MLB Odds – Is Baseball Headed Back to Montreal?

For the third year in a row, the Toronto Blue Jays concluded spring training with a pair of exhibition games in Montreal. And for the third year in a row, the topic of baseball’s return to “la belle province” reached a fever pitch.

It’s been 12 years since a major-league pitch has been thrown in Montreal; no one questions that the move to Washington was a financial success (the Nats rank as the ninth-most valuable franchise in the MLB), the league still has a few lame-duck teams that would look good in Expo colors. While there were a lot of reasons that a team in Montreal ultimately failed, a lack of passionate fans was not one of them.

Relocation of the Tampa Rays or Oakland Athletics could be on the table in the future, but it will be almost ten years before either team’s current stadium lease expires. In the meantime, through expansion, the MLB could avoid uprooting franchises yet still satisfy the growing desire for baseball, not only north of the border, but also south.

That’s right, the MLB also returned to Mexico City this preseason with a pair of exhibition games between Houston and San Diego in front of sold-out crowds at Estadio Fray Nano (admittedly, a 5,000-seat stadium). Still, couple that with the announcement of the league establishing a new office in Mexico, and it looks like the MLB wants to make baseball North America’s pastime.

Expansion to one or both of these cities seems like a real possibility in the coming years, especially under new, more open-minded commissioner Rob Manfred. So what exactly are the odds of the MLB shaking it up in the near future? Here’s our take.

Odds of MLB expanding to 32 teams in next decade: 3/5

Odds of getting an MLB team in the next decade

• Montreal, Quebec: 10/11
• Mexico City, Mexico: 15/8
• North New Jersey: 3/1
• Austin, Texas: 7/1
• Charlotte, North Carolina: 8/1
• Nashville, Tennessee: 10/1
• Portland, Oregon: 13/1
• Vancouver, British Columbia: 16/1
• Havana, Cuba: 22/1

(Photo Credit: wyliepoon (Originally uploaded to Flickr. Photo may appear cropped.)[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/].)