Baseball has no choice but to expand outside the U.S.
(MarketWatch) If Major League Baseball wants to expand to 32 teams, it’s going to have to get more people interested in the 30 it already has.
During a meeting with sports editors from the Associated Press last week, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred suggested that “multiples of fours just work better than multiples of fives” for scheduling league games. He also indicated that such expansion wouldn’t be immediate, but that “if we were to expand, I do think a city that makes sense geographically — meaning in terms of realistic travel distances and is outside of the 48 contiguous states — would be a positive choice for us in terms of growing the game.”
We understand the excitement on the part of the league. It just held a successful exhibition between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team in Cuba, its World Baseball Classic is coming up again next year and nearly a quarter of MLB players come from outside the U.S. Meanwhile, Montreal, which lost the Expos franchise to D.C. in 2005, drew 53,000 fans to watch the Boston Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays during spring training. Montreal even has a group of supporters pushing for a team, if not a viable home field in Olympic Stadium. One of those supporters? Manfred himself.
“I think, even if I didn’t want to say this, the mayor of Montreal would probably tell you, if you walked past him on the street, that I have met with him on a number of occasions,” Manfred said. “They have expressed a strong desire to have Major League Baseball back in Montreal. That’s a good thing. People want baseball.”
That level of enthusiasm for baseball hasn’t been all that easy to come by in the U.S. Last year, five of baseball’s 30 teams — the Chicago White Sox, the Oakland Athletics, the Miami Marlins, the Cleveland Indians and the Tampa Bay Rays — drew less than half of the 48,000 Montreal has been averaging for spring-training games. Three of those teams — Atlanta, Tampa and Cleveland — averaged crowds of half or less of their stadium’s capacity during home games last season. ...............(more)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/baseball-has-no-choice-but-to-expand-outside-the-us-2016-04-25
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The trend throughout MLB seems to be toward smaller, more intimate venues and away from mausoleums like the Big O.
And the name is available, since unlike the Indianapolis NFL franchise 
, the previous team changed it to "Nationals".
Looking south, Mexico City makes more sense than Havana. Yes, Cuba is baseball-crazy, but I doubt that its economy could support MLB.
This would also have the advantage of giving each league an even number of teams, thus putting paid to the constant interleague play to which we are now subjected. 
We have five teams (counting the Madres 
).
edit: The three SoCal teams plus the D-Bags would work, but that leaves the Giants and A's lumped in with the Mariners and... who? Rockies? 
but to New York City and Miami as well.
162 games is too damn long for a regular season. It's double what hockey, basketball, and football have. Trim those numbers, then we'll talk.