True but teams and the players union would be opposed to it.
>>one of the factors in the doping scandle
Interesting point.
There have been rumblings about contraction over the years.
The Twins were one candidate but then went on to win a World Series or do well afterwards. Some teams moved rather than
folded: MLB took charge of the Expos for awhile till finally they found a home in Washington D.C.—the third go-around for a D.C. MLB team
That's a common refrain, but were the 16 MLB teams we had in 1960 the "right" size?
We had 179 million people living in America. We haven't quite doubled the number of teams nor the national population, but the ratio is still quite similar. Add that to the fact that baseball is far more internationalized now, commanding large audiences not only in Latin America but also in Japan.
How many famous Latin American players can you name from the 1960s? Minnesota had a plethora of them (Rod Carew, Tony Oliva, Camilio Pascqual) but they were the exception and not the rule. Now teams without at least three or four Latin American players are the exception.
The first Japanese player, Masanori Murakami, debuted for the San Francisco Giants in 1962. It would take nearly two decades before we had another (Hideo Nomo). Now almost every team has at least one.
So, unless the general population has suddenly become less talented, I don't think talent dilution holds much argument. American talent has (maybe) lessened. Organized kids baseball is (maybe) one big reason. While, on one hand, a kid (maybe) gets better coaching and the like, they also get a chance to actually bat, pitch and field less in an entire summer than kids of my generation did in a couple of afternoons when we organized our own games and it was the center of our lives rather than just one more diversion.
Of course, even that argument goes out the window when you throw in the international talent.