Well, no… Selig tried to eliminate the weakest franchise and the Twins (!), presumably because of their geographic proximity to the Brewers, who were owned by… the Selig family.
The Cubs, Phillies, or Pirates being contracted over the Mariners will never happen.
Back when there was talk about whether to eliminate or move teams like the Expos, I started thinking that San Juan, Puerto Rico might not be such a bad place to host an MLB team. For starters, there would practically be a built-in fan base from the start, as baseball is HUGELY popular in P.R. This would give San Juan the edge over places where baseball is perhaps only marginally popular as compared to other sports, such as Charlotte or Portland. The Expos, during their temporary re-location to San Juan, drew more fans than in the last few seasons in Montreal, and in a smaller stadium than Olympic Stadium no less. Second, as a friend of mine pointed out, this would be an attractive location for many players as well, as P.R. either is or is close to the home countries of many of the Latino players, thus making it easier for them to travel home (except to Cuba, unfortunately).
The two biggest hangups I would see are: 1) travel (San Juan would still be over 1,000 miles from the closest franchise, the Marlins), and 2) need for a newer, bigger stadium (San Juan’s Hiram Bithorn Stadium, which briefly hosted the Expos, only seats 18,000). However, putting a team in a place like Puerto Rico would be a worthy nod to the great popularity and importance of baseball in Latin America, and I think, in the long run, the MLB would stand to benefit.
[hijack]Wait, you’re saying that I should take eight starts away from my best pitcher, take eight starts away from my second-best pitcher, take eight starts away from my third-best pitcher, take eight starts away from my fourth-best pitcher, and give them all to my fifth-best pitcher?
With proper attention to pitch-count and stress, I see no reason a four-man rotation is not viable.[/hijack]
If you look at the list of MSA’s by population, the first one that hasn’t got a major league team is the Inland Empire in Southern California (San Bernardino/Riverside/Ontario). That’s not gonna work. That’s #14.
Then you get all the way down to Portland, OR at #23. Only 2.1 Million in the area and no really large density outside of it. AAA town at best.
Sacramento at #26 is usually considered to be within the sphere of the A’s/Giants, so no way anyone is letting THEM have a team. Same with San Jose at #30. Orlando at #27 probably draws to Tampa Bay.
San Antonio at #29 is perhaps your first legitimate chance for an expansion team. They’d have to build a stadium and that means a dome down in that neck of the woods (excuse me, a retractable roof). That’s expensive.
From that point on, #31 etc., you are talking about cities that have AAA clubs (Columbus, Las Vegas, Indianapolis, etc.), so if you promote those cities to major league, you are in essence forcing some three to four AA towns to move up to AAA, and that ripples on down because you’ll need six new AA towns, etc.
Just ain’t gonna see it, unless someone with enough $$ decides they want to muscle into the New York market and Steinbrenner is dead. 
You provide logic for why all these options won’t work except for the first one. What’s wrong with San Bernardino/Riverside? I mean, beyond the fact that I don’t want another wannabe franchise in my neighborhood calling themselves The Los Angeles SigAlerts of San Bernardino.
The Inland Empire can barely sustain a couple of Single-A franchises as it is. No way could we handle anything else. Most of us are Dodger/Angel fans, and we are all used to commuting into LA every day anyway.
It’s strange that I find myself citing the same article in two GQ questions on the same day.
Bizjournals.com did a study examining 179 markets across the US of A for their abilities to support professional sports teams.
The study notes that the San Bernardino/Riverside area, part of the LA metro, could by itself support another major league baseball team.
And similarly, so could Northern New Jersey, which is part of the New York metro area.
But those were the only two markets in the US that could support new MLB teams, on the basis of total personal income (the article summarizes the methodology used).
So if there’s MLB expansion, it could come into these two markets . . . if the existing, powerful teams don’t mind new teams taking away a chunk of their market share.
Or, MLB could go international. Puerto Rico. Vancouver, BC, perhaps? Havana, after Castro falls? Monterrey, Mexico? Reykjavik?
There’s not a lot of options there, so it looks like the AL is stuck at 14 teams. (Which is good . . . the fewer DH’s that walk the earth, the closer we all are to heaven.)
