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BA Expansion Article and Discussion
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Post by rafael on Apr 24, 2015 11:10:01 GMT -5
Mexico could definitely support a team and have a great TV deal. Look how much money Soccer makes there. Coke and Honda and other major brands aren't advertising things that millions of Mexicans wouldn't be able to afford. Plus, there are tons of very rich Mexicans as well who would buy luxury boxes and luxury paraphernalia. As someone mentioned, we're not just looking at the millions in MXCity, but also the millions in the rest of the country who would instantly be part of the fan base. The Mexican football (sorry, can't refer to it as soccer) team that makes more money in a TV deal is Chivas Guadalajara that makes 35 million dollars a year. Also, football is a bigger thing that baseball in Mexico, which means that it is doubtful that a team in Mexico City would have a great local TV deal comparing to other MLB franchises.
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Post by beavertontim on Apr 24, 2015 15:25:12 GMT -5
Mexico City may have another issue beyond fan base income. Free agents and veteran contracts. I can imagine many players not wanting to live in Mexico City due to the cultural issues, language issues, local currency issues, distance from Family amplified by border issues, etc. Many players would never sign there, and even more would negotiate no trade deals to Mexico City
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 24, 2015 15:41:58 GMT -5
I think you would have to think about if and when you add two teams do you break down into 4 divisions in each league? If so you have to look at where the new teams go within those 4 divisions. That might determine where you place a team. So say you create 4 division, 4 teams a division. So say the AL breaks down into these 4 divisions. East- Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. Central- Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Toronto. The Midwest- Kansas City, Minnesota, Texas, and Houston. West- Oakland, Seattle, Anaheim, and expansion team. So the NL is harder to break down. East- New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Miami. Central- Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Washington. Midwest- St. Louis, Cincinnati, Colorado, and expansion Team. West- Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Arizona. If you break it down into 4 divisions that pretty much decides where you are going to place your teams and who gets what expansion team. The two areas you will need teams will be one on the west coast and one in the lower central time zone. The AL will get a west team. I think that goes without saying and an obvious choice. So Las Vegas and Portland would be your choices for expansion. In the NL you will need a Midwest or lower central team. That makes Indianapolis a no brainer. Moving St. Louis and Cincinnati out of the Central might make some owners mad but I do not see any way around it. Toronto will probably be happy to get out of the AL East. Just my 2 cents. First of all, you do want 4 x 4 team divisions in each league for scheduling purposes, but you have to group them into two 8-team conferences for playoff purposes (and maybe that's all that is official). Best record in each conference, plus next three best records, make the playoffs. If you let all four division champs into the playoffs, you're really likely to get a team in the playoffs each year in each league that wasn't as good and maybe not nearly as good as one of the teams that missed out. IOW, the odds that the second-best division runner-up is better than one of the division champs are pretty high. It's easy to do divisions by adding Montreal and Charlotte. There are three West Coast teams in each league, plus two Mountain Zone teams (both in the NL, though). And there are 8 teams that play in the Central Zone -- but, thanks to the move of the Astros into the AL, 5 are in the AL and 3 are in the NL. The Astros have to move back to the NL, and the Rockies move to the AL (which is what they should have done a couple of years ago). (The Rockies are much closer to Seattle and and the Diamondbacks are much closer to SD, so you're reducing travel by moving them instead of the Snakes.) Now you have: AL West
