The idea of expansion of Major League Baseball to Salt Lake City is growing more and more accepted. To the point that earlier this week Forbes contributor Maury Brown designated Salt Lake City as one of the two frontrunners to get an expansion team, along with Nashville, when Major League Baseball almost inevitably decides to go ahead and grow to 32 teams.
Others are less definitive on Salt Lake City getting an expansion team, but ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle noted this week that Salt Lake City is among four cities located in the West that have a real shot and landing a franchise, along with San Jose, California; Portland, Oregon; and Vancouver, British Columbia.
At worst, Salt Lake City is very much in the running. At best, Salt Lake City is at the front of the line.
It is generally accepted that MLB will expand and in a recent appearance by league commissioner Rob Manfred on ESPN — during “Sunday Night Baseball” — he made it clear that the league is looking ahead to how MLB will change if/when it adds two more franchises.
Specifically geographic realignment regarding which franchises are in which divisions and maybe even if the American and National league exist at all.
Said Manfred: “I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign. I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. I think our postseason format would be even more appealing for entities like ESPN because you’d be playing out of the East, out of the West, and that 10 o’clock where we sometimes get Boston-Anaheim would be two West Coast teams. That 10 o’clock slot that’s a problem for us sometimes becomes a real opportunity for our West Coast audience.”
Where does a potential expansion team in Salt Lake City come in?
Brown believes that a SLC-based franchise will be grouped with Northwestern and Rocky Mountain-based teams in Seattle, San Francisco and Colorado.
CBS Sports’ Mike Axisa, meanwhile, predicted something similar, although he replaced Salt Lake City with Portland and replaced Colorado with Las Vegas in his projected Northwest Division.
Doolittle believes that MLB would be better served by not expanding in the West, rather than two expansion teams in the East will lead to more balanced divisions for the sport.
“There are eight franchises that operate in the Pacific and Mountain time zones. That number fits nicely into a 32-team structure, whether you go with four eight-team divisions or eight four-team divisions.
“Things get murkier if one of the expansion teams ends up in the West, which might happen with San Jose, California; Salt Lake City; Portland, Oregon; and even Vancouver, British Columbia, having been floated as possibilities. If a ninth franchise is situated out West, some organization is going to end up with an awkward divisional assignment. Given the vast distances in the West, this creates excessive travel headaches, among other things. That’s already a problem, but it’s one expansion could fix.”
All are in agreement that the American and National leagues may be a thing of the past, geographic realignment rendering them obsolete. Or at the very least, they will look nothing like they have historically.
“As with all things baseball, change is something many fans have a difficult time adjusting to,” Brown wrote. “Of course, how many fans are still upset about the Astros moving out of the NL Central? Or, the Brewers moving from the AL to the NL? But, when regional realignment arrives — and it’s a when, not if — fans will undoubtedly have a lot to say about the facelift to Major League Baseball.
Count CBS Sports’ Matt Snyder as one of those vehemently opposed to dramatic changes to the current setup, even though he is a fan of expansion.
“I’d join the people who freak out here if some of these suggestions I’ve seen floating around the internet actually happen,” Snyder wrote. “It’s stuff like putting the Yankees and Mets in the same division in the Eastern Conference while the Angels and Dodgers are in the same division in the Western Conference.
“That’s a gigantic nope for me. Absolutely not. Any expansion teams from the past are fair game, as far as I’m concerned, to switch leagues in a realignment to make room for the two expansion teams. We’ve already seen both the Brewers and Astros switch leagues and while there was initial uproar from those fan bases, things are perfectly fine right now with both franchises where they are.
“The American League and National League feel too sacred, to me, to be eliminated. I like having AL and NL records. I love thinking about the AL and NL pennants. I still want there to be awards for each league (NL MVP and AL MVP, for example) instead of consolidating into one MLB-wide award. If we went down to one, history changes in that it was easier for a long, long time to win one than it would be moving forward.
However it all shakes out, if Salt Lake City is awarded an expansion team in the future, it is clear that the franchise will also be operating in a revamped MLB. Perhaps an unrecognizable one.
