(07-14-2015 10:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Could see Orlando having a team, perhaps even on Disney property, but not before the Devil Rays issues are resolved. St Pete is a bad location for a team due to access and older age people there, but Tampa could be much better.

Very true. Orlando has historically shown great support for pro teams. There's not much connection to the Tampa Rays. I might go twice a year but the trip over the bridge to St. Pete is a pita. Only drawback is Orlando would need a dome stadium due to daily rains in the summertime. But no doubt it would be a great baseball town.

(07-15-2015 02:12 AM)hawghiggs Wrote:  I would expand into Nashville Tennessee.

They just built a new minor league park downtown.

I think Charlotte is another good option.

If they ever expand they better use that opportunity to move the Astros back to the NL where they belong.

(07-15-2015 09:59 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  If they ever expand they better use that opportunity to move the Astros back to the NL where they belong.

Now that Selig is retired, maybe MLB will make expansion and realignment decisions that are not centered around moving the Brewers to the NL and keeping them there.

(07-15-2015 06:43 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(07-14-2015 11:24 PM)bullet Wrote:  I can't see it. Baseball has 81 games. That is a lot of dates. They are already concerned about Oakland and Tampa Bay.

There are only 5 franchises in metro areas of less than 2.7 million people-Pittsburg (2.4 million) who is struggling, Kansas City (2.1 million), Milwaukee (1.6 million), Cincinnati (2.1 million) and Cleveland (2.1 million). And when you look at their real markets, Cincinnati with Dayton (.8 milliion) and Cleveland with Akron (.7 million), those two are close to 3 million. Milwaukee is much larger when you consider Madison and southern Wisconsin which is officially in the Chicago metro.

So going below 2.7 million is risky. And the only Canadian or US markets that large are Montreal and Riverside-San Bernadino (which is basically LA which already has 2 teams). Then you get down to Charlotte, Portland, San Antonio and Orlando, all around 2.3 million. Then Las Vegas, Columbus and Indianapolis around 2.0 million. San Antonio would probably be the best bet of those because Austin (1.8 million) is only 80 miles away.

How are the Pittsburgh Pirates "struggling"? They are doing great on the field and are having very good attendance at PNC Park.

They were awful for 20 years. I've read a lot about them struggling financially. Up until they turned it around the last 3-4 years, they were in the bottom 5 in attendance nearly every year.

(07-15-2015 09:59 AM)loki_the_bubba Wrote:  If they ever expand they better use that opportunity to move the Astros back to the NL where they belong.

That was just contrary to the way they have set up everything for the last 110 years. Made no sense to have all of Texas in one league.

(07-15-2015 08:17 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I'm too lazy to google it but some time back there was a study of MLB attendance and the best non-performance factor that was a reliable predictor of attendance was population within five miles of the stadium.

Want a successful team find a city with good population density near the stadium site.

But then like college football, every market is different. I remember going to Reds games on weekends and you would have groups from Indianapolis, Louisville, Lexington, Huntington and Columbus in addition to Cincy and Dayton. After games, I-75 even during the week was packed with people going back towards Dayton or towards Lexington. St. Louis also draws from a large area. Houston did have occasional groups from San Antonio and Austin and Beaumont, but was much more Houston oriented.

1. Way too much history in the American League and National League. They will not and should never abandon them. Inter-league play with locked games vs. natural rivals combined with the divisional set-up has already accomplished 90% of what breaking the leagues down would do. Personally I'd actually kind of like to see the opposite and see more games vs. teams in other regions (for example, I'd love the Reds to play the Dodgers more).

2. I think unless they are thinking international, expansion is probably not a great idea. No markets which really jump out as great ideas and you want the ones that are semi-decent left around for others to consider if things get very bad for an existing team.

3. Intentionally, I don't think Montreal is coming back. Attendance was dreadful the last few years (although might be better with a comeback), but the idea of a team in some of the big baseball supporting Latin American countries is at least interesting. That said, finance wise that might be difficult.

Edit: Reading a bit more, I'm not as pessimistic for Montreal as I was. I still wouldn't bet on it, but if there is major city support this time, I think the chances rise a lot.