Chicago White Sox Kansas City Minnesota Texas Colorado Seattle Oakland / San Jose / Sacramento Anaheim NL WestChicago Cubs St. Louis Milwaukee Houston Arizona San Diego San Francisco Los Angeles (Note that because there are 8 clubs in the western two time zones and 8 clubs in the Central, it's going to be hard to ever put a club in Portland -- unless the A's end up there. The problem is not bumping Colorado into a Midwest division -- it's actually closer geographically to the Central Zone clubs than it is to the West Coast, and would be a great fit in a division with Texas, Minnesota, and Kansas City (and a good fit with Houston, St. Louis, and Milwaukee). It might also help the Rockies to play their division games at 6 PM, brain time, rather than 8 PM. However, now one of the Central clubs, probably Milwaukee, needs to be bumped to the East, and that really doesn't work at all.) The 16 clubs in the East are a little tougher, but not that much so. Each league already has three clubs in the great northeast urban corridor (Boston, Yankees, Orioles versus Phillies, Mets, and Nationals). Those two divisions have to be completed by the two Canadian teams. There's an argument that the New Expos should be in the AL, with Toronto moving to the NL, but it works either way. (The argument is partly geographic -- Montreal is much closer to Boston than to Philly (in fact, Boston fans could drive to Montreal like they do to Baltimore), while Toronto is a bit closer to Philly than to Boston; and partly that you want the new Montreal team to be in the other league, just like they did with the Nats. You might also help restore the competitive league imbalance by putting both expansion clubs in the AL.) There's a club in Florida in each league, but no AL counterpart to the Braves, so that's where the Carolina club goes. So that's half of a central / southern division for each league. And that leaves two midwest but Eastern Zone clubs to round out the divisions. AL EastBoston NY Yankees Baltimore Montreal or Toronto Cleveland Detroit Carolina Tampa Bay NL EastPhiladelphia NY Mets Washington Toronto or Montreal Cincinnati Pittsburgh Atlanta Miami
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danr
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Post by danr on Apr 24, 2015 15:47:57 GMT -5
Baseball is a lot more popular in Mexico than it is in Canada. I think I would rather see a team in Mexico City than in Montreal. I think it probably would be very profitable, particularly in they built a large stadium. Attendance there might be a larger portion of revenues.
The population of metro Mexico City is 21 million - larger than the population in the New York metro area. That's five times larger than the metro area of Montreal.
I've never been to Mexico City but I know people who have, and, if you have money, as major league ballplayers do, there are good places to live and it can be an enjoyable city. It does have an air pollution problem.
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Post by hockeypuck2008 on Apr 24, 2015 16:23:41 GMT -5
I think you would have to think about if and when you add two teams do you break down into 4 divisions in each league? If so you have to look at where the new teams go within those 4 divisions. That might determine where you place a team. So say you create 4 division, 4 teams a division. So say the AL breaks down into these 4 divisions. East- Boston, New York, Baltimore, and Tampa Bay. Central- Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Toronto. The Midwest- Kansas City, Minnesota, Texas, and Houston. West- Oakland, Seattle, Anaheim, and expansion team. So the NL is harder to break down. East- New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Miami. Central- Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and Washington. Midwest- St. Louis, Cincinnati, Colorado, and expansion Team. West- Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Arizona. If you break it down into 4 divisions that pretty much decides where you are going to place your teams and who gets what expansion team. The two areas you will need teams will be one on the west coast and one in the lower central time zone. The AL will get a west team. I think that goes without saying and an obvious choice. So Las Vegas and Portland would be your choices for expansion. In the NL you will need a Midwest or lower central team. That makes Indianapolis a no brainer. Moving St. Louis and Cincinnati out of the Central might make some owners mad but I do not see any way around it. Toronto will probably be happy to get out of the AL East. Just my 2 cents. First of all, you do want 4 x 4 team divisions in each league for scheduling purposes, but you have to group them into two 8-team conferences for playoff purposes (and maybe that's all that is official). Best record in each conference, plus next three best records, make the playoffs. If you let all four division champs into the playoffs, you're really likely to get a team in the playoffs each year in each league that wasn't as good and maybe not