MLB: Why the uneven league totals?

[anson2995]

@asterion

Nothing personal. I was just under the impression that pro baseball, even the minor leagues, is pretty much gone in Canada. After all, the AAA PCL used to have several Canadian teams (Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver) and they’re all gone now. The Expos are gone from Montreal and that pretty much just leaves Toronto. I could see MLB making business arguments that it’d be better to eliminate or move the Blue Jays back into the US is all.

Toronto is a lucrative market, one that will likely land an NFL team within the next five years (cough… Buffalo Bills… cough).

Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton all have minor league teams… they just aren’t in the PCL anymore. There are also teams in Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Quebec.

[Rysto]

The Ottawa Lynx are gone.

[anson2995]

@Rysto

The Ottawa Lynx are gone.

That’s funny, because I saw them play on Monday .

The Lynx are moving to Pennsylvania next year, but they’re still in Ottawa this year.

[RickJay]

@Rysto

Maybe that was in revenge for all the Canadians who decry the existence of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Tampa Bay and Columbus actually do very well, which is miraculous in the case of the Blue Jackets, since God knows their fans haven’t had a lot of reasons to show up, but show up they do.

I don’t know any Canadians who decry the existence of highly successful U.S. NHL franchises like San Jose, Dallas, Colorado, etc. It’s perfectly reasonable to question why franchises are left in hopeless, stagnating situations like Florida and Nashville. If there was an MLB team failing in Edmonton, I’d agree it might be better off in a bigger U.S. market.

@asterion

I could see MLB making business arguments that it’d be better to eliminate or move the Blue Jays back into the US is all.

But, uh, what arguments would those be? The team makes money; its owner realizes profits from it, as it’s part of a large media conglomerate. MLB can’t just take the team away from Rogers Communications, and has no business reason to. It has a substantial and wide regional fanbase. The market is extremely large, vastly larger than any other available market. There is no market open that is even half as large except Montreal, which of course is poisoned. If the owner is happy with the team, and it holds down a big market, what conceivable reason would you have to move it? The fate of the Expos is no more relevant to the Blue Jays than the fate of the Baltimore Colts was to the Dallas Cowboys.

If you wanted to move an MLB team, wouldn’t it make more sense to take one out of a smaller market? Pittsburgh would make more sense, as would Milwaukee or Kansas City, or of course Tampa Bay. Of course, there really aren’t any markets availkable much bigger than those, either, and I’d prefer those teams stay where they are, but why pick on a SUCCESSFUL team like Toronto?

[dalej42]

@acsenray

In 1998, they added Florida and Tampa, but they wanted one to go to the NL and one to the AL, so Milwaukee switched to the NL, to keep the even numbers: 16 NL and 14 AL.

In 1998 Arizona and Tampa Bay were added. The Florida Marlins had just won the 1997 World Series.