Potential MLB Expansion Thread

[KevFu]

I think it should be Montreal and Nashville.

You'll have 32 teams and exactly 8 teams in the West (from Denver to the Pacific ocean).
That makes it easier to get a realignment done.

If you go to a total geography like NHL (a terrible idea for baseball), you'd have 8 West, 9 Central, 15 East.

If you wanted to do four-team divisions in AL and NL, with a West-Central-North-South in each... Colorado can move to the AL West, giving Seattle a closer rival; and HOU/TEX can move to the Central/South (Which they'd love).

If you do the smartest thing, and go to four leagues of 8, you can have a Western League of those 8 teams, a Southern League (HOU, TEX, NASH, TB, MIA, ATL, WAS, BAL/KC), and keep the remaining AL and NL (NL gets Montreal) and make everyone happy.

 

[MMC]

 

[MMC]

 

[Mightygoose]

If the Rays fine a stadium solution in the region, I can't see Orlando being a serious contender.

 

[GKJ]

I see Orlando as the possible relocation solution to the Rays.

 

[Unholy Diver]

Not so sure how much sense a 3rd Florida team makes when the first two don't draw terribly well even when they have a good on field product, of course money talks and a new big shiny stadium would talk loudly

 

[MMC]

Orlando seems crazy for expansion, sounds like a good stadium plan for the Rays though

 

[MMC]

 

[HisIceness]

I support Orlando's bid. You go Orlando!

 

[HajdukSplit]

Not sure a MLB team would work in Orlando, of course they will heavily rely on the tourism but who will go on vacation to go to a random MLB game? And even the small chance they do become a MLB team ffs change the name and logo

I’ve been living in the area for roughly four years now and since then the Orlando metro area has lost all its minor league teams and spring training facilities (the one in Kissimmee is now a soccer stadium). The other sports outside of UCF football don’t draw well, now the Magic have been awful so that doesn’t help but Orlando City is a semi-successful MLS team and the stadium at most is 80% full most weekends

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Florida isn’t a good pro baseball state. Rays have some logistical reasons, but that brand new stadium in Miami has been empty since it opened.

I don’t think another Florida team is a good idea.

Not getting any of that public funding from Nevada is probably considered a speed bump.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Florida isn’t a good pro baseball state. Rays have some logistical reasons, but that brand new stadium in Miami has been empty since it opened.

I don’t think another Florida team is a good idea.


Not getting any of that public funding from Nevada is probably considered a speed bump.

Plus, aren’t Orlando sports fans basically fans of the Tampa Bay teams anyway?

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Plus, aren’t Orlando sports fans basically fans of the Tampa Bay teams anyway?

Yeah, It’d be like adding a team in San Jose with 2 teams already in the market.

 

[HajdukSplit]

Plus, aren’t Orlando sports fans basically fans of the Tampa Bay teams anyway?

Again I’ve only been in the area for roughly four years and maybe somebody else will give better answer but generally yes, when it comes to major sports we are technically considered a “Tampa market”, we get all the teams on TV here and none of the Miami based teams other than the Marlins. Though also Florida in general is mostly people from other states who keep their hometown fandom with them

UCF football is pretty big as the other two state schools and compared to some other cities the MLS team has some mainstream publicity and you can easily find their gear in most stores

 

[KevFu]

Tampa/St. Pete and Orlando having all four sports combined makes sense.

The Rays problem attendance wise is a bad outdated stadium on one side of the Bay that the other side doesn't want to drive to. Fans from one side will make the trip across the Bay for the Buccaneers, because it's a Sunday, not rush hour, and 8 times a season.

Not that I'd advocate for markets losing teams to other markets; but if this happens:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Lightning
Orlando Magic, Orlando Rays makes the most sense.

For a long-season sport like baseball, being able to draw from a wider area of people would help a lot. I know tons of people who'd go to MLB games 45 to 90 miles away; and Orlando just has a ton more people in those radii because of all the water around the Tampa Bay region.


And I agree that "Dreamers" is just a terrible name. Even if MLB likes the expansion bid better than anyone else's, they gotta tell them to pick a name that doesn't suck.

 

[MMC]

 

[Scandale du Jour]

What the hell is this monstruosity?

 

[Unholy Diver]

It looks like a 1955 artist's rendition of what the airport of 2055 will look like

 

[AtlantaWhaler]

It looks like a 1955 artist's rendition of what the airport of 2055 will look like

I always think of the old Looney Toons episode with Duck Dodgers where they showed "the future" with flying cars and tubes carrying people everywhere in space. The year they imagined this....1996

Anyways, I digress....that thing looks really weird. What's the water on either side? Looks like water treatment plants.

 

[KevFu]

I always think of the old Looney Toons episode with Duck Dodgers where they showed "the future" with flying cars and tubes carrying people everywhere in space. The year they imagined this....1996

Totally off topic, but there's a "fan theory" that the Jetsons and Flintstones were taking place at the same time. The Jetsons were clearly "the future" with buildings floating in the clouds and flying cars...

But while the Flintstones were a pre-historic caveperson THEME, they still had pre-historic adaptations of modern items/life: Domesticated dinosaurs/sabertooth tigers as pets, Cars with wheels/feet power, Work shifts with whistles and time clocks, Drive Thru ribs, "Cameras" of a pterodactyls chiseling a picture into stone, etc, etc.

The theory is that some kind of apocalyptic event happened, like a nuclear WW3, and the upper class escaped to the sky, with their flying cars and cloud apartments; while down below, the poor were left to remake society with stone, rock, clubs, pelts and animals instead of modern machinery.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

That domed structure looks like it would be 2,000 feet in length. I wonder what would be under the dome once you get past the baseball stadium itself? Retail, hotels, entertainment/restaurants, condos?

 

[Unholy Diver]

That domed structure looks like it would be 2,000 feet in length. I wonder what would be under the dome once you get past the baseball stadium itself? Retail, hotels, entertainment/restaurants, condos?

 

[GKJ]

I just noticed this but looks like the Bio-Dome

 

[KevFu]

It should be noted that the Orlando project ISN'T someone trying to OWN an MLB team, he's just trying to INVITE one.

Orlando has to be dead last on the expansion candidates list because there's no owner attached.

 

[John Price]