MLB considering expansion to Mexico, Montreal

[MrTPlush]

Portland already has a stadium. The AAA stadium was built/planned with plans for expansion that can increase size and capacity to MLB-quality.

 

That stadium would be used in current shape until a new one could be built. They wouldn't renovate it or play in it long term.

[clancyphile]

My picks?

 

Las Vegas and Montreal would be good ones. Maybe re-adjust the divisions a little as well.

[clancyphile]

Days off in baseball in not always a good thing. I don't think a bye for teams would be great for them.

 

The chance to re-set a rotation for the NLCS might seem to even out, especially if a team playing in the NLDS has it go three games.

 

You send your ace up against a team who has to send out their #4 guy, AND the bullpen uis fully rested? Makes up for the rest of the days off.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Would rather not see expansion...that's just 2 more teams that could keep the Brewers from winning a WS. Since the last couple rounds of expansion Arizona has one, Miami has two and we lost one to a strike...that's 4 years worth of titles that could have gone to more deserving fan bases. I'd rather contract a few teams...starting with Chicago and St. Louis.

 

There will likely be expansion to Mexico City by one of the major sports leagues in our lifetime. That would be a good sign for Mexico as a nation.

[1992casey]

The prospect of 4-team divisions offers a lot of nice symmetry. But I'd be concerned about the possibility of a woefully substandard team qualifying for the postseason. At least a handful of times, we've come close to having a sub-.500 team qualifying, even with 6-team divisions. Had the 1994 season been completed, it almost certainly would have happened. At the time of the strike, the four worst win-loss records in the American League were in the West, with the first place Rangers having a poorer record than either of the last place teams in the other divisions.

[jerichoholicninja]

If the league expands to 32 teams I would rather see 4 divisions of 8 than 8 divisions of 4. If that were to happen I wouldn't mind seeing leagues ditched completely and have everyone play everyone but unbalanced favoring intradivision play. You take your 4 division winners and next 4 best records and seed them by record. Boom- playoffs.

[SRB]

In July Manfred said Montreal would have to agree to build a new stadium in order to be considered. Another thing that I think could be difficult for a team in Mexico would be in getting players to play for them. Not just MLB but 5 levels of minor leagues. Then again, who knows, maybe it would be a non-issue. It would certainly be interesting.

 

 

That, to me, is a bigger sticking point than anything else. It's one thing for players to play and live in say Toronto for six months out of the year (well, actually 3 months, as you're on the road 3 months). But to live and play in Mexico City? I can imagine that would be a really tough FA draw, to be honest.

 

I'm guessing just about every non-American player in MLB (and a portion of the American players) would rather live in Mexico City than Milwaukee. They wouldn't exactly be living in the slums.

[DuWayne Steurer]

If the league expands to 32 teams I would rather see 4 divisions of 8 than 8 divisions of 4. If that were to happen I wouldn't mind seeing leagues ditched completely and have everyone play everyone but unbalanced favoring intradivision play. You take your 4 division winners and next 4 best records and seed them by record. Boom- playoffs.

 

I don't think the idea of 4 eight team divisions is a bad one, but I can't imagine they'd get rid of the AL and the NL. I do think we'll see the DH rule unified (or gotten rid of) sooner rather than later. But most likely unified. If I had to put a percentage on it, I'd guess 90/10 in favor of adding it to the NL.

[owbc]

Now is the time to add a team to Canada--interest in baseball is at its highest point in 20 years with Toronto's success. Vancouver has plenty of baseball fans--and they are fans of the Blue Jays, not the Mariners. The

Toronto-Seattle series in Seattle is full of Jays fans that drive down from Canada. However, I can't imagine that Vancouver would get a team ahead of Montreal. There are plenty of baseball fans in Montreal that would support the team if it had proper ownership and a new stadium. Remember, the Expos didn't even have a television contract in their final years. The exhibition games in the last two years have drawn 45,000+, indicating that people have moved on from any previous grievances with MLB. Also helps that Selig is gone.

 

Las Vegas is almost certainly getting an NHL team, so MLB would be wisest to see how that goes first.

 

I can't see Portland being successful. There isn't enough population and it's already a sports-saturated city for its size.

 

Mexico City would be a good candidate to expand into Latin America. I could see that team drawing large crowds on the road in US cities with large Mexican-American populations. Bigger issue is securing funds for a stadium...lots of opportunities for corruption. Would be a huge risk/reward scenario.

 

New Jersey would be the only other realistic option IMO, but that just seems so boring compared with the possibility of international teams.

[1992casey]

Portland already has a stadium. The AAA stadium was built/planned with plans for expansion that can increase size and capacity to MLB-quality.

Information on the Internet appears to be dated, but I think this stadium may have been converted to a soccer-only facility around 2009.

 

I like the idea of a New Jersey team, but I see hurdles. The Yankees, Mets and Phillies would have to be indemnified for loss of territory. Sending money to the Yankees seems kind of ironic.

[DHonks]

An idea I always liked was city sharing. Perhaps place a team for half its games in Portland and half in Las Vegas. The crowds would be packed. It might be an operations challenge, but could be a way to ensure interest from smallish or weather-challenged cities

[owbc]

Portland already has a stadium. The AAA stadium was built/planned with plans for expansion that can increase size and capacity to MLB-quality.

Information on the Internet appears to be dated, but I think this stadium may have been converted to a soccer-only facility around 2009.

 

That's correct. Portland does not have a AAA team anymore. The Timbers (MLS) converted the old baseball stadium to a soccer-only facility. Portland now has a AA team (Sea Dogs) that draw about 5,500 per game.

