According to Jon Morosi, Rob Manfred has expansion on the brain, and Major League Baseball could have two new franchises relatively soon. While there wouldn't be any major progress in the next season or two, Morosi writes that "we're five or six years -- at the very earliest -- from seeing the inauguration of new MLB franchises." There are many factors to consider in adding two new teams, one of which would be the dramatic reshaping of Major League Baseball. Seemingly every year, Yahoo, ESPN, and a host of other baseball centric websites propose their own way to realign the various divisions. While they're mainly fun pieces designed to get readers talking, expanding MLB from 30 to 32 teams would make realignment inevitable. "The sport's growing revenues support the concept [of expansion], and Manfred cited the favorable schedule of 16-team leagues split into four divisions of four. (Tighter divisional footprints would make owners happy, because fewer road games would start at unfavorable times for local television.)" Baseball currently has three divisions in each league, with five teams apiece. But if MLB were to expand to 32 teams, they'd have to reshape the structure of each league, and make some difficult choices in remolding the divisional layout of baseball. Manfred, and others (including the owners), would undoubtedly insist on keeping the major rivals in the same division, which means we could essentially guarantee that the Dodgers and Giants would remain together; as would the Yankees and Red Sox; and finally the Cubs and Cardinals. The rest would be up for grabs, although MLB would still have to take geographical proximity into account. However before all of that becomes an issue, Manfred and his team would need to decide which cities would make the most sense for expansion. For Morosi's article, he consulted with "people in the baseball industry, and three eminent sports business experts" and came up with his own list of four possible locations. - See more at: http://www.mlbdailydish.com/2016/2/...ico-city?_ga=1.199664490.518840680.1383366243
