Should baseball expand again?

[Murderer's Crow]

I don't understand, unless you have a family, why people constantly make the argument that going to a baseball game is too expensive. You can drink, eat, and get in the door for cheaper than your average Manhattan restaurant bill.

If you can't afford premium seats today, you couldn't afford them 10 years ago either and they're still cheaper than most other sports.

I spend more going to the movies and out to eat with my girlfriend than I do when we catch games. Every time.

 

[terrisus]

I don't understand, unless you have a family, why people constantly make the argument that going to a baseball game is too expensive. You can drink, eat, and get in the door for cheaper than your average Manhattan restaurant bill.

If you can't afford premium seats today, you couldn't afford them 10 years ago either and they're still cheaper than most other sports.

I spend more going to the movies and out to eat with my girlfriend than I do when we catch games. Every time.

 
"Too expensive" not necessarily in the sense of "Can't afford," but in the sense of "Past the level where the amount of money it costs would be more worthwhile to spend on different things."
 
When it's just a matter of putting out $20 for a ticket, $3 for a hot dog, and $2 for a drink, it's much easier to justify than $150 for a ticket, $8 for a hot dog, and $5 for a drink. Even if one can still "afford" it, at that point one is often thinking about the things that one could be doing with that money, as opposed to going to a game.
 
Of course, the same is true of going to the movies or an expensive restaurant. Which is one of the reasons my wife and I haven't been out to a movie in probably 7 or 8 years.
 
People make choices about what they spend their money on. Even if one can "afford" something, money is finite, and choices have to be made about how to spend it. The less money something costs - or the more money one has - the easier it is to fit more things in.

 

[Rice4HOF]

Given how expensive it is to go to a MLB game now, does it make sense to add even more AAAA players into the league? 

Why not? There is ZERO correlation between the quality of the product on the field and the price of a ticket.  If fans stopped coming to games then ticket prices would drop. But as long as fans continue to come out,it  doesn't really matter (to the setters of the ticket prices - i.e, owners).
 
I wrote this a long time ago about why there is no correlation between player salaries and ticket prices.
 

 Even if one can "afford" something, money is finite, and choices have to be made about how to spend it. The less money something costs - or the more money one has - the easier it is to fit more things in.

Read my link above for more blindingly obvious economics lessons.

 

[terrisus]

Read my link above for more blindingly obvious economics lessons.

 
I don't see how what is in that link disagrees with what I said.
 
If people are willing to pay $200 (as posited in that link for widgets), then, sure, sell tickets for $200 each.
But, not all teams are selling out every game they play. Most aren't selling out many of them at all.
 
If, say (just to use easy figures), a team is selling half of their tickets at an average of $200 each, but they could sell every one of their tickets at $150 each, then they would make far more by selling them at $150 each than at $200 each. (Feel free to insert your standard supply and demand graph here).
 
Now, obviously there are all sorts of analysists who are paid all sorts of money to find out what that exact balance is between how many people will attend a given game at a given cost of attendence price.
But, it is possible for a given situation to be deemed as "too expensive," and that more money would be made by reducing the price.

 

[Rice4HOF]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. Just pointing out that your statement was fairly obvious: "The less money something costs, the easier it is to fit more things in."  My link has other economic points which should be obvious but for some reason aren't to many.  
 
My point was geared towards the teams that do mainly sell out. No point in reducing ticket price to make it more affordable for the "average fan", since it would only decrease revenue. Of course, if they are having trouble selling tickets, they should reduce the prices, like your example point sout.

 

[terrisus]

Alright, sorry for misunderstanding.
 
And, yeah, for teams that are selling out/games which are selling out, no reason not to maximize profits.
But, for the teams and games which don't (which are the majority), it is a matter of finding a balance between a price and people in seats.
 
It may be "obvious," but, it was in reply to a post about how people spend money on movies and going out to dinner, and that if they could "afford" that then they could "afford" to go to a Baseball game. So I figured it was worth pointing out that it wasn't just a matter of whether or not someone could "afford" it.