nearly as good as one of the teams that missed out. IOW, the odds that the second-best division runner-up is better than one of the division champs are pretty high. It's easy to do divisions by adding Montreal and Charlotte. There are three West Coast teams in each league, plus two Mountain Zone teams (both in the NL, though). And there are 8 teams that play in the Central Zone -- but, thanks to the move of the Astros into the AL, 5 are in the AL and 3 are in the NL. The Astros have to move back to the NL, and the Rockies move to the AL (which is what they should have done a couple of years ago). (The Rockies are much closer to Seattle and and the Diamondbacks are much closer to SD, so you're reducing travel by moving them instead of the Snakes.) Now you have: AL West
Chicago White Sox Kansas City Minnesota Texas Colorado Seattle Oakland / San Jose / Sacramento Anaheim NL WestChicago Cubs St. Louis Milwaukee Houston Arizona San Diego San Francisco Los Angeles (Note that because there are 8 clubs in the western two time zones and 8 clubs in the Central, it's going to be hard to ever put a club in Portland -- unless the A's end up there. The problem is not bumping Colorado into a Midwest division -- it's actually closer geographically to the Central Zone clubs than it is to the West Coast, and would be a great fit in a division with Texas, Minnesota, and Kansas City (and a good fit with Houston, St. Louis, and Milwaukee). It might also help the Rockies to play their division games at 6 PM, brain time, rather than 8 PM. However, now one of the Central clubs, probably Milwaukee, needs to be bumped to the East, and that really doesn't work at all.) The 16 clubs in the East are a little tougher, but not that much so. Each league already has three clubs in the great northeast urban corridor (Boston, Yankees, Orioles versus Phillies, Mets, and Nationals). Those two divisions have to be completed by the two Canadian teams. There's an argument that the New Expos should be in the AL, with Toronto moving to the NL, but it works either way. (The argument is partly geographic -- Montreal is much closer to Boston than to Philly (in fact, Boston fans could drive to Montreal like they do to Baltimore), while Toronto is a bit closer to Philly than to Boston; and partly that you want the new Montreal team to be in the other league, just like they did with the Nats. You might also help restore the competitive league imbalance by putting both expansion clubs in the AL.) There's a club in Florida in each league, but no AL counterpart to the Braves, so that's where the Carolina club goes. So that's half of a central / southern division for each league. And that leaves two midwest but Eastern Zone clubs to round out the divisions. AL EastBoston NY Yankees Baltimore Montreal or Toronto Cleveland Detroit Carolina Tampa Bay NL EastPhiladelphia NY Mets Washington Toronto or Montreal Cincinnati Pittsburgh Atlanta Miami
How is a 4 by 4 league harder to schedule? I would think it would be much easier actually. Also, Chicago in the West will be much harder to sell then the Cardinals and Reds to a Midwest division.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 24, 2015 16:24:15 GMT -5
Baseball is a lot more popular in Mexico than it is in Canada. I think I would rather see a team in Mexico City than in Montreal. I think it probably would be very profitable, particularly in they built a large stadium. Attendance there might be a larger portion of revenues. The population of metro Mexico City is 21 million - larger than the population in the New York metro area. That's five times larger than the metro area of Montreal. I've never been to Mexico City but I know people who have, and, if you have money, as major league ballplayers do, there are good places to live and it can be an enjoyable city. It does have an air pollution problem. The commish is talking about both. Mexico City would work in place of Carolina. (And New Jersey, BTW, would work in place of Montreal). As I just added to my long re-alignment breakdown, Portland doesn't seem to fit in at all. For the same reason, San Antonio would be tough, and doesn't look like a good candidate to begin with. Either seems to be a better place to move the A's than to San Jose, though, as does Sacramento. One outside possibility that the BA article didn't mention is Tennessee. The Nashville area was a bit larger in population than Milwaukee in 2010, and is growing, and is the same distance from Atlanta as Charlotte is.
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Post by jimed14 on Apr 24, 2015 16:24:46 GMT -5
If you're not having the division leaders make the playoffs, there is no point in having 4 divisions, is there?
