What MLB Is Overlooking In Regard to Expansion

My new colleague over at MLB, Ron Mabfred, has been talking about adding expansion teams some time, including in exotic places like Mexico City.  Now Chris Mitchell at Hardball Times has tried to model the kind of city MLB should look at as expansion sites.

As a sort-of social scientist, I admire Mitchell’s careful work.  But I don’t really admire his conclusions, because:

1.  He ranks Portland at 9th out of 15 possibilities in the US.  This isn’t entirely his fault,  but didn’t we used to be a lot higher?  He holds against us the fact that the Hillsboro Hops only rank third in attendance in the short-season Northwest League.  He must not have ever seen the Hops’ home field, with its artificial everything (including dirt surface) and the lack of shelter against the rain that falls every time there’s a game (extrapolating from my experience).

2.  He ranks San Jose first as an expansion site, then sneakily shifts to talking about it as a place for the A’s to move.  Come on. There’s no way a third team is going into the Bay Area, so don’t play shell games.

3.  He ranks other improbables ahead of Portland, like Columbus, OH and Providence, RI.

4.  He ranks cities lower if they have a large African-American population. Come on. Aren’t we past all that? (Altbough this is all that allows Portland to float as high as 9th in his list.)

All this pales, of course, in light of the fact that he ignores nine very successful franchises, none of which are in any cities on his list.

So — it’s time for a little corrective. And, lucky us, I happen to be a professional corrector!

 

 

 

Old Detroit: W, 10 – 4. .375, .464, .479;   5.3 ip, 2 er    Mitchell considers the possibility of adding teams to current metro areas, such as New York or (oddly) Philadelphia.  But he gets all skittish about it, considering how protective existing teams are about their markets.  But Kenneth Boulding reminded us with his First Law that “whatever exists is possible.”  The EFL and MLB maintain three teams in Detroit, for crying out loud, two of them perennial contenders . and the third perhaps the classiest organization in all of baseball. In fact, look who’s atop the AL East, West and Central Divisions… a team from Detroit in each case!  And this is in the first North American city headed toward complete depopulation (and currently with a majority African-American low-income demographic), unless there’s another hurricane in New Orleans.  Rather than just relying on pernicious  stereotypes, Mitchell, look at what exists!

 

Peshastin: W, 6-3.  .300,  .349, .600;  1 ip, 1 er.  Peshastin is not a city, not even a town.  It’s a hamlet.  Last time anyone counted (2010) there were 1920 people in Peshastin (this has to be for the entire Greater Peshastin area — I’ve been there, so I know). An incredible percentage of that population is an avid Pear fan, judging by the franchise’s stability over the last 12 seasons.  Like the ‘Roos, the Pears’ fan base is solidly loyal despite their beloved fruits never having won a championships since they debuted in the EFL’s inaugural year. So there goes another myth — that you need a home city. A home hamlet will do fine, if you’re smart enough to know how to manage the situation.

 

Kaline: DNP,(-1) – (-3).  .257, .297, .314; 16.7 ip, 6 er.  Another way to put my point about Detroit: what’s the big deal about doubling (or tripling) up in a big city? Detroit, even after shrinking, is the biggest city in the EFL and we never hesitated adding two franchises to the Tigers.  The Drive and the Wolverines share their venerable 100+ year old home stadium totally amicably. We even agreed on modest measures scaling bck the old Briggs Field to reduce the maintenance costs there while still accommodating all our fans, even for Wolverine/Drive joint home games. If MLB owners can’t be as frugal and gracious as the Drive management — or even the surlier Wolverine front office — then shame on them.

 

Cottage: W, 5 – 1. .296, .333, .426; 23.3 ip,  4 er!  Now we come to another EFL team in a city of over 100,000.  The next biggest EFL hometown has fewer than 2,000 residents.  You’d think this would give the Cheese both a terrible disadvantage compared to MLB teams, and a huge advantage compared to EFL teams from underpopulated areas.  But the Cheese clearly don’t care about all that — they named their team after a single street in the city.  I assume this is out of charity to the nearby Salem /Kaiser Volcanos (see how they hog TWO cities’ names?), a short-season single A team without the shrewd intellect of the Cheese to fall back on.  Are the Cheese suffering? No — attendance is absolutely stable, revenues are growing, coffers are still full ($9,000,000), the team has recovered, finally, from Adam Dunn, and is  currently favored to take the 2015 race down to the wire and possibly win it — especially if they keep getting pitching like that.

 

Haviland: DNP, (-1) – (-2). .270, .308, .405;  2.7 ip, 0 er.    Haviland is a real city!  A real small city, to be precise: 701 people in 2010. A city getting steadily smaller, too: down to an estimated 686 by 2013.  But Dragon fans are unafraid.  They have watched their bigger sister, Detroit, support three wonderful franchises despite even bigger population losses.  They are confident the far-seeing  Dragon management can keep the team competitive in Haviland for at least the rest of their lives (average life expectancy in Haviland:  12 years (est.)).  And they proudly displayed the EFL trophy their darling Dragons won in 2013, until those mean old Alleghenys took it away again.

