The Oakland Athletics have apparently missed a few key deadlines regarding their relocation to Las Vegas, with even the visits to Sacramento and Salt Lake being past the deadline to find a home for the 2025, 2026, and 2027 seasons. Could MLB simply just disband the team, and allow Oakland to restock its roster via an expansion draft in 2028?

Scheduling with an odd number of teams is actually not that bad. Assuming each team plays 54 series of 3 games apiece for 162 games, each team would be playing 28 out of every 29 series. With 58 windows for a series in a season, or 174 days, that would actually be more than enough to fit all 162 games, and it would actually be a few days shorter than the regular season is now (183 days once we back out the All-Star Break. One team would have to be off on opening day, and the last day of the regular season, but that could be mitigated by having a team play away games at both teams in one of the two-team markets (LA, Chicago, and New York) at the beginning and end of the season. As an example, the Mariners would play the Dodgers on Friday, the Angels on Saturday, and be off on Sunday, when the Angels and Dodgers would play each other.

The odd number of teams may also be the impetus to ditch the AL/NL alignment. With the loss of the Athletics, the American League West will only have two teams west of Dallas. The Mariners and Angels would be at a tremendous disadvantage as very few of their road games would be in the Mountain of Pacific Time Zones, even relative to the NL West.

If you insist on an alignment with the AL and NL, something like this might be an option:
NL West - Seattle, San Francisco, LA Dodgers, LA Angels, San Diego, Colorado, Arizona
NL East - Saint Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia, NY Mets
AL Central - Texas, Houston, Kansas City, Minnesota, Chicago White Sox, Detroit, Cleveland
AL East - Tampa Bay, Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, NY Yankees, Boston, Toronto

When the A's return, restore the AL West and move the Mariners and Angels back to the AL, with the Braves and Marlins going back to the NL.

The bigger issue will likely be getting approval from the Major League Baseball Players Association. Would the other teams be willing to expand their rosters from 26 to 27? This could even be a temporary increase that gets revoked when expansion adds two teams, as that would still yield 22 additional roster spots (832 vs. 810).

I have a feeling the more likely solution is that the team will play a few years in suburban Salt Lake in a new minor league ballpark that was set to be the AAA Bees' new home, then Salt Lake gets an expansion team. Salt Lake could also wind up with the Athletics permanently and Las Vegas would have an expansion team. Nashville would presumably get the other expansion team.

Not a chance. Even if they're a traveling team for a few years they'll still be playing somewhere.

Just with the amount of money involved in sports today, I find it hard to believe a team would disband. Some city would gladly host a major sports franchise. Even if just temporarily. And then you imagine having an odd number of teams in MLB of all sports where you wouldn't have off days, but 3-4 days off in a row would just be too messy I feel.

It would throw pitchers off their routine and even F with the hitters' timing.