Speaking Thursday at a meeting of the Associated Press Sports Editors, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday that expansion is on the table.

Jesse Spector of the Sporting News was on hand.

Manfred says expansion “outside the 48 contiguous states” would make sense. He does not explicitly say “Montreal.”

Jesse Spector (@jessespector) April 21, 2016

“It wasn’t a veiled reference to any particular city. … In addition to Montreal, there are other cities that would be on the list.”

Jesse Spector (@jessespector) April 21, 2016

Manfred has been talking about expanding to 32 teams for a while now, citing the sport’s growing revenues and the possibility of splitting each league into four divisions with four teams each. But he’s also said that the Rays’ and Athletics stadium situations need to be resolved first, which means we’re likely a good five to six years away from any expansion. Rays officials only recently started talking to local government leaders about a new stadium to replace Tropicana Field, which is ill-suited for a number of reasons.

Oakland’s situation is much more messy, in part because the franchise’s stadium prospects are so entwined with with the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, who also want a stadium of their own. The two teams currently share the same stadium, which works well for neither of them, and the city of Oakland is loathe to help build new arenas for each team.

And yes, Montreal would be seen as a front-runner for any expansion team, given the city’s previous experience with the Expos, that Olympic Stadium could host the team for a few years until a new stadium is built and that the Montreal metropolitan area is the largest in Canada or the United States that doesn’t have an MLB team. Numerous other cities have been thrown out there, as well: San Antonio, Charlotte, Austin

 

Source : washingtonpost.com

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