Salt Lake City favorites to land MLB team, what does it mean for the Rockies?

It’s no secret that Major League Baseball wants to expand and add more teams. The question is where?

The Athletics are already making their way to Las Vegas and it seems like a done deal that Nashville will be getting a team on the east coast.

According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Salt Lake City and Nashville are the heavy favorites for expansion sites.

“Cities like Portland and Sacramento might be wasting their time” as they prepare to make bids for an MLB team, per Nightengale.

Nobody knows the exact timeline on when the MLB will expand, but it’s likely to happen before Commissioner Rob Manfred retires in January of 2029.

The expansion effort has been led by the Larry H. Miller Company, and the proposed project has generated considerable attention throughout the league.

If these two teams are selected, that would mean there needs to be a realignment and divisions could change. This could mean that the Colorado Rockies wouldn’t have to play the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, or even the San Francisco Giants so often.

Getting the Dodgers out of the Rockies’ division would be a huge win right out of the gate.

The expansion committee still needs to be created and likely won’t be created until 2027 at the earliest.

In recent interviews, Manfred said that you would realign and do it along geographical lines which would help the players with their traveling schedules.

In a Yahoo Sports article, they created eight divisions with four teams in each division. This would keep Colorado away from their scary California road trips that they would have to take every single season.

• West: Seattle Mariners, West coast team, San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers

• Southwest: Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres, Las Vegas Athletics, Arizona Diamondbacks

• South: Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals

• Midwest 1: Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals

• Midwest 2: Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Cincinnati Reds

• Northeast: New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Pittsburgh Pirates

• Mid-Atlantic: Washington Nationals, Baltimore Orioles, New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies

• Southeast: Atlanta Braves, Nashville, Tampa Bay Rays, Miami Marlins

   

Now, MLB can change things up by changing from National League and American League to Eastern and Western Conferences and even change the name of divisions to make it easy.

Adding a team in Salt Lake City would push them to face the California teams and push the Rockies to more of the central teams of the country.

We know the Rockies need all the help they can get, but right now they have to be hoping that a team ends up in Utah so that Colorado can move east.

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