I really think this is different than a team with an entrenched 130-year history in a city where baseball fans follow one team or the other with almost a religious fervor, and wrap much of their own identity in their fandom. While I agree it would die off in a generation or two, it’ll be a cold day in hell before current White Sox fans become Cubs fans – I would think they are far more likely to follow the White Sox wherever they may go before dressing in Cubbie blue and singing “Go, Cubs, Go!” at the end of ballgames.
I think baseball could really use expansion, but their position has been they want to get the A’s and Rays situations resolved first. I think this mostly so these teams have more leverage to extort cities. Can’t threaten to move to Nashville if you already awarded a team to Nashville.
Big cities can certainly support more teams, but you run into issues with territorial rights. A Jersey team would I’m sure do very well, but the Mets and Yankees would both have veto power and would need very strong incentive not to invoke it.
Well, one thing Chicago has going for it if it comes to that is that there are no other AL teams anywhere near us. MN, Cleveland, KC and Detroit are hundreds of miles away. The Cubs are in the NL and it has been proven over vast time that they are doing just fine with an AL team in the same city.
This is an inherent problem in the North American way of doing this. Sports leagues are perversely incentivized to not put the sports teams where the fans are. The best place for a new MLB team is New York City. The best place for a new NHL team is obviously Toronto. So they do not put teams there.
I am quite serious when I say I believe you could have 36, even 40 MLB teams, but my expansion ideas would involve teams in both the NYC/New England area and the LA sprawl (perhaps the Inland Empire.)
Good luck with that. Putting an expansion team in San Bernardino/Riverside would be Oakland on steroids. People around here are either die-hard Dodger fans or poor, benighted souls would root for Anaheim. Plus a scattering of pitiful Padres people.
Although…if some billionaire with more money than sense (ie almost all of them) wanted to build a state of the art stadium in Ontario/Fontana, say on the old Kaiser Steel footprint they could probably make a go of it. If nothing else it might force Moreno to sell the Angels or move them to Mexico City.
I wonder if the move by MLB to play a balanced schedule with much more interleague play will change that.
Each team now plays 46 games against teams in the other league; more than a quarter of its schedule. By contrast, the schedule has been cut to 13 games with teams in the same division. So the Sox-Twins and Cubs-Cardinals rivalries are downplayed, but now fans of both Chicago teams get to see the Yankees and Dodgers at least every few years.
The downside, of course, is the inevitable White Sox-Pirates series.
After an (ouch) 14-2 loss to the Red Sox last night, the losing streak is now 14 games. Boston had 24 hits, which is, unsurprisingly, the most allowed by the ChiSox this season. The 14-game losing streak is now a team record.
Knowing that the streak can’t go on forever, I’m worried about their trip to Seattle next week. I can easily imagine the high-flying Mariners screwing up and losing that series to the worst team in baseball.
A .238 winning percentage this late in the season is something rare. That extrapolates to only 39 wins; or worse than than the 1962 Mets with only 40 wins and a .250 win pct.
They probably won’t pull it off, it is difficult to maintain this level of ineptitude.
OBJECTION! Assuming facts not in evidence.
OVERRULED!
STRENUOUS OBJECTION! Assuming facts not in evidence.
Well okay then. 
I was going to University of Maryland in 1988 when the O’s started the season losing 21 in a row. There was a radio DJ that vowed to stay on air until they won. He wound up being on air for almost 2 weeks. We would immediately turn him on when they lost to hear the despair in his voice. Especially when it was a travel day.
The White Sox aren’t quite that bad yet.
I am disappointed to report the White Sox are winning 6-2 and threaten to get back to .250.
Crochet making a run at highest percentage of team wins.
He’s actually having a danged good year, despite playing for a flaming train wreck of a team. He has a WHIP of 0.925, an ERA+ of 1.22, and a SO/W ratio of over 6.
His fellow starting pitcher, Erick Fedde, is also doing quite well; the two of them are the only guys on the entire team who currently have a bWAR score of 1.0 or better. The “best” non-pitcher on the Sox right now is catcher Korey Lee, at a 0.5 bWAR.
Why a “downside”?
After their 14-game skid, the ChiSox responded with a winning streak. They won two in a row before reverting to form and losing in 10 innings yesterday.
And they did so by yet again blowing another lead. They now have a west coast trip. Perhaps the change of climate will agree with them.
The Pirates operate on a shoestring. They develop some great talent and then trade them out or lose them to free agency. What the y have left to field a team is the worst in the National League.
Not as long as Miami has a team.