Expansion - sean this time

[GoIrish]

I think right now if we were ever going to do expansion is about the best time that we should start to consider it. Here are my reasons why it should in my point of view gain consideration.

• 1 high interest time
  This time of year (start of baseball season) is when we should obtain the most interest from baseball fans for a mogul league. We should be able to support any loss of attition numbers and with the long baseball season, it should help us sustatin an interest.
  
  
• 2 diversification of talent
  We are getting to a point where this would help deversify some of our talent pool and hopefully bring forth more competition.
  
  
• 3 solid stability
  In my opinion the stability over this season has been tremendous.
  

I think before we jump in, we need to outline the who, what and hows of how this will be conducted and done. I feel this is something we could approach this offseason but would possibly be best done in the offseason after the 2018 season.

In regards to some of the who what and hows, here are some of my thoughts on how this can be done, I would encourage you to please, think outside the box and provide your feedback. If you were against the concept before, please consider the year we are in and how this could better the league. Also read my thoughts below before you issue a judgement.

Who

I am going to throw my hat in the ring of the "who". This is a hard thing to do because my love is the Chicago Cubs. However, they now have the championship, I have broken the curse and the team is in tremendous shape for the short and long term future. Would not be a hard team to find a replacement owner.

With that said, I think everyone knows if I take an expansion team, we are not getting a short term prospective manager, I will be in it for the long haul. However, if 2 other owners feel strongly of taking on an expansion team, I will not feel bad about staying on as the Chicago GM.

what

What we need to figure out is location of the teams, placement of the teams in divisions. I am pretty sure DJ ran some numbers on this and the best possible locations were Calgary and Vegas.

I think with expansion we would need to take 1 of the expansion teams in the AL and another in the NL. The reasoning is to spread out the allocation of wins from teams facing the expansion teams. It is pretty similar to what happened in 1998 with expansion when Tampa and Arizona were added. With this move, we would need to have an owner flip from the AL to the NL. It would make most logical sense if that was Milwaukee as they did it once before and have a prior history of being in the AL.

How

This is something we would need to iron out and set down an outline of some of my questions. Keep in mind, this is within our creative control, we can make this work. I have put some questions below and in italic, I have put my thought on how it can be handled.

The draft?

I think we can conduct it in a similar fashion as the 1997 draft. going to tweak a few things though...

3 rounds - 1st round each team selects 14 players, 2nd round each team selects 14 players, 3rd round each team selects 7 players. Teams can only lose 1 player per round.

Teams for the 1st round can protect 10 players, after each round they can protect 3 more players.

Not needed to be added to the list of protected players would be players under 20 years of age or players selected in the prior 2 drafts.

Free agents going into the offseason could not be labeled as protected

there would be a coin toss between the two teams, winner could chose 1st pick or the 2nd and 3rd picks. After this the draft would be conducted in a normal fashion. The team picking 2nd and 3rd would also get the 1st pick in the ammy draft

stadiums - what are acceptable specs for their stadiums?

The most pressing issue would be seats, which drives the potential revenue for the team. I don't think someone is going to buy 155M franchise and skimp out on the stadium. I think what would be best is to take the top 5 stadiums and give them the average of the 5.

fan loyalty - where do we start them out at?

I know they are going to be new franchises but there will be the initial buzz with the new charter. I think we should start them well above the league average, reason being is these teams will lose.

cash - Do we start them out with 0 or provide them with a little house money?

I don't think anything tremendous, maybe 10-20M to start them off

[Peter]

if this were to happen i believe both would need to be added to the american league. currently there are 14 al teams and 16 nl teams and by having an odd amount of teams in any league would stretch the regular season well into october. one team would have to be added to the AL west and one more to the east or central or i guess even perhaps to the al west.

or with the milwaukee thing you mentioned, i think either way two additional teams would end up having to be added to the AL so i think if milwaukee switched back to the AL central or west; that would allow one of the expansion teams to go to the National league.

couple ideas i have for teams

a current minor league team in Vancouver which i believe would be a solid hub for baseball


syracuse chiefs


San Antonio Missions


new orlenas would also be a good place for baseball
The New Orleans Missionaries, idk lol

if i can think of anymore team ideas ill add them to my post

nice thing about picking a lot of teams like this is you will have the logo database with good options

[hokeyrules]

I think any player with one year or less should not be allowed to be drafted. Not based on age. Next, the two teams should be taken by people who have built teams that can contend or are capable. So in my opinion there are like 5 GMS that should get first chance at it. That is my opinion, I am willing to go towards expansion, because there is some good reasoning, but, I think there still needs to be changes to the idea set out.

[AndyP]

I do thing the league may be able to handle this. To me, we're starting to get to the point that our talent levels are a bit too high in some regards. An expansion draft may be a nice way to help with things.

However, before I'd fully put a vote in we'll have to iron out the who's and whats. I'm also willing to take on the expansion challenge if the league needs a volunteer. We could also shuffle some ownership responsibilities at this time if the league does want to pursue that. (It's been talked about)

I think the how's all make sense - but we'd need to calculate how those parameters reflect in the budget. I don't think a 100+ budget would be reasonable, but 70-80 may be.

And, personally, I'd like to see someone other than Calgary. North Carolina? Vancouver with Colorado moving to the central? New Orleans?

[Peter]

if you guys are serious about expansion i know i can build teams and some other guys that are in the league that have been in leagues with me would back me up that i can build a winner. So i really just want to throw my name into the ring, im going to keep adding to my other post about some disolved teams and stuff that might be able to hold down an expansion; pretty much throw as much as possible at the wall and see what sticks

[Jordan]

Id be willing to move to the AL central please

[Peter]

Id be willing to move to the AL central please

lol i think the only team that makes sence is milwaukee because they were in the al once already. pittsburgh has been in the nl since jesus was born

[GoIrish]

IRT to Peter's 1st post

I do agree that the AL should get 2 teams to balance the numbers but I don't think they both should be expansion teams. I think 1 should go NL, 1 Should go AL and a team like Milwaukee should flip back to the AL.

IRT to Hokey

if you look at my post, in the draft section I said "Not needed to be added to the list of protected players would be players under 20 years of age or players selected in the prior 2 drafts." That would cover what you are looking for.

IRT Andy

I agree and I am open to a team other than Calgary, DJ ran the numbers and he said that is one of the 2 best cities to support a franchise. I personally think Vegas is possibly the best location followed by a location of like Indianapolis. Not sure if New Orleans has the population to support a MLB team or a city in NC. Vancouver sounds like an interesting city though.

IRT Peter's 2nd post

I don't doubt that you could build an expansion team Peter, however, the reason we have shot expansion down in the past is the reluctance of not knowing the owners of these franchises. We wanted familar faces in those spots because if we have an owner come in that we don't know, they fail and leave, that could be a very big headache on the league.

IRT Jordan

That could work as well and I would not be opposed to that.

[Jordan]

Id be willing to move to the AL central please

lol i think the only team that makes sence is milwaukee because they were in the al once already. pittsburgh has been in the nl since jesus was born

Sure, but if you are trying to vote on the side of realism, then shouldn't we not have an expansion?

[Jordan]