries (Mets/Phillies and Yankees/Red Sox) while breaking up the Mets' rivalries with the Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins and Washington Nationals.

This format would lead to tremendous television but aligning purely on geography would result in the breakup of long-standing traditional rivalries, as Bowden's proposal separates the Cubs and Cardinals as well as the Giants and Dodgers. It is important to note that the NFL's 32-team realignment maintained some rivalries that were not geographically convenient, such as keeping the Dallas Cowboys in the NFC East and the Miami Dolphins in the AFC East.

Let's explore another potential option that would offer geographic realignment while maintaining more traditional rivalries. This scenario assumes that the A's do move to Las Vegas, the Rays stay in Tampa Bay and two new expansion teams are added in Nashville and Charlotte. First is the National League.

NL East	NL North	NL South	NL West
New York Mets	Chicago Cubs	Atlanta Braves	Colorado Rockies
Philadelphia Phillies	Cincinnati Reds	Charlotte	Los Angeles Dodgers
Pittsburgh Pirates	Milwaukee Brewers	Miami Marlins	San Diego Padres
Washington Nationals	St. Louis Cardinals	Tampa Bay Rays	San Francisco Giants

This would be the American League in this scenario.

AL East	AL North	AL South	AL West
Baltimore Orioles	Chicago White Sox	Houston Astros	Arizona Diamondbacks
Boston Red Sox	Cleveland Guardians	Kansas City Royals	Las Vegas Athletics
New York Yankees	Detroit Tigers	Nashville	Los Angeles Angels
Toronto Blue Jays	Minnesota Twins	Texas Rangers	Seattle Mariners

This format would be more akin to the NFL model and preserve most of the league's longest-standing rivalries while creating more regionalized travel. In the Mets' case, they would save travel time to Atlanta and Miami while having a shorter flight to Pittsburgh more often.

This model wouldn't necessarily lead to Manfred's preferred outcome of having two West Coast teams playing in 10:00 postseason windows unless the league changed its postseason format again. The NHL's model of starting out in divisional play brackets could facilitate this working out, but hockey fans have had mixed feelings about the repetitive nature of postseason matchups the NHL format has encouraged.

We are still a bit away from expansion, however, as Manfred has previously stated that they want the stadium situations for the A's and Rays to be resolved before the league adds new teams. It wouldn't be shocking, however, if MLB is aiming for clarity on those matters before the end of 2028, when its television contracts are up for renewal.