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 24, 2015 16:36:22 GMT -5
First of all, you do want 4 x 4 team divisions in each league for scheduling purposes, but you have to group them into two 8-team conferences for playoff purposes (and maybe that's all that is official). How is a 4 by 4 league harder to schedule? I would think it would be much easier actually. Also, Chicago in the West will be much harder to sell then the Cardinals and Reds to a Midwest division. It's much easier, that's why I have it as a stealth thing. I'm not sure what your "also" means. The Cubs and Cardinals have to be in the same division, and there's no room for them in the East. Both of my new Central divisions consist of 3 of the 5 current Central division clubs, plus the Texas team.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 24, 2015 16:37:18 GMT -5
Yeah, Nashville didn't pop into my head initially but it would be a very worthy spot. Good call on that one.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 24, 2015 17:43:55 GMT -5
If you're not having the division leaders make the playoffs, there is no point in having 4 divisions, is there? Tell that to the NBA. If you don't want to copy them, you can make them secret subdivisions for scheduling purposes only. Here's a 162 game schedule: 14 games against each of your division rivals 8 games against each of the 4 teams in your conference in the other division 6 games against teams in the other conference 6 interleague games against the teams in the opposite geographical division. (I hate the specific "traditional rival" extra games.) These teams are often within driving distance -- we should be playing a home-and-home series each year against the Mets, Phillies, and Nats. 4 interleague games against each team of a rotating interleague division -- two series at home, two on the road. Every team in the other league other than the above comes to town once every six years for a 4-game series. The only potential problem with this is that it fits naturally into a schedule that's 10 days shorter than the existing one. I'm not sure that would be tougher on the players, though, because the travel would be considerably easier. The bigger problem might be re-scheduling rainouts, so you might well want to build in some scheduled day / night doubleheaders to give extra off days. And of course it would allow you to expand the one-game wild-card to a best of three (all in the park of the team with the better record), and expand the division series from 5 to 7 -- and still chop 5 days off the whole year. Edit: the other way that works easily is to keep the 18 games against the division, make interleague play against the geographical rivals work like the above proposal for rotating divisions (two 4 game series at home, two on the road), and reduce the alternating home / road series against the rotating other division from 4 games to 3. This would make more sense if you were not combining the two divisions for playoff seeding a la the NBA. We can debate whether 18 games is too many to play the Yankees, O's, and Montreal or Toronto.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Apr 24, 2015 18:14:54 GMT -5
First of all, you do want 4 x 4 team divisions in each league for scheduling purposes, but you have to group them into two 8-team conferences for playoff purposes (and maybe that's all that is official). Best record in each conference, plus next three best records, make the playoffs. If you let all four division champs into the playoffs, you're really likely to get a team in the playoffs each year in each league that wasn't as good and maybe not nearly as good as one of the teams that missed out. IOW, the odds that the second-best division runner-up is better than one of the division champs are pretty high. I think 4 division winners and 2 wildcards, in each League, per playoff would be perfect. That's what the NFL does and that's a 32 team league. It's enough teams to make things more interesting/competitive for playoff competition while not being silly and letting in 50%+ of the teams in the league (like the NBA; where the Spurs will intentionally throw regular season games just to rest their starters). Also, there is the 'it will make us more money!' aspect that I'm sure would entice both owners and players.
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Post by rafael on Apr 24, 2015 18:57:16 GMT -5
Why can't teams move between leagues? I know it's not common, but it would be very cool to see the AL East with the Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles and Nats.
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Post by raftsox on Apr 24, 2015 19:03:00 GMT -5
I'd rather see them expand to Latin America (Mexico) than attempt the montreal experiment a second time. Its not only close but I can see them pulling in a lot more revenue and interest for the league. San Antonio would also be great. I think two New York teams is more than enough. I have a hard time seeing baseball catching on in some of the other suggested locations too. Montreal was a viable baseball market until Loria ruined the team.
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Post by sibbysisti on Apr 25, 2015 7:05:20 GMT -5
Why can't teams move between leagues? I know it's not common, but it would be very cool to see the AL East with the Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles and Nats. Teams have moved between leagues. Milwaukee used to be an AL team, and recently, Houston moved from the National to the American League.
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Post by bentossaurus on Apr 25, 2015 9:29:27 GMT -5
Without moving the league structure too much.
