Grapefruits and Cacti.
The facilities within these leagues of Spring Training could house the next minor league affiliates, in the event of an expansion. When MLB gets to 32 teams, it would seem at minimum, there will be 3 new A-ball squads for each of the two new franchises. It could happen in Arizona, especially after June. Many training facilities in Florida are used by Florida State League A-ball advanced, as well as the Gulf Coast rookie league. So, more A-ball can be played in the existing structures, of course as a share, and perhaps even some AA and AAA action.
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| Camelback Mountain of Phoenix |
A solution to much of any pro-ball saturation and potential expansion problem is to fill stadiums all the time. A team is at a road game, another uses it as home.
But back to the question, is Arizona or Florida king of the minor leagues? Time-wise it's FL, right? Well, close enough. Until last decade, the golden years state had the most clubs park for Winter thawing. The question burning for Miami and Tampa: Is there too much baseball and so nobody shows up the the big league games? Is it getting that way for the Diamondbacks, or their stadium funding future. It's already falling apart, right? Hard to maintain those big things.
And with attendance problems even at Comisky in Chicago and many more places, wouldn't a smaller ballpark model work out better? Surely the Florida Marlins can play in tinier parks, 40 games a piece in Tampa and Miami as home (camp) games.
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| St. Pete downtown across from Tampa |
Since 2010, Arizona and Florida have equally been divvied up as a location for warm-up ball.
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