 

Canberra:  L, 1 – 12.  .179, .289, .205;  9.3 ip,16 er. (The ‘Roos were trapped in the Mariners’ bodies last night. Erasmo Ramirez, recent M, and Taijuan Walker, the great Mariner hope, combined to go 5.3 ip while allowing 16 earned runs: a massive triple chulk.)        

Even though Mitchell has an extended discussion of potential international sites for expansion (Mexico City and Vancouver, B.C. are pretty much the only workable ones, according to him), he somehow never gets around to recognizing Canberra’s durability.  Here are some facts to consider:

a.) Canberra has kept its entire fan base for all 12 seasons in the EFL, regardless of where they’ve finished in the standings.  In fact, attendance so far this year is exactly the same as last year, even though Canberra finished 9th last season and drew fire for drafting Shane Greene in the first round. Every MLB team in existence would draft Greene in the first round if it would guarantee 100% loyal fans.

b.) Kangaroos have conquered the 14-hour time zone difference between there and their North American field office with no visible effects on performance.  It’s all a matter of training.  Distance, it turns out, is really no obstacle.

c.) Canberra has ample financial resources (with $7,250,000 available to spend on in-season upgrades at this moment) even though its population is only 358,000 with essentially no metro area surrounding it.  It’s all a matter of frugality.

 

Flint Hill:  “L”, 4 – 1. .273, .340, .354; 9.3 ip, 1 er    According to Wikipedia, Flint Hill is a region, not a town or a city.   I’ve seen video of the Tornado home field — it looks like a tornado may actually have hit it, long ago. What’s left is a low-maintenance-cost  hitter’s paradise since there’s no outfield fence, nor any stands.     Fans sitting in simple lawn chairs apparently love this old-time brand of baseball in Flint Hill — and I gather they get to keep the lawn chairs as part of the price of the ticket.  I can’t quite explain where the fans come from, because Wikipedia never mentions anyone that actually lives in Flint Hill, so I gather the population there is virtually 0.  So there goes the final myth about what it takes to succeed — that you need a population base.  But maybe it’s a Field of Dreams kind of thing — people on long cross-continent journeys just turn in without really knowing why and willingly fork over $20 to watch a ball game. And they most definitely appear to have come, Ray, they most definitely have come.

 

Portland: L, 6 – 8.  .262, .353, .524;  0 ip, 0 er. (I assure you, the Rosebuds have 12 pitchers on their roster, but four games into the season only 3 of them have appeared.  This alarming situation bears watching!)   Maybe I should cut Mitchell some slack. Because, after all, there already is a big league team in Portland: the Rosebuds.  They are an exciting team managed by perhaps the most knowledgeable owner in the league with promising young players — just the kind of quirky underdog Portlanders love.  Even though they have to work their home games around the Timbers to play in a stadium no longer optimized for baseball, the Rosebuds are financially sound ($12,750,000 in available funds for mid-season expenses). Once again, attendance isn’t a problem even if the climate here is “cold” as Mitchell so coldly asserts.  And who cares if it’s not broiling or steamingly hot? We Oregonians have our own brand of toughness, especially if there’s fair trade coffee (or hot cocoa) available, adding further to the Rosebud revenue.

 

Pittsburgh:  “W”, 4 – 5.  .229, .288, .333; 7.3 ip, 1 er.  The most successful EFL team in history (and still today) is sharing one of the smallest MLB metro areas with the Pirates. And the Pirates have to be thrilled.  After having a few years to closely observe how their cross-town colleagues operate, the small-market Pirates have built a perennial contender.  You can scour the Pittsburgh papers to your heart’s content, and you will not find a single breath of sentiment that Pittsburgh isn’t big enough for both the MLB Pirates and the EFL Alleghenys.  I bet Mitchell never uncovered this telling fact — he probably never even bothered to look for it.

 

In Memoriam:  I thought it would be appropriate, out of fairness to Mr. Mitchell, to acknowledge the EFL franchises which are no longer with us, with a note as to what led to their demise:

1. Victoria Roses.   Ferry fare subsidies to fans and visiting teams ate up team resources.  The owner had to work a day job to stay afloat.  The first in a string of sad tales about day jobs. Fortunately, most of us have not had this particular dilemma, except in spurts. If only they had located in Vancouver, B.C.

2. Wasatch Somethingorothers:  Unmemorable nickname. Weak rookie draft. Owner insisted on keeping his other job, including the two new ones he got in his year with the EFL.

3.  Newberg Samoahs/La Familia:  Name change interfered with building local following.  Owner insisted on keeping his job, still insists on it despite leaving that job and the next one.

4.  Nebraska Bugeaters:  Another casualty to mere employment. Also, fans may have been nauseated by the team name, if they really stopped to think about it. But, I don’t know, it’s not any worse than buffalo wings, D.C. style, and the Nats are doing ok.