 

[soxhop411]

LA angels of 
Tustin?
 
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0216-angels-stadium-tustin-20140216,0,1276246.story#axzz2tGU16axo
 
Could happen
 

 
TEMPE, Ariz. — Angels owner Arte Moreno met with officials from the City of Tustin last week to discuss the possibility of building a new baseball stadium, a team spokesman confirmed Saturday.

One potential site would be the decommissioned Marine Corps Air Station, which would be accessible via the 5, 405 and 55 Freeways and is across the street from the Tustin Metrolink train station.
"We did have an initial meeting with Tustin," said Marie Garvey, a consultant retained by the Angels to handle stadium negotiation issues. "We're still in discussions with the City of Anaheim, but we have to take a long-term view and explore all of our options to insure we have certainty for the future."
Moreno said Friday that negotiations for a new lease for Angel Stadium are "at a stalemate." He is clearly frustrated by Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait's reluctance to accept a proposal in which the Angels would spend $150 million to renovate the stadium in exchange for a 66-year, $1-a-year lease to develop 155 acres of land in the parking lot.
Garvey would not elaborate on details of the Tustin meeting, and she described talks with the city as being "in the infancy stage."
Asked if the meeting was a negotiating ploy to put pressure on Anaheim, Garvey said, "Absolutely not. We're taking a serious look at all of our options. We've spent the last three years focusing solely on Anaheim, and we're entering another season without a deal in a 48-year-old stadium that needs improvement."
Garvey would not say whether Moreno has met with any other cities to explore stadium construction.
"The important point is that we're looking at all of our options," Garvey said. "Our preference is to remain in Orange County, but it's way too early to get into specifics."
The team's current lease expires in 2029, but an out clause allows the Angels to leave any time between October of 2016 and October of 2019 with 12 months notice. Moreno said it would take four to five years to complete the process to build a new stadium.
Tait thinks Anaheim should at least split profits from parking-lot development, saying "$1 a year is ridiculously undervalued from a taxpayer's point of view — that property is worth hundreds of millions of dollars."
Moreno claims the city has been unwilling to pay for any of the much-needed improvements to the stadium. Anaheim is currently doing an appraisal of the land, which is bordered by three freeways, exploring property values both with and without a stadium.
"They're clearly looking at all of their options," Garvey said of Anaheim officials, "and we felt we needed to do the same."



http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0216-angels-stadium-tustin-20140216,0,1276246.story#ixzz2tRzHl22p

 

[Mighty Joe Young]

LA angels of 
Tustin?
 
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-0216-angels-stadium-tustin-20140216,0,1276246.story#axzz2tGU16axo
 
Could happen

In the 1920's this was known as a shakedown .. The scariest thing about this is that local governments actually fall for it.

 

[Sampo Gida]

This article has me rethinking my position on Latin America expansion.
 
http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5924:toms-why-mlb-is-thriving-and-dying&catid=67ete-toms&Itemid=155
 

  Yes, baseball is dying. And the evidence is not found in the diminished national TV ratings (TV ratings are down for all programming except the NFL) but in who, and who isn’t, watching. Old guys, not young guys, like baseball. Jonathan Mahler was amongst those who reported this fall that the median age of the 2012 WS TV viewer was 53.4. Perhaps more telling is the steady, long-term decline in the number of kids playing baseball.
 
But it is precisely because MLB fans are old that business is booming. The huge boost in MLB TV $$ comes from us old guys who subscribe to Pay TV. We are footing the bill for the recent spate of MLB mega deals with local RSNs. We aren’t the cord-cutting, digital natives who have never paid for content. They believe that paying $100/month to watch video is stupid. Earlier in the year Joe Flint reported that, “By 2015, almost half of all television viewing will be done by folks over the age of 50…”
 
The migration of local MLB broadcasts from free over-the-air TV to Pay TV was inevitable. Why? Because MLB fans can afford Pay TV. We are baby boomers, the most affluent generation in history. And baseball fans are the most affluent of sports fans. We complain about our cable bills, we’re old, so we’re allowed. But we’ll still pay for the nightly, pleasant, familiar, tribal, ritualistic pleasures of watching our team on our big TVs, in our comfortable basements. It feels good.

