MLB expansion timing

[DJL44]

The Rays stadium situation was decided last week. The A’s move to Vegas in 2028. The Rays should move into their new home in 2029. Could we see expansion teams as soon as 2030? I think it is inevitable by 2032 at the latest.

[Vanimal46]

Yeah I would say so. Get the new CBA squared away, announce the 2 new teams then another 3-4 years until their new ballparks are built. I'm not sure MLB would want their brand new expansion teams playing in AAA stadiums if theoretically the new teams are in Nashville, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City. 

[DJL44]

12 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Yeah I would say so. Get the new CBA squared away, announce the 2 new teams then another 3-4 years until their new ballparks are built. I'm not sure MLB would want their brand new expansion teams playing in AAA stadiums if theoretically the new teams are in Nashville, Charlotte, or Salt Lake City. 

They’ve been fine with teams temporarily playing in AAA stadiums before. The TV rights trump everything else and they want to sell expanded playoffs.

It is worth noting that expanding MLB means 8 more minors teams as well. Oakland probably gets a AAA team. Portland could also get one as a consolation prize.

[Vanimal46]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

They’ve been fine with teams temporarily playing in AAA stadiums before. The TV rights trump everything else and they want to sell expanded playoffs.

Idk I would think they wait to debut a brand new team along with their brand new stadium. 

[Mike Sixel]

My money is on Charlotte and somewhere in California. Portland Oregon has no chance. We just don't have the big companies to buy the suites. 

[Vanimal46]

26 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

My money is on Charlotte and somewhere in California. Portland Oregon has no chance. We just don't have the big companies to buy the suites. 

It should be 1 team in the southeast, and somewhere in mountain or pacific time zone to balance the league. Nashville or Charlotte/Raleigh for the SE team. Salt Lake City or Vancouver is my guess for the west city. 

Then a good shake up with realignment. I would rather see 4 divisions of 8 teams vs 8 divisions of 4 teams. And please get the Twins and Brewers in the same division! 

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

It should be 1 team in the southeast, and somewhere in mountain or pacific time zone to balance the league. Nashville or Charlotte/Raleigh for the SE team. Salt Lake City or Vancouver is my guess for the west city. 

Then a good shake up with realignment. I would rather see 4 divisions of 8 teams vs 8 divisions of 4 teams. And please get the Twins and Brewers in the same division! 

You won't be able to breathe the toxic air in salt lake City in ten or fifteen years. I have many thoughts on divisions that no one agrees with. 

[DJL44]

The winners will most certainly be the locations that have the best public stadium funding, from a short list of cities selected by television partners.

Austin / San Antonio, Portland, Nashville, Charlotte, Montreal and Salt Lake City will all get asked to bid. Texas and North Carolina are likely to create the best public funding package. Portland and Oakland look like great cities for AAA teams.

[TheLeviathan]

17 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

It should be 1 team in the southeast, and somewhere in mountain or pacific time zone to balance the league. Nashville or Charlotte/Raleigh for the SE team. Salt Lake City or Vancouver is my guess for the west city. 

Then a good shake up with realignment. I would rather see 4 divisions of 8 teams vs 8 divisions of 4 teams. And please get the Twins and Brewers in the same division! 

I hate the idea of expansion except for one small carve-out - a return to the four division layout of old.  I'd bring in Nashville and Charlotte personally and do this:

Twins with the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Cardinals, Guardians, Tigers, Reds.

Angels-Dodgers-Padres-Seattle-Colorado-Arizona-Giants-Vegas

Charlotte-Tampa-Atlanta-KC-Texas-Houston-Florida-Nashville

NYY-NYM-Bos-Balt-Tor-Phi-Wash-Pitt

All major rivalries would remain, games would be much closer to their usual time zones, regions would make much more sense.  (Adding this line as fine print so I can sue MLB when they use my idea!!!)

[Mike Sixel]

I have zero interest in four divisions. 

[DJL44]

31 minutes ago, TheLeviathan said:

I hate the idea of expansion except for one small carve-out - a return to the four division layout of old.  I'd bring in Nashville and Charlotte personally and do this:

Twins with the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Cardinals, Guardians, Tigers, Reds.

Angels-Dodgers-Padres-Seattle-Colorado-Arizona-Giants-Vegas

Charlotte-Tampa-Atlanta-KC-Texas-Houston-Florida-Nashville

NYY-NYM-Bos-Balt-Tor-Phi-Wash-Pitt

All major rivalries would remain, games would be much closer to their usual time zones, regions would make much more sense.  (Adding this line as fine print so I can sue MLB when they use my idea!!!)

We will get eight 4-team divisions instead.

[TheLeviathan]

35 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

We will get eight 4-team divisions instead.

[DJL44]

43 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Angels-Dodgers-Padres-Seattle-Colorado-Arizona-Giants-Vegas

Charlotte-Tampa-Atlanta-KC-Texas-Houston-Florida-Nashville

If the expansion teams are San Antonio, Charlotte or Nashville we would see either Arizona or Colorado in the American League West

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

We will get eight 4-team divisions instead.