[ZBTMP]

An idea I always liked was city sharing. Perhaps place a team for half its games in Portland and half in Las Vegas. The crowds would be packed. It might be an operations challenge, but could be a way to ensure interest from smallish or weather-challenged cities

I'm guessing players like having a primary dwelling during the season. That would be difficult to do playing 40 games in 2 different cities. Maybe a Raleigh(25%)/Charlotte(75%) combination could work, but I would think Charlotte could support a team on its own.

 

Selfishly, I don't want to see the Brewer's World Series chances deluded further (~8%) by adding more teams. Focus on getting Oakland and Tampa Bay in major league caliber stadiums before adding more franchises. I doubt Mexico City and Montréal will bring enough revenue for it to be a net positive for Milwaukee.

[1992casey]

owbc, Sea Dogs are based in Portland, Maine, and play in the Eastern League.

 

I can't see city sharing working out. Several American Basketball Association teams did it years ago, and the Kansas City-Omaha Kings of the NBA did it for a couple of years. In these cases, teams were bouncing from one crummy facility to another.

 

The most recent example, of course, would have been the Packers bouncing between Green Bay and Milwaukee. The Packers had to travel two hours and stay in a hotel. But the bigger issue was facilities. Neither Green Bay or Milwaukee had a football stadium that meets today's standards.

 

I guess we could count the Expos playing in both Montreal and San Juan. But both stadiums were crummy, and the situation was basically a workaround.

[owbc]

Oops...wrong Portland...

 

Upon further review, Portland does not have a MiLB team, although there is a single-A team in the suburbs.

[DuWayne Steurer]

I don't like the thought of finding "challenging" ideas, like putting a team in Mexico City, or having "split" cities. This seems to me like a recipe for failure before we even get started.

 

If you don't have 2 cities that are primed for success, then perhaps expansion shouldn't happen.

[Jimbo]

When I visited Montreal last year, I found old Expos and Nordiques T-shirts for sale. Even a couple of people wearing Expos gear, and talked baseball with a couple of others. Plenty of baseball coverage in the morning paper. Still, couldn't get a finger on how much interest exists in the city.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

Montreal just isn't the city it was compared to the rest of Canada in the 60s/70s. The economic power shifted to Toronto, Vancouver and with the resource boom, Alberta...although that may be fading. It has the population and a core that remember baseball, but I'm not sure anything has changed to the vibrancy of the city to make it able to accommodate a major league baseball team.

[young guns]

If they do expand, what would be the earliest time table for the new teams to start? I was pretty young during the last expansion and don't remember exactly, but I think I remember there was an expansion draft and each team gets to protect a certain amount of players. It got me thinking that this year probably would be less difficult to make decisions on who to protect then in future years. Would suck to have a championship team derailed by an expansion draft taking some key depth.

[1992casey]

With the first expansion (1961), there was about three months between the time the teams were created and the time they took the field in spring training. I believe the last expansion occurred about three years before teams actually took the field. That gave them time to build stadiums, participate in drafts, and gradually build a farm system.

 

I think that RoCoBrewfan is right on when he says that cities have to be "primed for success." I don't see that in any city right now, although I do think that making some changes (revenue sharing) and coming up with a good plan for mitigating unique issues (Mexico City) could prime some locations for success.

[Baldkin]

If they do expand, what would be the earliest time table for the new teams to start? I was pretty young during the last expansion and don't remember exactly, but I think I remember there was an expansion draft and each team gets to protect a certain amount of players. It got me thinking that this year probably would be less difficult to make decisions on who to protect then in future years. Would suck to have a championship team derailed by an expansion draft taking some key depth.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Major_League_Baseball_expansion_draft

 

Basics: Team protects 15 guys through the organization, draft picks from the previous 2 seasons were automatically protected (and not included in the 15), as well as young international signees.

 

After each round, teams could protect 3 more guys, up to 21, going into the 3rd round. The rounds were 14 picks for each team, with the 3rd round being 7. So 70 players total were chosen.

[MrTPlush]

Who exactly supports an expansion? Do owners go with it for money reasons? Because I can't imagine a team likes the idea of their players being picked off. Sure a lot of other teams will lose players, but in the end your team is getting worse.

 

More importantly from the Brewers point of view does this help them in the long run or does it hurt them? Are these expansion teams going to buy big time free agents to spread the talent hurting other big markets or are they going to be another small market for the Brewers to fight with?

 

Here is a good mock expansion:

 

http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2014/9/11/6130703/the-2014-beyond-the-box-score-expansion-draft

[tmwiese55]

I never really heard of this as a possibility for this thread and really don't think it has much of a chance in the near future. But it's the offseason and a fun thing to discuss. I really don't think MLB should be expanding. I think they have a good setup right now with 30 teams and they should just play it cool and see how the landscape changes as people go away from cable TV and how that affects revenue.

 

I think of the NBA, NFL and MLB the only league that should expand right now is NBA.

[1992casey]

Plush, expansion fees definitely play a part. Many feel that one of the reasons for the 1990s expansions was that expansion fees would generate money to pay for the collusion mess.

 

There've been other reasons, though. In 1961–1962, baseball was trying to fend off the Continental League. One of the main reasons for the formation of the Continental League was to put a team in New York; after the formation of the Mets in 1962, there was no longer that need. The American League also felt a need to put a new team in Washington after the Senators moved to Minnesota.

 

In 1969 and 1977, there was political and legal pressure to replace teams that moved (Kansas City in 1969 and Seattle in 1977). I believe initial plans for the 1977 expansion called for four teams, with one of the teams probably being in Washington. But the two leagues fought over Toronto, and when the AL won that battle, the NL decided not to expand.

[jerichoholicninja]

Financially, no one is going to lose money and the players are going to make money with 50 more jobs and more teams to bid on free agents. The local tax payers will get screwed but no one is going to lose money.