MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred Teases League Expansion
It looks like MLB will have new teams in the foreseeable future. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to Don Van Natta Jr. of ESPN and revealed that expansion in the league will happen. Manfred told Natta that he would "love to get to 32 teams."
Manfred didn't give a timeline on when he wants to add the teams to MLB, but a few cities are looking to host a professional baseball team. Nashville is one city looking to welcome an MLB team, while there is an effort to being baseball to the state of Oregon. Others in the mix are Austin, San Antonio, Charlotte and Orlando. Nashville is one of the cities that has made the biggest push as Justin Timberlake joined Music City Baseball in 2020. Music City Baseball is the group looking to bring a baseball team to the city.
"I am thrilled to be involved in the movement to bring Major League Baseball to the great state of Tennessee," Timberlake said in a statement at the time. "I believe in Music City Baseball's vision of linking baseball and music in a unique way to unite and entertain people, and I am excited to help generate awareness throughout the community as we share our vision for bringing MLB to Music City."
"For us this is huge," Dave Dombrowski, then-investor and former president of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox, said at the time. "I mean (Timberlake) is somebody that's world-known, huge in the area and the region and the state. He supports baseball and all of the other things that we stand for. Having someone like that involved speaks a lot for his interest in making this work and also gives us support in talking to other individuals of this ilk. It's extremely important to us."
The last time MLB expanded was in 1998 when the league added the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (currently Tamp Bay Rays). In the Diamondbacks' short history, they have won five NL West titles one National League title and one World Series which was in 2001. The Rays have not won the World Series but have won the American League title twice, won the AL East four times and made the playoffs as a wild-card team three times.