MLB Expansion?

[LHG]

I don't know how real this possibility is in the next few years but Baseball America just ran this article (Expansion Could Trigger Realignment, Longer Postseason | BaseballAmerica.com) talking about the possibility. @calsnowskier , this may be a good time for you to resurrect your annual review of the 40 man roster for an expansion draft. Of course, this year's review would probably be pretty easy.

 

[stanford the manford]

if they'd shorten the regular season (which they won't do) and drop interleague play (which they won't do), expansion wouldn't bother me too much.

 

[LHG]

if they'd shorten the regular season (which they won't do) and drop interleague play (which they won't do), expansion wouldn't bother me too much.

The article does suggest a 154 game season and re-alignment to at least shrink the amount of interleague play. However, postseason may still make the entire season longer for the teams that make playoffs.

 

[msgkings322]

The best part of expansion talk is guessing which cities, and talking realignment. My guess is if they do this they add 2 teams. Charlotte? Las Vegas? Montreal? Portland? Somewhere in Tennessee? Salt Lake city?

 

[LHG]

The best part of expansion talk is guessing which cities, and talking realignment. My guess is if they do this they add 2 teams. Charlotte? Las Vegas? Montreal? Portland? Somewhere in Tennessee? Salt Lake city?

The BA article suggests Portland and Montreal. I think MLB will be too skittish to add Las Vegas until they see how other major sports do there. In my opinion, Las Vegas is not a good market. The metro area isn't that big and I would think that the population would be too transitory to build a solid base.

 

[VASFfan]

The BA article suggests Portland and Montreal. I think MLB will be too skittish to add Las Vegas until they see how other major sports do there. In my opinion, Las Vegas is not a good market. The metro area isn't that big and I would think that the population would be too transitory to build a solid base.

Montreal is a great, great city. But collectively, they just really didn't care about baseball, even when the Expos were good. So I'd have to be skeptical about whether that's changed. And anyway, have they built a stadium that could be home to a new team? If not, are they willing to do so?

As for Portland...maybe. I didn't think it was big enough to support a major league baseball team, but the metro area has grown enough so that when I looked it up it's now at more than 2.5 million. And certainly it would be more likely than either Las Vegas or Salt Lake City. Or Vancouver, another city I dearly love. Not sure that Portlandians would be likely to embrace baseball but I suppose it's a possibility. I wonder if the Mariners would object to a team in Portland? Portland isn't exactly next door to Seattle, but they might consider it part of their geographic region.

Of the cities originally listed, I would think Charlotte would be hard to ignore...large (around 2.5 million in the metro area), growing, metropolitan, lots of sports fans. And what about San Antonio? That would be a 3rd team in Texas, but it has around 1.5 million potential ticket-paying citizens in the city alone.

 

[calsnowskier]

I can’t imagine baseball would work in Vegas. Too much grind. I think the Raiders will do GREAT because the NFL is an event, and they only have to worry about 8 regular season games per year.

FYI, there is a thread on this in the MLB general board. It has kinda evolved into a DH thread, but it is there if you are interested...

 

[LHG]

I can’t imagine baseball would work in Vegas. Too much grind. I think the Raiders will do GREAT because the NFL is an event, and they only have to worry about 8 regular season games per year.

FYI, there is a thread on this in the MLB general board. It has kinda evolved into a DH thread, but it is there if you are interested...

Well, I posted here thinking mainly about how you used to create a thread about who would the Giants protect if the expansion draft would happen this year. I guess I could have done it differently.

 

[calsnowskier]

Well, I posted here thinking mainly about how you used to create a thread about who would the Giants protect if the expansion draft would happen this year. I guess I could have done it differently.

I hope you didn’t take my comment about the other thread as my thinking this thread should not exist.?.? I just brought it up as an FYI.

And I didn’t think anyone cared about my expansion draft threads. No one ever replies to them.

 

[tzill]

if they'd shorten the regular season (which they won't do) and drop interleague play (which they won't do), expansion wouldn't bother me too much.

I think the plan is to drop the season to 156 games. My bet is that we get the DH everywhere though. I guess with 4-eight team divisions, you'd play the 24 teams NOT in your division three games (so they would come to AT&T every other year, and your divisional rivals two series at each park.

Really, not a bad idea.

SF, LAD, LAA, OAK, SEA, POR, AZ, SD. I could live with that.

 

[LHG]

I hope you didn’t take my comment about the other thread as my thinking this thread should not exist.?.? I just brought it up as an FYI.

And I didn’t think anyone cared about my expansion draft threads. No one ever replies to them.

Are you calling me no one? I seem to recall one thread (I assume it was here, maybe it was Disney) where we got called nerds by other posters for that topic.

 

[SFGRTB]

Montreal is a great, great city. But collectively, they just really didn't care about baseball, even when the Expos were good. So I'd have to be skeptical about whether that's changed. And anyway, have they built a stadium that could be home to a new team? If not, are they willing to do so?

