If the owners want a salary cap and future expansion the players should ask for less games.

I've played this scenario out in my head then even had AI build a schedule generator for it and it makes complete sense. (Link to app at the end) It's a complete waste of time but I thought it was a fun thought experiment.

Owners love money and players hate the daunting 162 games in 180 days schedule. Do you think the players and owners would go for less games if it meant a salary cap and floor would be installed?

Manfred is on record talking about how he wants 8 divisions of 4 teams to help with travel. I actually agree outside of the fact it will dilute the talent pool, unless there is a salary cap and floor with real punishment to even out talent distribution throughout the league. New teams would be Salt Lake City and Nashville.

The season is broken into 3 stages

1. Warm start

2. Standard week

3. Divisional completion

Divisional Games - 20 games each opponent - Total: 60 division games

Non-Division Games - 1 × 3-game series each - Total: 84 games

Season Total - 144 games per team

WEEKLY STRUCTURE

Monday - Off / Travel day

Tue–Thu - Division series (3 games) (not divisional during weeks 1-4 & 23)

Friday - Off / Travel day

Sat–Sun - Non-division series (3 games, Sunday DH = 2 games)

SCHEDULE STRUCTURE

Warm Start (Weeks 1–4)

All north and East teams play only road games in warm climates

Allowed opponents:

AL South

NL South

AL West

NL West

Layer 2 — Core Season (Weeks 5–22)

All 28 non-division teams appear exactly once

Division series rotate continuously (6 series per opponent total)

Each week contains:

1 division series

1 non-division series

Week 23 - 2 series against remaining 2 non divisional teams

Division Completion Week (Week 24)

All division opponents play 2-game final series

This kinda works like how the NFL always has the last 2-3 weeks be divisional opponents which has deep playoff implications typically.

There's one bug where it adds an extra game on Monday in week 24 but they should all be off days for every team.

https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/d01352a3-c529-4dcd-a5e1-aa7a0adb74af