 
What will happen in 30 years when most of the Baby Boomers are gone.  Can I watch in heaven (or more likely hell)?
 
Maybe in 30 years Latin Americas median income and purchasing power catches up with US.  In the meantime I imagine MLB would have to heavily subsidize teams located south of the border

 

[Frank Fenway]

Wait I'm 27 and was a cord cutter until I got a decent job. Now I gladly pay for cable. Does that make me out of touch? 

 

[Sampo Gida]

Wait I'm 27 and was a cord cutter until I got a decent job. Now I gladly pay for cable. Does that make me out of touch? 

 
No, but your age groups numbers are insignificant compared to the Baby Boomers and as a group a lower percentage pays for cable. 

 

[terrisus]

Yes, baseball is dying. And the evidence is not found in the diminished national TV ratings (TV ratings are down for all programming except the NFL) but in who, and who isn’t, watching. Old guys, not young guys, like baseball. Jonathan Mahler was amongst those who reported this fall that the median age of the 2012 WS TV viewer was 53.4.

 
 
But, hey guys, those 8:30PM Eastern start times for playoff games are great because it gets the games on in Prime Time!

 

[timlinin8th]

No, but your age groups numbers are insignificant compared to the Baby Boomers and as a group a lower percentage pays for cable. 

I think the one problem with the article's assumption (and Frank hints at) is that older generations having more disposable income isn't new. It is akin to saying that because the majority of 20 somethings aren't going out purchasing brand new cars that the automobile industry is failing... Oooooor as these kids get older, with more disposable income, they will spend their money differently.

I know I've also read articles that try to show that because participation in youth baseball is down, that baseball is in trouble, but I've also seen before that participation in ALL youth sports is down (let's face it, we're becoming a more sedentary, indoors society). Kids are learning more about sports by playing them on xboxes than by actually participating in them, so I think that "evidence" is skewed as well.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

The only old people like baseball so baseball is dying sportswriter panic is at least 50 years old, possibly longer.

Obviously the game has done fine since then, and there's a lot of monetary upside to being the favored sport of people with disposable income. I'm sure the NBA would love to trade places, given the NBA has been hip, young and cool for 30 years and also been DOA to anybody with a mortgage or a pretense of having one for about the same time.

 

[Sampo Gida]

I think the one problem with the article's assumption (and Frank hints at) is that older generations having more disposable income isn't new. It is akin to saying that because the majority of 20 somethings aren't going out purchasing brand new cars that the automobile industry is failing... Oooooor as these kids get older, with more disposable income, they will spend their money differently.

I know I've also read articles that try to show that because participation in youth baseball is down, that baseball is in trouble, but I've also seen before that participation in ALL youth sports is down (let's face it, we're becoming a more sedentary, indoors society). Kids are learning more about sports by playing them on xboxes than by actually participating in them, so I think that "evidence" is skewed as well.

 
I think the main point is the numbers of tomorrows older generation will be much less, even if their disposable income will be greater, less money will be spent on baseball and revenue growth should slow unless they find additional revenue streams (eg international)  .

 

[Sampo Gida]

The only old people like baseball so baseball is dying sportswriter panic is at least 50 years old, possibly longer.

Obviously the game has done fine since then, and there's a lot of monetary upside to being the favored sport of people with disposable income. I'm sure the NBA would love to trade places, given the NBA has been hip, young and cool for 30 years and also been DOA to anybody with a mortgage or a pretense of having one for about the same time.

