Next Major League Expansion Team: Double-A Cities that Could Step up for AAA

Monday, February 19, 2018

Double-A Cities that Could Step up for AAA

And of course this can cause a cascading discussion for the next AA cities and so on. But getting more cities along the lines of Altoona or Binghampton shouldn't be the toughest thing.

Or the AA and AAA teams could play in the same place if needed, as the case with cities I'd argue for like Akron and Richmond (AAA city before).

Above, home of the Rubber Ducks and Flying Squirrels, respectively.

Others in northeast USA that could step up: Bowie, Reading and Trenton

As is no surprise, all mentioned generally have strong proximity to big league cities. Frisco, Texas is basically just Dallas. Let's say Dallas Diamonds were an expansion team in the National League future. The new AAA club could just play there at the big park at Arlington, or up the street in suburbia Dallas a la Frisco.

Cities like Richmond, Jacksonville and San Antonio have robust centers of populations, easily justified for the next Trip-A squads and seats. In fact, a physical team relocation from Colorado gives San Antonio it's promotion to a Trip-A city.

I believe Dayton, around 40 miles apart from Cincinnati, and just an A-level team, could absorb any level of minor ball. Their attendance figures could justify it. Trip-A Toledo, up the road much further from Cinci and near Detroit up Interstate 75 takes on the same amount of fans for the season. Pretty much, out of the 30 stadiums at the highest level of minor league ball, Dayton beats out at least 21 of those cities in attendance. Seat-wise, almost always sold out at nearly 8k seats* (usually AAA are 10k), Dayton beats all other leagues in stateside pro ball. No contest.

*It should be noted that number of games and how many games were maxed out at smaller venues nation wide, and how much artificial demand is created by limited seating is curious.

The chatter of MiLB saturation causes curious questions for the farm system of the next two MLB teams. Portland is on the shortlist. And now, their suburbs only host an A-level team. Certainly Portland could handle a 3A team now.

baseballpilgrimages.com/ballparks

baseballpilgrimages.com/attendance/minor-leagues-2016

milb.com/milb/news/minor-league-baseball-attendance-:

The Dayton Dragons' streak of consecutive sellouts, the longest in professional sports history, sits at 1,246 games (began during the 2000 season), while the Frisco RoughRiders led the Double-A classification in attendance for the 13th consecutive season. The Clearwater Threshers recorded the second-highest total (200,201) in Florida State League history and the South Bend Cubs set a new franchise attendance record for the fourth consecutive season.