When Nashville isn't being used as a relocation threat for the White Sox and a few other teams, it's often treated as a foregone conclusion for Major League Baseball expansion. It's not a foolish idea -- Nashville and Middle Tennessee are growing fast, there's plenty of corporate headquarters, it fills in a blank space on the MLB map, and plenty of baseball players already live in Nashville because it's a great place to be rich.
But as I've tried to caution panicked Sox fans in the past using my perspective as a Nashville resident and taxpayer, there are also some huge holes in any plan to host an MLB team here anytime soon.
Steve Cavendish of the Nashville Banner wrote a helpful piece about the city's prospects for Major League Baseball, centered on the idea that Music City Baseball -- the advocacy group that's done a fantastic job of selling the dream -- missed its first goal. Music City Baseball was founded in 2019 with the hopes of a baseball stadium by 2024. Now 2030 looks wildly optimistic.
The two biggest obstacles: Music City Baseball doesn't have a billionaire in its ranks, and the city is already paying an egregious amount for a new Titans stadium while servicing debt on First Horizon Ballpark, the home of the Triple-A Nashville Sounds, so it's not fertile soil for an existing MLB owner who's hoping a new market will step up to foot the bill.
Speaking of which, it sounds like the Cardinals are preparing to ask for public funding to modernize Busch Stadium, in the range of $500 million to $600 million in taxpayer investments, so St. Louis will join Kansas City, Phoenix, Tampa Bay and Chicago in markets whose owners are suggesting that they won't be able to compete without further public investment. At some point, it could reach a critical mass to where if enough teams are crying poor, then the competition should be even.
Spare Parts
Through 19 games, the White Sox have the same record as the 1962 Mets team that went 40-120, while not even scoring half as many runs.
Tucked in this story about Martín Maldonado is a Pedro Grifol quote for the canon about Eloy Jiménez batting second:
“The No. 1 reason is to get him seeing as many pitches as possible, turn the lineup around, get him that fifth at-bat, see if we can get him going,” Grifol said.
White Sox No. 2 hitters have received a fifth plate appearance in five of 19 games this season, and only once in the last seven games. Hell, through six innings on Friday, it looked like Jiménez might not get a fourth.
- Cries of sexism greet a Nike Olympic reveal -- The New York Times
- The Fanatics disaster is also a Nike disaster -- Defector
It turns out Major League Baseball's uniforms aren't the only Nike designs that are being met with immediate disgust, as Nike's track and field efforts have entered the chat.
- Twins takeaways: Orioles sweep leaves team searching for answers -- The Athletic
- The thin Twins lineup can't hit righties -- FanGraphs
The White Sox aren't the only team that's pressing, although the Twins actually have pressure to feel, given that they were expected to more or less coast to an AL Central title. Since this Dan Hayes article, the Twins lost to the Tigers to drop to 6-12, mostly due to a lineup that's hitting .191/.277/.329 as a team (the White Sox are hitting .190/.263/.291).
After three injury-marred seasons -- including a 2023 where he looked merely good -- Mike Trout is back to doing all he can to make the Angels as relevant as they should've been all along.
While the White Sox are as moribund as the Rockies in many respects, Colorado continues to show why it's one of the great innovators in the aimless MLB franchise space, as evidenced by the Rockies triggering an FAA investigation by taking video of their hitting coach pretending to fly their charter plane.
There were a few moments where this profile of the Today in Tabs newsletter creator overlaps a lot with what we're trying to do here at Sox Machine, particularly:
“It’s not a job so much as a thing my brain does,” he said. “If I read a certain amount of content every day, then my brain will produce 800 words about it. As long as I can sit and write that down, I’m good.”
Thank you for supporting Sox Machine.