 
There were a lot more kids playing baseball 50 years ago and the population has almost doubled.  It has went from free TV to pay TV as well, which has played a huge role in MLB's revenue growth.   Today kids seem to be playing more soccer and watching less baseball.   There are far more entertainment options.  Whether baseball has more of an attraction for them as they age, I don't know, but there are fewer of them.

 

[8slim]

I've long been suspicious of there being anything causal between youth sports participation and the viability of that sport as a media entity. Soccer has had huge levels of participation for 3+ decades now and it is still a niche sport in this country. Yes, it has grown in TV popularity, but the ratings for almost everything but the World Cup are still tiny compared to the Big 4 pro sports, college football & hoops, NASCAR, golf, tennis, boxing and, more recently, MMA.

I do think that baseball has significant challenges to face, but I don't think declining participation is all that important.

 

[SumnerH]

 
 It has went from free TV to pay TV as well, which has played a huge role in MLB's revenue growth.

 
This statement is technically true but hugely misleading, IMO.  Many baseball games are now on basic cable instead of over the air channels, but 90% of the country has cable and isn't paying more to see baseball--it's on what is just another channel to most folks.  That's a huge difference from sports like boxing that essentially committed suicide by moving to premium-only or even pay-per-view events, where only the hardcore fans have any access to your premiere events--being on ESPN only in 1983 would've been a death knell, but being there in 2014 is only slightly smaller in reach than being on NBC or another major broadcast network is.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

Baseball isn't exactly hiding behind the curtain when it comes to TV. NESN was a pay channel up until the late 90s, as was Sportschannel in the Bay Area and quite a few other cable networks nationwide. You basically didn't see home games in MLB unless you paid $10-15 a month for those channels, or it was a Friday night and the game was on your local broadcast station. Road games were easier, but also usually at the mercy of time zones. My recollection as a kid was that people who paid for NESN/Sportschannel were pretty rare - almost nobody that my family knew paid for Sportschannel, likewise I remember it was a big deal that my uncle had a neighbor who had NESN. 
 
Furthermore, there were at least 20-30 games a year that just weren't on TV - mostly weekday flyaway games, but occasionally games on the weekend too. 
 
Combine that, along with the vastly, almost unimaginably increased access to out of market games and I think watching MLB games is much easier than it was 20 years ago. 

 

[terrisus]

I remember that, as a kid, if I wanted NESN, I had to convince my dad to pay $10 a month and also go pick up the special cable box from the cable company. Was a pretty tough sell, and I don't believe we had NESN until the mid 1990's

 
Same for me. Would get it during the Baseball season, and return the box at the end of the season.
In the years before that, I would sit there with the scrambled channel on, trying to make out what was happening on the screen.
 
Yes, some kids did that with the Playboy channel. I did that with NESN.

 

[Robert Plant]

Same for me. Would get it during the Baseball season, and return the box at the end of the season.
In the years before that, I would sit there with the scrambled channel on, trying to make out what was happening on the screen.
 
Yes, some kids did that with the Playboy channel. I did that with NESN.

Thus you spend countless hours of your adult life on a baseball discussion board, but at least you're not a pervert.

 

[Frank Fenway]

Baseball isn't exactly hiding behind the curtain when it comes to TV. NESN was a pay channel up until the late 90s, as was Sportschannel in the Bay Area and quite a few other cable networks nationwide. You basically didn't see home games in MLB unless you paid $10-15 a month for those channels, or it was a Friday night and the game was on your local broadcast station. Road games were easier, but also usually at the mercy of time zones. My recollection as a kid was that people who paid for NESN/Sportschannel were pretty rare - almost nobody that my family knew paid for Sportschannel, likewise I remember it was a big deal that my uncle had a neighbor who had NESN. 
 
Furthermore, there were at least 20-30 games a year that just weren't on TV - mostly weekday flyaway games, but occasionally games on the weekend too. 
 
Combine that, along with the vastly, almost unimaginably increased access to out of market games and I think watching MLB games is much easier than it was 20 years ago. 

 
I stopped really following baseball as a kid after my dad got laid off in the mid 90's and we couldn't afford NESN anymore.

