The American League West was once much larger than the West Coast

History · Published 5 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Today, the AL West is a compact division of five teams. But a look back at the league's realignment reveals a period when the division stretched across the continent, including heavyweights from the Midwest and even the East Coast.

When Major League Baseball introduced divisions for the 1969 season, the American League adopted a strict geographic logic. Unlike the National League, the AL split its 1lar 12 teams based on time zones. This meant the AL West contained six teams, while the remaining six, located in the Eastern Time Zone, formed the AL East.

The division's boundaries have shifted significantly through decades of expansion and realignment. In the early 1970s, the division underwent a major shuffle. When the Washington Senators announced they were moving to the Dallas–Fort Worth area to become the Texas Rangers for the 1972 season, owners voted to swap the Rangers with the Milwaukee Brewers. This move brought the Brewers—who had started as the Seattle Pilots in 1969—into the AL West, while the Rangers moved to the AL East.

The 1994 realignment further transformed the landscape. The Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals, and Minnesota Twins all moved out of the AL West to form the newly created AL Central. This period, lasting until 2012, saw the AL West shrink to just four teams, making it the only MLB division with that size for fourteen years.

The modern era of five teams was finalized in 2013 when the Houston Astros moved from the National League Central to the AL West. While the division's footprint is now largely concentrated in Texas and along the West Coast, its history is defined by the movement of franchises like the Athletics and the Angels, who remain founding members of the division's original 1969 structure.

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