Major League Baseball added two teams in 1998 to take the total to 30. The game has stayed on that number for nearly two decades, its longest period without expansion in 54 years.
The game’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, said this week he is open to the idea of adding more teams.
Two expansion franchises, taking the MLB total to 32, makes sense on several levels.
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Assuming each of the National and American leagues added one team, it would allow baseball to escape the interleague-game-every-day rut it has been stuck in since 2013, when the Houston Astros shifted leagues to balance them at 15 each.
Thirty-two teams also would neatly break down to four divisions of four teams in each league, with the division champions advancing to the play-offs.
The elimination of the wild card would appeal to baseball purists, but the play-offs could go another way, too, keeping two wild cards and having them play the two division winners with the poorest records, perhaps in best-of-three series. The survivors would meet the two division winners with the best records, who would sit out the first round. This is the system used by the NFL.
Expansion franchises also could take the game to new areas. Clubs in Mexico City or Montreal could do well. In a few years, Havana, in baseball-mad Cuba, might make sense, too.
MLB counted 73.7 million paid admissions last season, up 3.6 million on 1998, when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Rays became the 29th and 30th clubs.
The game continues to grow and two more teams could – and should – be accommodated.
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
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