 

[Sampo Gida]

Been an expat for 30 years so never had to get NESN.  Starting in the 90's I had to subscribe to an outfit in Belgium who would send me VHS tapes (and then DVD) of 2 Red Sox games per week.  I got them about 2 weeks after the game was played, so I only watched about half  Cost me about 30 dollars a week for the season. MLB TV has been a real lifesaver, especially since bandwidth issues have been resolved
 
 

 
This statement is technically true but hugely misleading, IMO.  Many baseball games are now on basic cable instead of over the air channels, but 90% of the country has cable and isn't paying more to see baseball--it's on what is just another channel to most folks.  That's a huge difference from sports like boxing that essentially committed suicide by moving to premium-only or even pay-per-view events, where only the hardcore fans have any access to your premiere events--being on ESPN only in 1983 would've been a death knell, but being there in 2014 is only slightly smaller in reach than being on NBC or another major broadcast network is.

 
My main point was that the transition from free to cable (pay) had a huge role in MLB's revenue growth, coupled with the impact of baby boomers spending more than that to see out of market games (eg mlb.tv, MLB network, Direct TV) .   That basic cable cost may be hidden to most baseball consumers, but every cable subscriber paying a couple of dollars to the RSN as part of their cable fee is huge. However, the basic cable component should plateau if it has not already
 
http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/cord-cutting-isnt-just-for-pirates-any-more/
 
Other pay mediums could turn negative down the road with the decline of the baby boomers from the height of their disposable income peak.

 

[soxhop411]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-tustin-angels-moreno-ballpark-20140930-story.html
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/Angels-Considering-Move-Out-of-Anaheim-Possible-Move-to-Tustin-277745781.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_LABrand
 
LAA's talks with Anaheim are getting rocky ... So something to keep an eye on.. (Move to Tustin)

 

[hbk72777]

The only old people like baseball so baseball is dying sportswriter panic is at least 50 years old, possibly longer.

Obviously the game has done fine since then, and there's a lot of monetary upside to being the favored sport of people with disposable income. I'm sure the NBA would love to trade places, given the NBA has been hip, young and cool for 30 years and also been DOA to anybody with a mortgage or a pretense of having one for about the same time.

 
 
Yup. But some people think that the old people who watched Matlock are the same ones who watch NCIS now.  Hint, the Matlock people are now dead. The NCIS people were the cool young guys in the 80's who never thought they'd be watching an old people show when they got older. So right now, there may be a 30-40 group of people that are out working their ass off to pay their mortgage in this shitty economy who will be watching when they retire.
 
The ratings are going to be skewed, the baby boomers outnumber every group. There aren't exactly young viewer anywhere except MTV. CW is 41, and they play teeny bopper shit.
 
Here are the average ages for each network.
MTV: 23.2
FX: 38.1
TBS: 37.5
CW: 41
ESPN: 45.7
Fox: 46.1
TNT: 47.6
NBC: 49.4
USA: 49.6
ABC: 51
CBS: 54.9
TVLand: 54.9
 
By the logic that old people watch baseball and then when they die, so goes MLB, MTV's original audience are minimum 40-50+ now ,and they're still rolling. They got a new batch of young people.
 
MLB, will get that new batch of middle aged viewers. The world isn't running out of old bastards.
 
I don't know where people are getting "nobody plays baseball anymore" I see more organized kid's leagues in every local park. It was the same when I was on Long Island as it is in NC now. Most have 4 parks with 4 games going at a time.