(07-14-2015 10:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Could see Orlando having a team, perhaps even on Disney property, but not before the Devil Rays issues are resolved. St Pete is a bad location for a team due to access and older age people there, but Tampa could be much better.

No chance Orlando gets a team.

(07-15-2015 10:30 AM)bullet Wrote:  

(07-15-2015 08:17 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I'm too lazy to google it but some time back there was a study of MLB attendance and the best non-performance factor that was a reliable predictor of attendance was population within five miles of the stadium.

Want a successful team find a city with good population density near the stadium site.

But then like college football, every market is different. I remember going to Reds games on weekends and you would have groups from Indianapolis, Louisville, Lexington, Huntington and Columbus in addition to Cincy and Dayton. After games, I-75 even during the week was packed with people going back towards Dayton or towards Lexington. St. Louis also draws from a large area. Houston did have occasional groups from San Antonio and Austin and Beaumont, but was much more Houston oriented.

Oh there is no question that the Cardinals, Reds, and even Royals benefit greatly from being a regional team, but those groups are coming to at most three games. I know a lot of people in Little Rock who make a weekend trip or go spend several days in St. Louis (and to a lesser extent will go to see the Rangers and even lesser extent Royals), when I was in law school one of the professor organized an annual train excursion to go see the Cubs.

But those baseball tourists are profit, not operating costs.

St. Louis has five zip codes with a population density of 7k or more per square mile and four are very close to Busch Stadium. No zip code in St. Pete has a density of greater than 5,600 per mile.

Charlotte is the obvious choice for expansion along with Montreal. We lead the minor leagues in attendance and have plenty of corporate dollars to support a MLB team.

(07-14-2015 10:49 PM)goofus Wrote:  My initial thought was they should add 2 west coast teams because no team in the central time zone wants to play in the west division. But that problem could also be solved by realigning into divisions based on time zones and getting rid of NL and AL.

west division-8
SD, LAD, LAA, SF, Oak, Sea, Ariz, Col

Central division-8
Tex, Hou, KC, STL, Minn, Mil, CHC, CHW

American division-7
Det, Cle, Tor, NYY, Bos, Balt, Tampa

National Division-7
Cincy, Pitt, Philly, NYM, Wash, Atl, Mia

This lineup could easily handle any east coast additions.

Every team then could play every team in its division 12 to 15 tines and everybody else 3 times.

Then have 4 division winners and 8 wildcard teams.

Although I'm a semi-purist who prefers to leave the leagues as they are, I'd say that's not half bad.

If they did expand to 32, I would venture that they would go to 4 divisions of 8, but along the league structures they have now. So let's say Montreal and Austin were awarded AL and NL franchises respectively (just for arguments sake). I'd say you have the setup like this:
AL West: LAA, Oakland, Seattle, Houston, Texas, Kansas City, ChiSox, Minnesota
AL East: Montreal, Toronto, Boston, NYY, Baltimore, Detroit, Cleveland, Tampa Bay
NL West: LAD, SD, SF, Colorado, Arizona, Austin, St. Louis, Milwaukee
NL East: ChiCubs, Cincy, Pittsburgh, Philly, NYM, Washington, Miami, Atlanta

That being said, in that setup St. Louis and Milwaukee would be pissed and there really is no good way to divide the leagues that would avoid that sans for geographical divisions. If they went with a pure eastern expansion it might work better. Say Montreal to the AL and a Raleigh-Durham or Charlotte area team to the NL. Then:
AL West and AL East are as above.
NL West: LAD, SD, SF, Colorado, Arizona, St. Louis, Milwaukee, ChiCubs
NL East: Cincy, Pittsburgh, Philly, NYM, Washington, Carolina, Atlanta, Miami

(07-15-2015 10:54 AM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(07-14-2015 10:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Could see Orlando having a team, perhaps even on Disney property, but not before the Devil Rays issues are resolved. St Pete is a bad location for a team due to access and older age people there, but Tampa could be much better.

No chance Orlando gets a team.

Marge Schott doesn't get a say in it.

