The Pacific Coast League announces realignment for 2014

The Pacific Coast League announced today that it will be realigning its conferences and divisions for the 2014 season.

The PCL postseason format will remain the same; the division champions within the Pacific and American Conferences will compete in a best-of-five Conference Championship Series with the victors advancing to a best-of-five PCL Championship Series. The PCL champions will face the International League champions in the Triple-A National Championship Game.

Next season, the conference divisions will look like this:

Pacific Northern: Fresno, Reno, Sacramento, Tacoma

Pacific Southern: Albuquerque, El Paso, Las Vegas, Salt Lake

American Northern: Colorado Springs, Iowa, Oklahoma City, Omaha

American Southern: Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Round Rock

The league cited Tucson's move to El Paso next season as a reason for the realignment. I talked to Omaha Storm Chasers president and general manager Martie Cordaro this afternoon and he elaborated.

"Tucson moving to El Paso is really what created the conversation," Cordaro said. "We have El Paso moving closer to Albuquerque and it made sense to take a look at it. As a league body of sixteen franchises, we made a collective decision to review it, discuss it and to make a decision. And we're moving forward for the 2014 season."

Albuquerque and Tucson (soon to be El Paso) are currently in different conferences. Next season they will be in the same division.

Cordaro wouldn't comment about how the league vote went, but said the league was unified moving forward.