MLB Expansion Should Move Kansas City Royals to Entirely New Division

Expansion

The idea of expanding MLB from 30 to 32 teams has long been in the works. Several cities have been mentioned from time to time in discussion of where the two teams would end up.

Montreal, almost from the day the Expos left for Washington, have been listed as a possible expansion city. Las Vegas, Mexico City and Charlotte, North Carolina, have garnered attention from commissioner Rob Manfred at different points, as well. Although, the new favorite to join Montreal in an expansion seems to be Portland.

For the remainder of this article, we will operate under the assumption that these will be the two cities tabbed to land new franchises. If you feel so inclined, you can also pretend the A’s move from Oakland to Las Vegas (similar to a certain football team) and the Rays head to Charlotte after leaving Tampa. Neither of those moves would affect either realignment plan.

Major League Baseball has not seen expansion since Arizona and Tampa Bay joined the league in 1998. That came just five years after Florida (now Miami) and Colorado expanded MLB to 28 teams. One of the biggest positives of reaching 32 teams would be that it would appear to be the maximum number MLB could support.

Now, we’ll take a look at how realignment could look with 32 teams. Needless to say, we differ with the Baseball America article on the best way go about that.