Major League Baseball (MLB) Commissioner Rob Manfred is aggressively pushing for two more expansion teams before he retires in 2029, with Nashville and Salt Lake City as the top two favorites. This isn’t a terrible idea in itself, but the MLB expansion timing is way too soon.
1990s Expansion Teams Offer MLB A Warning
An in-depth examination of the expansion classes of 1993 and 1998 shows how damning it’s truly been for approximately 30 years, which should persuade Manfred to slow down with his big plans. A new team can be on top of the world for the first few years, only to plummet to rock bottom as time passes. All four expansion teams from the 1990s have experienced significant problems since they were created.
For Colorado, it’s a sad history of perennial losing and finishing at the bottom of the NL West standings. On September 22, the Rockies secured their FOURTH CONSECUTIVE 100-loss season. They have made the postseason a handful of times, but they have never won a World Series.
Decades after their last championship, the Marlins are a ghost franchise that’s known for trading away their top players, including Giancarlo Stanton, Miguel Cabrera, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. What really seals the deal on Miami being a ghost franchise is that they rank as one of the teams with the lowest attendance in the entire league.
Tampa Bay’s bad luck has been with stadium stability. When Hurricane Milton tore the roof off Tropicana Field in October 2024, it forced the team to pack their bags to a minor league park owned by the New York Yankees. The Rays are home once again at Tropicana, but it’s temporary until their new stadium, which is supposed to open in March 2029, is built.
Lastly, Arizona has had more ups and downs than a rollercoaster. Since the 2001 title capture, the Diamondbacks have bounced between decent seasons and poor ones that call for rebuilding. In an NL West that’s financially dominated by the Dodgers, Arizona simply lacks the economic muscle to reel in the biggest names to have consistently good seasons.
That doesn’t mean that Manfred’s call for expansion now will collapse. It would be interesting to see a rivalry form between Nashville and Atlanta or Salt Lake City and Colorado/Las Vegas. Manfred has also openly teased about the billions of dollars in windfall, giving team owners a decent payout.
MLB Expansion Timing Can’t Be Ahead Of Current Problems
The problem with the expansion’s timing is that the league has too many loose knots to tie up first. The Oakland A’s stadium in Las Vegas is a work in progress, which is better than Tampa Bay’s situation. The new stadium for the Rays hasn’t broken ground yet, but the team hopes to have it done before the playoffs.
Beyond the stadiums, the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires at the end of this season, and no new CBA has been announced yet. This is threatening to shut down the 2027 season. Thinking about expansion now is like installing new flooring on a house with an unstable foundation.
Expansion for MLB can be a good idea, but it can’t be treated as Manfred’s final legacy project. A commissioner’s legacy isn’t defined by how many new teams they create. MLB doesn’t need to abandon the idea of expanding to new regions, but they need to wait longer than Manfred’s retirement year of 2029.
