Within weeks – perhaps even days – after the Montreal Expos departed dilapidated Olympic Stadium and moved into Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. in 2005, city and provincial politicians and baseball enthusiasts in Canada’s second largest city immediately began trying to figure out a way to convince Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association that their beloved city was – and still is – worthy of having a major league baseball team.

Among the top reasons why the Expos left Montreal was because Olympic Stadium, which had been constructed to host the 1976 Summer Olympics, rarely saw its 56,040 seating capacity even one half full and it had become a financial burden for the Quebec city. In fact, The Big-O, as the stadium had come to be known, was soon known as The Big-Owe. And even though the enormous stadium saw four decades of use, the Expos never appeared in a World Series or even won a National League pennant (thank you, Rick Monday) during their 36 seasons in Montreal after having been an expansion team in 1969, along with the Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres and Seattle Pilots.

But soon after the team’s departure in 2005, ongoing efforts to lure another major league franchise (or possibly be awarded another expansion team) immediately began for the city which, ironically, had once been nicknamed Sin City and later nicknamed The City of Saints. In fact, a major part of those efforts have included talk of building a new state-of-the-art ballpark in downtown Montreal; yet another reason why the Expos left.

Pretty flowers notwithstanding, Montreal’s Olympic Stadium has been a white elephant for the city of Montreal since it opened in 1976. In fact, its original nickname of The Big-O later became known as The Big-Owe.
(Wikipedia Photo)

Hold that thought for a minute.

This past September and for the second time in as many years, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was speaking in Seattle and mentioned Portland, Oregon as a potential site for an expansion team. Manfred insisted that “a team in the West” would be part of any expansion. And much to the chagrin of Montreal officials, Portland already has a known and legitimate ownership group with the necessary financing (not to mention tremendous local support) for a new stadium that would be partially funded by a $150 million grant that was approved by the state of Oregon back in 2003 when [wait for it…] the Expos were considering moving out of Montreal. Unfortunately for Portland fans, the Expos chose Washington D.C. over The City of Roses.

Lo and behold, that grant is still on the books.

The City of Portland, Oregon already has an ownership group and a proposed stadium plan in place for a possible MLB expansion team. (Image courtesy of KOIN-6)

With the consensus among commissioner Manfred’s office, MLB owners and scores of respected MLB writers that baseball will soon be expanded and reconfigured to 32-teams, a major realignment and schedule adjustment will be needed to address growing concerns of the MLBPA about travel demands and off days.

Among the more popular plans under consideration is a geographical restructuring of the existing 30-team / six divisions into 32 teams and four divisions. By doing so there would be a significant reduction in travel, especially for teams located on the East and West coasts. The plan would also increase existing natural rivalries by not only having them as interleague attractions, but also as divisional opponents.

If Montreal and Portland are in fact the front runners for expansion locations, the four eight-team divisions would (probably) look like this:

• East: Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Miami, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Washington.
• North: Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Montreal, both New York franchises and Toronto.
• Midwest: Both Chicago franchises, Colorado, Houston, Kansas City, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Texas.
• West: Anaheim, Arizona, Los Angeles, Oakland, Portland, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle.

Included in this proposed realignment are these key elements:

• A 156-game schedule would include 24 total games against the eight teams in each of the three other divisions–three games against each opponent.
• The schedule would include 12 games–six home and six road–against each of the seven divisional opponents.
•  The format would provide for an off day every week (such as every Monday or Thursday) and would fit into the same foot print for beginning and ending as the 2018 schedule. The season could start on a weekend, which would offset only one three-game series played the week of the All-Star Game.
• The 156-game schedule would reduce each team’s slate by six games, but revenue could be made up by a major reduction in travel costs.
• Fan interest could be maintained by allowing for the four first-place teams in each division to advance to the postseason, and having play-in games against the eight remaining teams with the best records.
• The winners of the four wild card games would advance to the Division Series, which would feature a wild card team against each division champion.
• Those four winners would advance to the Championship Series, and the winners of that round would meet in the World Series.
• That would add postseason product to the broadcast packages and provide postseason hope for 12 of the 32 franchises, which could boost attendance in September, again offsetting any impact from the season being six games shorter.
• With a day off every week, there would be a regular rest routine, much like prior to expansion when teams would often play Sunday doubleheaders and Monday would be off. It could be used for travel so teams did not have to make long flights, arriving in cities at 3 a.m. or later.
• And the schedule would drastically reduce travel, while keeping teams in their time zones, except for the Rockies and Twins. They, however, would be playing teams in a time zone an hour earlier, which is less demanding than an hour later, and also provides increased TV ratings because of prime time viewing. The other intra-division teams would have to travel to Colorado or Minnesota just six games per year.
• All teams would open the season with an inter-division series, and all out-of-division road trips would be two-city trips.

With the 2018 schedule already set in stone, the very earliest that such an expansion might happen would be for the 2019 season. But being that there has been no official confirmation from the MLB and the MLBPA that expansion is a done deal, there has also yet to be the groundbreaking of potential new stadiums in either Montreal or Portland. Additionally, the cities of Charlotte, North Carolina and even Mexico City have been mentioned in expansion rumors, so there’s that.

Stay tuned…

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(Editor’s note: ThinkBlue LA wishes to thank Baseball America’s  Tracy Ringolsby for the above proposed expansion details).