Major League Baseball commissioner Robert Manfred was speaking at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Massachusetts today covering a number of topics.
One of the most discussed topics was expansion, which Manfred said he is a proponent of and would like to see the league have 32 teams. Though he would like the stadium situations to be resolved in Oakland in Tampa Bay before discussing expansion.
The first city Manfred mentioned for a new team was Montreal as well as Mexico and he also said that geographic realignment “could really help us.”
Manfred went on to say that he thought they had an agreement on new roster expansion rules in the last CBA before the players’ backed out in the end. MLB was going to agree to expand regular season rosters to 26 players but then limit September rosters to 28 players instead of 40.
Lastly, in an effort to avoid tanking, Manfred said that MLB has proposed minimum salary payroll rules only to be rebuffed by the players’ union on multiple occasions.
Tanking has become a wide scale discussion recently with both the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays selling off numerous major pieces of their rosters.
