Bud Selig's Wet Dream

I though that it might be fun to see what the standings would be if Bud Selig had gotten his wish and Montreal and Minnesota had been contracted out if existence. I took the current standings and subtracted out the record of each club against those two.

I know that a new schedule would have been arranged and that probably one team (Milwaukee again?) would have to have gone from the NL to the AL, given that each would have an uneven number (15 in the NL and 13 in the AL). No one mentioned this but contraction would have required another interleague team shift since with an odd number of teams in each league, interleague play would otherwise have to be a daily occurrence in the sport.

Also, the transactions that teams made during the offseason as well as the regular season would differ. The Twin and Expo players would be redistributed throughout the league in some manner prior to the season. If Chicago were now leading the AL Central sans Twins, they would not have started their firesale before the trade deadline. Etc.

So there are holes in the what-if analysis. But anyway, it's all just for fun until someone loses an eye. So here it goes:

 Standings                 Current                With Contraction
NL EAST                W  L  G   PCT GB  GB WC   W  L  G   PCT GB  GB WC
Atlanta Braves        77 40 117 .658  -    -    67 34 101 .663  -    -
New York Mets         58 59 117 .496 19    7.5  50 52 102 .490 17.5  8
Philadelphia Phillies 55 62 117 .470 21.5 10.5  49 53 102 .480 18.5  9
Florida Marlins       56 62 118 .475 22   10    47 55 102 .461 20.5 11
NL CENTRAL   
St. Louis Cardinals   63 52 115 .548  -    -    60 49 109 .550  -    -
Cincinnati Reds       61 55 116 .526  2.5  4    60 53 113 .531  2    3.5
Houston Astros        61 56 117 .521  3    4.5  58 53 111 .523  3    4.5
Pittsburgh Pirates    52 66 118 .441 12.5 14    49 63 112 .438 12.5 14
Chicago Cubs          50 66 116 .431 13.5 15    49 64 113 .434 13   14.5
Milwaukee Brewers     42 75 117 .359 22   23.5  38 67 105 .362 20   21.5
NL WEST  
Arizona Diamondbacks  73 45 118 .619  -    -    69 43 112 .616  -    -
San Francisco Giants  65 52 117 .556  7.5   .5  64 50 114 .561  6   +1
Los Angeles Dodgers   66 52 118 .559  7    +.5  63 51 114 .553  7    1
Colorado Rockies      55 63 118 .466 18   11    53 62 115 .461 17.5 11.5
San Diego Padres      48 69 117 .410 24.5 17.5  45 69 114 .395 25   19
AL EAST         
New York Yankees      72 44 116 .621  -    -    66 44 110 .600  -    -
Boston Red Sox        68 48 116 .586  4    1    66 47 113 .584  1.5  2
Baltimore Orioles     56 59 115 .487 15.5 12.5  53 59 112 .473 14   14.5
Toronto Blue Jays     52 65 117 .444 20.5 17.5  49 55 104 .471 14   14.5
Tampa Bay Devil Rays  39 78 117 .333 33.5 30.5  37 73 110 .336 29   29.5
AL CENTRAL            
Chicago White Sox     57 62 119 .479 13   13.5  52 54 106 .491  -    -
Cleveland Indians     51 65 116 .440 17.5 18    45 56 101 .446  4.5 17
Kansas City Royals    48 70 118 .407 21.5 22    44 56 100 .440  5   17.5
Detroit Tigers        45 73 118 .381 24.5 25    39 63 102 .382 11   23.5
AL WEST            
Seattle Mariners      72 46 118 .610  -    -    70 44 114 .614  -    -
Anaheim Angels        70 48 118 .593  2   +1    66 43 109 .606  1.5 +2
Oakland Athletics     68 51 119 .571  4.5  2.5  67 49 116 .578  4    2.5
Texas Rangers         50 67 117 .427 21.5 19.5  47 61 108 .435 20   18.5

The first thing that you notice is that the AL Central becomes a race again. The NL wild card changes hands-the Dodgers are now a full game behind the Giants as opposed to leading them by one-half game. The Red Sox are a bit closer to the Yankees. Aside from those and new battles for third in the AL East and for second in the AL Central (the Royals could be in a pennant race?), there is not a lot of changes.

So unlike George Bailey, it seems that the disappearance of the Twins and the Expos, except for some happy paupers in the AL Central, would not affect the majors as a whole all that much. Sorry Clarence.