As for Portland...maybe. I didn't think it was big enough to support a major league baseball team, but the metro area has grown enough so that when I looked it up it's now at more than 2.5 million. And certainly it would be more likely than either Las Vegas or Salt Lake City. Or Vancouver, another city I dearly love. Not sure that Portlandians would be likely to embrace baseball but I suppose it's a possibility. I wonder if the Mariners would object to a team in Portland? Portland isn't exactly next door to Seattle, but they might consider it part of their geographic region.

Of the cities originally listed, I would think Charlotte would be hard to ignore...large (around 2.5 million in the metro area), growing, metropolitan, lots of sports fans. And what about San Antonio? That would be a 3rd team in Texas, but it has around 1.5 million potential ticket-paying citizens in the city alone.

I think Portland would be a great city for baseball personally, though it would be interesting to see if it could compete with soccer there.

I'm sure the Mariners would throw a fit, and I think the Giants would as well. Most of southern Oregon is Giants' territory. In Portland you can only watch the Mariners on local TV, but drive an hour south to Eugene and you can watch the Giants, A's and Mariners on TV. The Giants don't own anything in Oregon like they do in San Jose, to my knowledge, but it would cut into their market for sure.

 

[VASFfan]

I think Portland would be a great city for baseball personally, though it would be interesting to see if it could compete with soccer there.

I'm sure the Mariners would throw a fit, and I think the Giants would as well. Most of southern Oregon is Giants' territory. In Portland you can only watch the Mariners on local TV, but drive an hour south to Eugene and you can watch the Giants, A's and Mariners on TV. The Giants don't own anything in Oregon like they do in San Jose, to my knowledge, but it would cut into their market for sure.

You can watch the Giants in Eugene...really??? It's probably still a few years away, but the spousal unit and I, in discussing possible retirement locations, have talked about Eugene as a possibility. I've never been there, but I've been throughout southern Oregon (for wine tasting and for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, mostly, though I did do a business trip to Medford once), and I really like it. Have heard good things about Eugene also. My wife lived there for a year or two (working in the U of O psych department) after she graduated from Cal, and really liked it. Might be a bit small for my tastes (I still remember with loathing the years I spent in State College, PA, going to grad school at State Penn) but being able to get Giants games on the tube would be a perk.

 

[SFGRTB]

You can watch the Giants in Eugene...really??? It's probably still a few years away, but the spousal unit and I, in discussing possible retirement locations, have talked about Eugene as a possibility. I've never been there, but I've been throughout southern Oregon (for wine tasting and for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, mostly, though I did do a business trip to Medford once), and I really like it. Have heard good things about Eugene also. My wife lived there for a year or two (working in the U of O psych department) after she graduated from Cal, and really liked it. Might be a bit small for my tastes (I still remember with loathing the years I spent in State College, PA, going to grad school at State Penn) but being able to get Giants games on the tube would be a perk.

If you have satellite you get it for sure. Cable I'm not positive though, might just be the Mariners.

I lived in Eugene when I went to college and I loved it. It is a bit small for a city I guess, though I'm use to small. It's nicely centrally located though, within an hour of skiing, ocean and Portland. And the Eugene airport gets you most places. I'm biased, but really enjoyed my time there and looks to go back at some point.

 

[calsnowskier]

You can watch the Giants in Eugene...really??? It's probably still a few years away, but the spousal unit and I, in discussing possible retirement locations, have talked about Eugene as a possibility. I've never been there, but I've been throughout southern Oregon (for wine tasting and for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, mostly, though I did do a business trip to Medford once), and I really like it. Have heard good things about Eugene also. My wife lived there for a year or two (working in the U of O psych department) after she graduated from Cal, and really liked it. Might be a bit small for my tastes (I still remember with loathing the years I spent in State College, PA, going to grad school at State Penn) but being able to get Giants games on the tube would be a perk.

Don’t use that in your calculus. Spend $100 a year and watch any game you want from whatever broadcast you want. The MLB app is more than worth it, and it works on smart TVs, so you are not chained to watching on your computer.

 

[SFGRTB]

Don’t use that in your calculus. Spend $100 a year and watch any game you want from whatever broadcast you want. The MLB app is more than worth it, and it works on smart TVs, so you are not chained to watching on your computer.

Well in Eugene since you can watch the Giants on TV, they are blacked out on MLB.TV, as are the A's and Mariners.

 

[stanford the manford]

I think the plan is to drop the season to 156 games. My bet is that we get the DH everywhere though. I guess with 4-eight team divisions, you'd play the 24 teams NOT in your division three games (so they would come to AT&T every other year, and your divisional rivals two series at each park.

Really, not a bad idea.

SF, LAD, LAA, OAK, SEA, POR, AZ, SD. I could live with that.

i really don't want to see DH in the nat'l league