MLB Scoop

It seems like only a few years ago that Major League Baseball was considering contraction, after two expansions totaling four new franchises in the 1990s.  Baseball purists decried the dilution of the talent pool.With global development of the game shown off by the World Baseball Classic tournament and South Korea winning the Olympic gold medal, it should be clear to all that there is more baseball talent in the world that any other time in history, and by far.

When you look back to the 16 team era, the MLB pulled from a much smaller pool of talent: White Americans.  When Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, an immediate pool of MLB-ready talent was waiting to join from the Negro Leagues.  Sadly, that integration did not come fast enough for some of the greatest ballplayers ever like Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston and Satchel Paige (though Paige of course had a brief MLB career in his 40s).  Transportation advances made a league of teams across the 48 contiguous states viable. Expansion was not only possible but necessary to maintain a similar level of talent and to reach a wider audience.

Baseball is the most popular sport in countries like Japan, Taiwan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Panama.  Latin America is providing the MLB with an incredible number of players these days, with the Dominican and Venezuela leading the way.  There is a league filled with quality players in Japan and an AAA level league in Mexico.

Within the next five years or so, Major League Baseball will be ripe for expansion again.  Before 1998, the gap between expansions was 16 years (1977 to 1993). We’re getting coming into our 11th year now.   There are plenty of cities in AAA worthy of examination for an MLB team with Portland, Las Vegas, Charlotte, Indianapolis and the Tennessee cities of Nashville and Memphis worth a look.  Canada deserves consideration again, with Vancouver growing and Montreal, yes Montreal, the largest city in North America without a baseball team, worthy of re-consideration contingent on a properly committed ownership group sometime in the future.

Economic times may be hard right now but the baseball industry is growing strong, opening up new markets of talent and markets in which to sell products.  The business of baseball is stronger than ever.  The talent pool available is bigger than ever.  The equation leads to one answer, and that is further expansion of Major League Baseball sometime in the next 5 years or so.  Which cities are the best candidates?  That’s a debate for another day, but the trends show it will be a debate whose time will come.