 

[Plympton91]

I started this thread last off-season and I feel more strongly about it now. I know some of these guys in the article have now signed, but as of two weeks ago, you could have assembled a Damon good offensive team while remaining under the luxury tax threshold probably. That there wasn't more immediate demand for these types of players suggests that the talent pool is quite thick. And, it is unsurprising that it should be so. With the steady flow of Cubans and Japanese stars, plus growing evidence that top Koreans can be effective major leaguers, there's plenty of reason to expand to 32 teams immediately. And, I would argue, 36 teams by 2025. If it doesn't happen, Congress should get serious about yanking their anti-trust exemption. You want to argue you're a public trust, act like one. America has a jobs problem, particularly for young men without advanced degrees. Adding 6 more teams is 1000 on field jobs, and a bunch more off the field.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/twelve-best-remaining-mlb-free-agents-market-article-1.2485870

 

[jon abbey]

That there wasn't more immediate demand for these types of players suggests that the talent pool is quite thick.

Or that they and their agents are asking for long contracts that are likely to be very bad contracts by the end. MLB needs to fix their underlying financial structure before expanding. If guys were paid what they deserve in the first six years of team control, there would be more demand for FAs because they wouldn't be so relatively pricy.

 

[GoJeff!]

Totally agree. There is so much money and talent in the sport right now it seem ridiculous that there isn't an expansion plan in place.
As an aside, what do people think about a second team in Boston? It always seemed like no one would want the 2nd team in a city, but in LA I've seen the Clippers emerge from the Lakers shadow and could see the same happening in Boston. Basically Lakers tickets were so hard to get/expensive that no kid ever went to a game. The kids did go to Clippers games, and now are fans. Everyone over 30 is a Lakers fan, but everyone under 20 is Clippers.

 

[CaptainLaddie]

Simply put, Boston's just not big enough and the Red Sox are so ingrained culturally that it would be hard. Just do two of Montreal, Portland, Las Vegas, and Brooklyn and move on with it.

 

[Marbleheader]

I would think a team in the Carolinas or Nashville would do ok. Atlantas the only team in a 7 state radius.

I don't think expansion is a good idea. You have franchises like Tampa that need to relocate already.

 

[Boggs26]

I would think a team in the Carolinas or Nashville would do ok. Atlantas the only team in a 7 state radius.

I don't think expansion is a good idea. You have franchises like Tampa that need to relocate already.

I think the problem is finding fans, not players. Do any of the minor league teams in the Carolinas or Nashville have large fan bases that could be converted as a starting point? As the Florida teams showed, big populations with no nearby teams do not guarantee fans - that's the issue MLB has to solve to expand.

 

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

Tampa has some of the highest TV ratings in baseball. The problem is the stadium is awful and it's hard to get to from downtown Tampa. There are a lot of fans down there, but they're just watching on TV. If they managed to get a decent modern stadium built in Tampa itself I think the attendance issue would disappear.

If there is expansion then Montreal would be a must.

 

[grimshaw]

I'm definitely in favor of expansion to get rid of 19 game match ups and have a more even schedule. Montreal is a no brainer, but I'd move Tampa there. I'd move Oakland to Portland. There ought to be another Mountain time zone team in the NL, but it's kind of slim pickings out there unless they find Las Vegas viable. Not sure where that 32nd team could go.

They'd probably go 8 divisions of 4 if this were to happen, but I'd be more in favor of 4 divisions of 8 to reduce the unbalanced schedule a bit.

12 x 7 = 84 within your division. 4 series of 3 games
8 x 6 = 48 in the other AL division. 2 series of 3 games
10 x 3 = 30 Pick 10 NL teams, and play 5 road and 5 home series

 

[VORP Speed]

Tampa has some of the highest TV ratings in baseball. The problem is the stadium is awful and it's hard to get to from downtown Tampa. There are a lot of fans down there, but they're just watching on TV. If they managed to get a decent modern stadium built in Tampa itself I think the attendance issue would disappear.

If there is expansion then Montreal would be a must.

They also finally broke the stalemate with St. Pete last week and got permission to consider proposals for stadium sites elsewhere in the metro area (in other words, Tampa). They'll get their downtown Tampa stadium and they'll be fine.

 

[luckiestman]

Didn't Gammons suggest the Stamford CT area years ago?