That doesn’t really solve the issue of long time mediocre divisions like the AL Central. Just to play along who do you think gets moved out of the division? 

[DJL44]

41 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

That doesn’t really solve the issue of long time mediocre divisions like the AL Central. Just to play along who do you think gets moved out of the division? 

Kansas City moves south.

MLB will want the possibility of 2 division winners in NY, LA, Texas and Chicago.

[The Great Hambino]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

We will get eight 4-team divisions instead.

We will, but we shouldn't.  The more divisions there are, the likelier that mediocrity can be dressed up as contention.  Owners love that as it allows them to feign competitiveness while investing as little as possible.

8 4-team divisions sets up perfectly for 6 playoff teams per league.  2 division winners get byes, and the next 4 best records are your wild cards.  This makes the most sense.  But they aren't interested in playoffs that make sense.  If they were, they would reseed after the wild card round so you don't end up with the three best teams all on the same side of the bracket like we'll see in the American League this year

[DJL44]

1 minute ago, The Great Hambino said:

We will, but we shouldn't.  The more divisions there are, the likelier that mediocrity can be dressed up as contention.  Owners love that as it allows them to feign competitiveness while investing as little as possible.

8 4-team divisions sets up perfectly for 6 playoff teams per league.  2 division winners get byes, and the next 4 best records are your wild cards.  This makes the most sense.  But they aren't interested in playoffs that make sense.  If they were, they would reseed after the wild card round so you don't end up with the three best teams all on the same side of the bracket like we'll see in the American League this year

We are going to get 16 playoff teams in a 32 team league. Expanded playoffs make money. We might see a 150 game schedule to squeeze in that first playoff round.

[TheLeviathan]

16 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

We are going to get 16 playoff teams in a 32 team league. Expanded playoffs make money. We might see a 150 game schedule to squeeze in that first playoff round.

[Vanimal46]

21 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

We are going to get 16 playoff teams in a 32 team league. Expanded playoffs make money. We might see a 150 game schedule to squeeze in that first playoff round.

Out of curiosity I looked at the standings the previous 3 seasons and the 8 seed for both leagues are either 81 or 82 wins. I would hate to water down the playoffs any more than they already have. 

The NBA is the worst offender for watered down playoffs and it’s made the regular season worthless to pay attention to. 

[TheLeviathan]

22 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Out of curiosity I looked at the standings the previous 3 seasons and the 8 seed for both leagues are either 81 or 82 wins. I would hate to water down the playoffs any more than they already have. 

The NBA is the worst offender for watered down playoffs and it’s made the regular season worthless to pay attention to. 

Agreed.  I think people ignore that the expanded playoffs have not created a frenzy at the deadline either.  With everyone believing they're in it it's created a trade market with very few sellers.  

Baseball's flukey playoff nature should make it imperative not to water it down more.  You want your true contenders battling not some lucky bunch of scrubs who get hot in the small sample.  At least whoever gets hot and wins it will have earned the right to be there.

[NYCTK]

I like the idea of mixing teams up, essentially getting rid of AL/NL except for the name. I'd prefer to see the Twins in a division like this: 

NL WEST	NL CENTRAL	AL SOUTH	AL NORTH
Seattle	Minnesota	Miami	Toronto
San Francisco	Milwaukee	Tampa	Boston
Los Angeles	Cubs	Nashville	Yankees
Anaheim	White Sox	Charlotte	Mets
San Diego	St. Louis	Cincinatti	Philadelphia
Las Vegas	Kansas City	Washington	Pittsburgh
Arizona	Houston	Baltimore	Detroit
Colorado	Texas	Atlanta	Cleveland

But the MLB execs won't mix **** up like that, and they WILL expand playoffs because they're all idiots. But the playoff format outlined in the video below doesn't upset me. It could be quite exciting. 

 

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, NYCTK said:

I like the idea of mixing teams up, essentially getting rid of AL/NL except for the name. I'd prefer to see the Twins in a division like this: 

 

NL WEST	NL CENTRAL	AL SOUTH	AL NORTH
Seattle	Minnesota	Miami	Toronto
San Francisco	Milwaukee	Tampa	Boston
Los Angeles	Cubs	Nashville	Yankees
Anaheim	White Sox	Charlotte	Mets
San Diego	St. Louis	Cincinatti	Philadelphia
Las Vegas	Kansas City	Washington	Pittsburgh
Arizona	Houston	Baltimore	Detroit
Colorado	Texas	Atlanta	Cleveland

But the MLB execs won't mix **** up like that, and they WILL expand playoffs because they're all idiots. But the playoff format outlined in the video below doesn't upset me. It could be quite exciting. 

 

That’s pretty close to the realignment I do in Out of the Park baseball when I expand to 32 teams. If there’s push back having both Chicago teams and New York teams in the same division, I would swap the White Sox with Cincinnati, and the Mets/Phillies with Washington and Baltimore. That way the long standing rivalries remain in tact with NYM/PHI, NYY/BOS, STL/CHI