Baseball needs to expand its thinking

Ken Rosenthal at FoxSports.com explores something I've been talking about for a while, moving the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays to cities that actually want to watch baseball. That the Rays rank as low as they do in attendance (22nd) is a crime considering the talent on that team. Baseball completely mishandled expansion over the years, seriously endangering two franchises — the Marlins and Rays — by allowing them to play in terrible stadiums in cities that just weren't ready for a Major League Baseball team. From an attendance perspective, Denver has been a good fit but it took a decade for the franchise to figure out how to make baseball playable at altitude. Phoenix has held its own, but like the Florida teams, the Diamondbacks suffer from being located in a city whose wintering population has deeply entrenched loyalties to other teams.

But baseball doesn't need to contract, it needs to expand. First fix the two teams that suffer from location (as opposed to Pittsburgh and the now the Marlins, who suffer from gross mismanagement). Move the Rays to Charlotte — the long history of minor-league baseball in the region should help a team as talented as the Rays find a loyal following quickly. Move the A's somewhere, either to San Jose or Portland — either city is a little to close to other major-league teams for total comfort, but the Bay Area is huge and can support two teams and the A's already draw a fairly loyal fan base in much of southern and central Oregon. Then expand by two teams and bring some balance to the size of the leagues and divisions.

If baseball follows the example set by the Colorado Rockies, they can still find good homes for expansion teams. Denver isn't a major market, but it's large enough to draw well when the team is good; the city had a long history of minor-league baseball before getting a major-league team; and it also a long history of supporting major-league franchises in other sports. Memphis and San Antonio would be good fits and if the baseball really wants to be bold, they could put a team in Buffalo or New Jersey and try to eat into the biggest markets and help balance out revenue.

Baseball is running a bit scared from the lesson the NHL's over-expansion in the 1990s, but baseball can support two more teams as long as the league takes some time to consider how cities might actually embrace a team.