 

[Plympton91]

Tampa has some of the highest TV ratings in baseball. The problem is the stadium is awful and it's hard to get to from downtown Tampa. There are a lot of fans down there, but they're just watching on TV. If they managed to get a decent modern stadium built in Tampa itself I think the attendance issue would disappear.

If there is expansion then Montreal would be a must.

Exactly, the only relocation needed by the Rays is from St. Petersburg to Tampa.

 

[soxhop411]

The Red Sox are playing a few exhibition games in Montreal this year.

 

[jon abbey]

I'm not sure about adding more teams, but I think they definitely need to increase rosters to 26 or 27. I'd like to see teams be able to go to a 6 man rotation if they think it makes the most sense for them, but that's almost impossible to do with a 25 man roster.

 

[8slim]

I can't imagine any expansion team being placed in an existing market. All that does is fragment existing fanbases and TV deals. The goal is to expand them both, obviously.

The "best" markets for MLB to expand to might be non-US: San Juan, Havana, Mexico City, Montreal. Downside is that those markets would be poison for US TV ratings.

In the States it seems that North Carolina makes the most sense. Charlotte is the 22nd biggest TV market and Raleigh-Durham is 26th. Both are growing and have strong economies. Plus NC is far enough from Washington and Atlanta that the predictable objections from those teams can be easily dismissed.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Don't tell San Juan that they aren't in the US!

 

[VORP Speed]

I'm not sure about adding more teams, but I think they definitely need to increase rosters to 26 or 27. I'd like to see teams be able to go to a 6 man rotation if they think it makes the most sense for them, but that's almost impossible to do with a 25 man roster.

More roster spots = more relievers and more batter by batter pitching changes in the late innings.

 

[jon abbey]

More roster spots = more relievers and more batter by batter pitching changes in the late innings.

Yeah, I'm fine with that, I almost never go to games and usually watch delayed on DVR, so it's all the same to me.

It would maybe be one more reliever, but also teams could use another position player and give guys more rest, or the six man rotation thing as I said above, at a time when everyone is trying to figure out how to best keep their SPs healthy. I think it would make things more interesting overall, and maybe keep some guys slightly fresher for the end of the year.

 

[Max Power]

More roster spots = more relievers and more batter by batter pitching changes in the late innings.

If we could pair that rule change with a lifetime ban for Joe Girardi, it might work out.

 

[BroodsSexton]

Exactly, the only relocation needed by the Rays is from St. Petersburg to Tampa.

Is it really so hard to go to St. Pete for a game from Tampa?

 

[JoePoulson]

Is it really so hard to go to St. Pete for a game from Tampa?

Yea it's shite, especially during rush hour.

 

[Boggs26]

Is this really an issue of public transportation? It's not like driving to fenway in rush hour is a good time.

 

[grimshaw]

Even if the rosters had two flex spots instead of expanding them to 26 or 27 it would cut down on injuries or shuttling so many players per week.

 

[jon abbey]

If we could pair that rule change with a lifetime ban for Joe Girardi, it might work out.

Thought I'd look this up since I had no idea how true it was or not, Yankees/Girardi for the past three years:

2015: 497 total relief appearances, 7th out of 15 in the AL (league average 489)
2014: 475 total reliel appearances, 9th out of 15 in the AL (league average 482)
2013: 428 total relief appearances, 14th out of 15 in the AL (league average 468)

Trending up faster than the rest of the league, but nowhere close to an outlier or even the league leaders.

 

[JoePoulson]

Is this really an issue of public transportation? It's not like driving to fenway in rush hour is a good time.

Public transportation doesn't really work here in Florida. At least things like trains. We're too spread out.

 

[timlinin8th]

The Red Sox are playing a few exhibition games in Montreal this year.

With the Canadian dollar nosediving, I doubt we see actual expansion into Montreal in the near future. This sounds like MLB's way of telling the Quebecois that Boston and Toronto aren't THAT far away... (Bring your money to us cuz we sure aren't bringing the game to you!)