Thank goodness!

(Reds fans understand what I am saying)

(07-15-2015 08:47 AM)Knightsweat Wrote:  Very true. Orlando has historically shown great support for pro teams. There's not much connection to the Tampa Rays. I might go twice a year but the trip over the bridge to St. Pete is a pita. Only drawback is Orlando would need a dome stadium due to daily rains in the summertime. But no doubt it would be a great baseball town.

The MLB should've expanded to Orlando instead of Miami imo. With a new stadium that team would've done well, especially with the whole state as a TV audience and being the central city for traveling fans.

I think the MLB was always going to Miami with it being such a big city and St. Pete since they didn't want to set a precedent for publicly funded stadiums to sit empty. It's too bad you can't just move Marlins Park to a good location in Tampa, where at least they'd have a good team to host.

Looking at the US map, the areas that have the most potential for a fan base that doesn't overlap too much of other fanbases are Las Vegas, Salt Lake City and the Carolinas.

Montreal seems to be a lock. Carolinas would be the most logical after that IMO. Now if MLB could switch Houston back to the NL and put either Colorado or Arizona in the AL you would almost have perfect interleague pairings.

AL/NL
Baltimore/Washington
Boston/Philadelphia
Charlotte/Atlanta
Chicago/Chicago
Cleveland/Cincinnati
Detroit/Pittsburgh
Kansas City/St. Louis
Los Angeles/Los Angeles
Minnesota/Milwaukee
New York/New York
Oakland/San Francisco
Seattle/San Diego
Tampa Bay/Miami
Texas/Houston
Toronto/Montreal

AL
East - Baltimore, Boston, New York, Toronto
North - Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota
South - Charlotte, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Texas
West - Colorado, Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle

NL
East - New York, Montreal, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh
North - Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St. Louis
South - Atlanta, Houston, Miami, Washington
West - Arizona, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco

(07-15-2015 10:54 AM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(07-14-2015 10:56 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Could see Orlando having a team, perhaps even on Disney property, but not before the Devil Rays issues are resolved. St Pete is a bad location for a team due to access and older age people there, but Tampa could be much better.

No chance Orlando gets a team.

Because you say so? Or do you have some logic behind that statement?

I don't think they would move Houston right back to the NL.

swap out Charlotte and Houston and you have a winner. A division with Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, and Washington is great.

(07-15-2015 08:17 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I'm too lazy to google it but some time back there was a study of MLB attendance and the best non-performance factor that was a reliable predictor of attendance was population within five miles of the stadium.

Want a successful team find a city with good population density near the stadium site.

Population density is a great measure, and this points to a city like Portland. Similar to other coastal cities, the core of Portland is dense, and it does have the metro population (2.3 million) to support baseball. Perhaps not a great measure, but Portland's two other professional teams - the Blazers and the Timbers - are consistently at the top of their leagues in attendance. I think the challenge with that city is finding the deep pocket support. Nike hasn't shown an interest in baseball, nor has Adidas. Paul Allen, who owns the Blazers and Seahawks, has the money, but seems more interested in the potential of hockey.

(07-15-2015 11:49 AM)geef Wrote:  

(07-15-2015 08:17 AM)arkstfan Wrote:  I'm too lazy to google it but some time back there was a study of MLB attendance and the best non-performance factor that was a reliable predictor of attendance was population within five miles of the stadium.

Want a successful team find a city with good population density near the stadium site.

Population density is a great measure, and this points to a city like Portland. Similar to other coastal cities, the core of Portland is dense, and it does have the metro population (2.3 million) to support baseball. Perhaps not a great measure, but Portland's two other professional teams - the Blazers and the Timbers - are consistently at the top of their leagues in attendance. I think the challenge with that city is finding the deep pocket support. Nike hasn't shown an interest in baseball, nor has Adidas. Paul Allen, who owns the Blazers and Seahawks, has the money, but seems more interested in the potential of hockey.

Both are inside sports which is condusive to Portland's fan base. Baseball is not. I think the weather patterns would "dampen" fan support for baseball in Oregon. Sorry had to do it. LOL