I understand why they did it, but it seems unfair that a team in the four team division only has to be better than three other teams to get in the playoffs automatically, and in the six team division you have to beat five. Why did teams in the six team division agree to that?
**Airblairxxx ** just mentioned it, but the most logical location for a new franchise is North Jersey. I hope it never happens, but it is a very large Metro area.
I thought Las Vegas was the #2 city for viability. It has the room for a large stadium complex and a rapidly growing population. I believe baseball is sensitive to the idea of placing a major league franchise in the Gambling Mecca of America however.
Jim
Teams that can go just because of Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues:
Arizona Diamondbacks
Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Florida Marlins
Team that can go just because the dude who owned Expos (Jeffrey Loria) pretty much killed the baseball market in Canada.
Toronto Blue Jays
Also, the last place team in each league should be demoted to AAA for the following year. Choose not to be competitive? Those are the consequences. Plus, this would guarantee that your team would not be punished two years in a row.
This won’t work in baseball. It works in Soccer because the lowers leagues are not owned by the Major league teams. AAA in Baseball is always associated with a parent club. There is no way for a MiLB team to be promoted to MLB.
Toronto does fine of attendance as long as they field a decent team. Things are improving, they would be pretty low on my list for contraction.
Jim
Current value of selected MLB teams as of last September per ESPN/Forbes.
- New York Yankees MLB George Steinbrenner $730 million
- New York Mets MLB Fred Wilpon $482 million
- Los Angeles Dodgers MLB News Corp. $435 million
- Boston Red Sox MLB John Henry $426 million
- Atlanta Braves MLB AOL/Time Warner $424 million
- Seattle Mariners MLB Hiroshi Yamaguchi $373 million
- Chicago Cubs MLB Tribune Co. $287 million
- Pittsburgh Pirates MLB Kevin McClatchy $242 million
- Philadelphia Phillies MLB B. Giles/D. Montgomery $231 million
When the money talks and BS walks, guess who walks away first.
In all the expansion talk, no one ever looks to Buffalo or Rochester, NY. The Buffalo and Rochester metropolitan areas have a little over 1,000,000 people apiece and they are roughly an hour and a half drive apart. The next closest Major League city is Toronto, which is 4 hours from Rochester and 2 1/2 hours from Buffalo. There combined populations would put them slightly ahead of Portland. Buffalo has long supported Buffalo Bills football (even though the Bills suck and I hate them) and Buffalo Sabres hockey and both cities have well-supported AAA teams in new stadiums.
Both cities are also constantly crying about a brain drain of their brightest yound minds. A new pro sports team would be a powerful way to keep those people (i.e. me) around.
Why this is never even considered when expansion time rolls around amazes me.
Ticket sales and TV ratings (you’re surprised?) To get more regular-season games with teams with which they could get fan-interest-generating rivalries, and in the same time zone so the fans would watch on TV.
San Juan, and for that matter any other Latin American potential market, has built-in fan interest but not a lot of *money * to express it with.
The viability of other markets similarly depends on being distinct *television * markets. North Jersey isn’t, neither is inland SoCal or inland NorCal, and the teams currently occupying those slots have the juice to prevent any incursion (hell, look how long friggin’ *Baltimore * kept DC from getting a team).
I also don’t see the viability of minor league markets mattering a Joe Tinker’s damn in the matter, despite the fondness of us fans for them. It’s *solely * about the business, and the business is solely the MLB clubs. The little guys just don’t matter, and never did.
Adding a team to New York/New Jersey would also go a long way to addressing the “Yankees are too good” problem. Dilute their market and you dilute some of their advantages.
I think San Juan would be a lot more viable market than places like Santo Domingo or most places in Mexico, in terms of start-up capital. The sad part about Puerto Rico is that, although there is a lot of money being made there, a good part of that also goes back to the states, especially WRT to the major pharmaceutical firms that have built facilities there to take advantage of the huge tax breaks. Of course, it would be great if some drug (LEGAL drug) mogul said one holiday season, “Well, honey, what should we get the kids for Chrismukkah this year? Aww, hell, let’s get 'em an MLB franchise. They’ll love it!”