Relocations:
Tampa moves to Montreal A's move to San Jose
Expansions:
One of Portland/Vancouver. One of Mexico City/Las Vegas.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Apr 25, 2015 19:00:57 GMT -5
Without moving the league structure too much. Relocations: Tampa moves to Montreal A's move to San Jose Expansions: One of Portland/Vancouver. One of Mexico City/Las Vegas. I know there's longstanding talk of moving the A's to san Jose, but there's no rationale for having an MLB club there. In the 2010 census, it ranked 31st in metro area population size, and of the top 40 cities, none has a bigger neighbor that is closer to it that SF's c. 48 miles. It's not too different from putting an MLB club in Providence. Here are the US cities with population between 1.5M and 2.5M, ranked by the combination of population and distance to the nearest bigger city, broken into tiers: 1. Pit 2. Cin 3. KC 4. Las Vegas. Never going to be a baseball club in the capital of US gambling. 5. Portland. Compelling argument that the A's should move here. 6. San Antonio. Already two teams in the state, and that matters. 7. Charlotte. Roughly tied for 3rd in distance from bigger city, growing population. Excellent candidate. 8. Cle 9. Sacramento. Just 87 miles from SF, though. 10. Orlando. 85 miles from TB, where baseball is struggling. 11. Nashville. An alternative to Charlotte. Then you have Norfolk / Virginia Beach, Austin, Columbus, Indianapolis, San Jose, Milwaukee, and Providence. That Milwaukee sustains pro sports clubs is kind of a wonder given its size. If MLB leaves Tampa Bay, it would be the only metro area in the top 22 in size not to have a franchise (excepting Riverside, CA, 57 miles from LA). One idea I've kicked around is making them a regional franchise and having them play some games in Orlando, where they could partner with Disney, etc. Heck, they could play some games in Mexico City, too. Move the A's to Portland, expand to Montreal and one of Charlotte, Nashville, or Mexico City. If Tampa (or a Tampa / Orlando combo) proves not to work, you still have one or two losers of the expansion (you wouldn't go into both Charlotte and Nashville) plus San Antonio and New Jersey as possibilties for a franchise move.
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 25, 2015 23:30:15 GMT -5
The thing with San Jose is that there's a ton of money there, and the A's would keep most of their East Bay fan base. I agree it isn't the perfect destination for a move. But, and the double negative is necessary here, there's no reason Oakland shouldn't be allowed to move there if it wants to.
Indianapolis is 112 miles from Cincinnati and 182 from Chicago, which seems like a pretty ideal distance - certainly far enough of a range where it's tough for a resident there to go to a game and be back home that night, but close enough where natural rivalries would kick in. It would get extra points for its strong support of two pro franchises and it's fantastic Triple-A attendance. The negative is just in terms of the distribution of teams - the Midwest is probably overrepresented, while the southeast and northwest are not represented enough.
Here's my current order of semi-realistic preference for new team destinations: 1. North Jersey or Brooklyn 2. Charlotte or Nashville 3. Portland or Vancouver 4. Indianapolis 5. Second choice of Charlotte/Nashville
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Post by klostrophobic on Apr 26, 2015 23:08:43 GMT -5
Looked it up for the 1997 expansion draft and wikipedia says: Be interesting to see which 15 players the Red Sox would protect. And then which players they would protect after each round. So an expansion draft for for the 2016 season would take place in November 2015 and would autoprotect players drafted in 2014 and this June and players 18 or younger when signed in 2013, based on above rules. Betts Bogaerts Ramirez Swihart Owens Margot Rodriguez Moncada Johnson Kelly Miley Porcello Vazquez Castillo Pedroia Dunno if that is too youth-heavy. Sandoval would prob get selected but I'm fine with that. Nava, Holt, Buchholz probably. God I'm just imagining the frenzy of hot takes we'd have to endure if they left Ortiz off of the protected list. Looking at the 1997 draft it's amazing how poorly both teams ended up doing. Whoever would end up running these two new hypothetical teams would undoubtedly be way, way smarter and have access to so much more (relevant) information than the Rays and Dbacks did, an expansion draft in this era would be much more fascinating. True, my thinking was Ortiz would retire if selected or just wouldn't report, or a team that was about to win 60 games wouldn't select a 40 year old DH. So why waste a protection.
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