Future of Major League Baseball

In the future, changes to will likely be made. This article features specific speculations –– expansion teams, teams relocating to different cities, changes to team logos and colors, changes in season scheduling, and changes to the game itself. This article also lists speculative future World Series champions, and player, team and baseball records that'll possibly reach.

Expansion teams
It is assumed that there will be more major league teams in the future. I predict that there will be 32 teams by 2050, compared to 30 teams at present. The expansion teams will be Portland Pioneers and Montreal Saints.

Portland Pioneers
Portland Pioneers will enfranchise in 2026 and will be in the American League West division. During the franchise's first game, they will host the Seattle Mariners at Cascade Park. Then Seattle Mariners will finally have a close rivalry after all those lengthy travels throughout the seasons. The team colors will be sky blue and green. Their logo will be the green letter 'P' with sky blue enclosure.

The Pioneers will have Arizona Diamondbacks as an interleague rival, meaning every year they'll play six games against them each season, three at each ballpark. The interleague rival series will be called the Varanid Series.

I predict that Portland Pioneers will win their first World Series title in 2062 over the relocated team Virginia Colonials (formerly Miami Marlins) in seven games.

Montreal Saints
existed from 1969 till 2004 before they moved to Washington and became the Nationals. Numerous Montreal fans were sad following their move to Washington, and player's strike of 1994 may be a blame as Montreal had the best record in baseball when that baseball season was cut short and postseason was cancelled. However, after just 22 years without the baseball team in the city, Montreal will get an expansion team for the second time and be named the Montreal Saints in 2026. There uniform colors will be deep purple, black, old gold and white. The Montreal Saints will be in the National League East division. During the opener of that franchise, they will host the Washington Nationals at Labatt Ballpark, which will be built two blocks south of. The first franchise played their home games in.

Like the former Montreal team, the interleague rival of Montreal will be Toronto Blue Jays, meaning the Saints will play six games against them every year, three games at each team's ballpark. Expos played against the Blue Jays from the introduction of interleague play in 1997 until their final year in Montreal in 2004. The Expos-Blue Jays matchup was called the, but the Saints-Blue Jays matchup will be called the Lake Ontario Series, since part of the road between the home cities lie near the banks of Lake Ontario.

I predict that Montreal Saints will win their first World Series title in 2034 by sweeping the Houston Astronauts. Montreal would have their first World Series championship 65 years after the first team was enfranchised. Who' knows? If player's strike never occurred in 1994, maybe Montreal Expos would have won the World Series and the team would've remain in Montreal.

Relocations and renames
From now until the year 2050, there will be eight teams relocating either to a different city or their nickname will simply be renamed. Toronto Blue Jays, Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland Athletics, New York Mets, and Chicago White Sox will move to a different city, while Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and San Francisco Giants will simply be renamed while staying in the city.

New York Mets to Brooklyn
The will look for a new stadium to replace Citi Field in 2024. After looking at Jersey City/Newark, NJ, Buffalo, NY, and Orlando, FL, they'll find a site in south Brooklyn. In late November 2026, a new stadium called Jackie Robinson Memorial Stadium will be completed. The Mets will play their first home game in the new stadium against the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2027, winning the game 7-4. That same year they will be renamed the Brooklyn-New York Mets, The first MLB team to hyphenate their home city name. However in 2030 they will simply be called the Brooklyn Mets. They will make their first World Series appearance under their new banner in 2037, but losing to Cleveland Blues (currently the Indians) in seven games. They would win their first World title since 1986 by beating the Indiana White Sox 4-1 in 2058.

Tampa Bay Rays to Charlotte
have their lowest annual fan attendance of any MLB team, sparking possible relocation to a different city. St. Petersburg mayor Bill Foster prohibits the team on the lease until 2027. After the lease expired, the team would be free to go, moving to Charlotte, North Carolina in 2028 while keeping their nickname. They will stay in the American League South division.

During the relocation, the minor league team will move to Tampa Bay while keeping Knights as their name and will be the Triple-A affiliate of the Rays team that was moved from Tampa Bay, or in other words switching teams between two cities between MLB and AAA, upgrading the Charlotte team from minor league to major league while downgrading the Tampa Bay team from major league to minor league. Charlotte Rays will use similar team colors except they will change the logo to make it fit for the city they relocated to. They will play in the Meineke Field. Charlotte Rays will still be in the American League South division. During the franchise's first game, they will host the Toronto Blue Jays.

The interleague rival of Charlotte Rays will be the Atlanta Braves, meaning they'll play six games against each other every year, three at each ballpark. The Rays-Braves matchup will be called the Savanna Series, due to their nearness to the prominent terrain.

I predict that they will win their first World Series title since moving to Charlotte in 2033 by sweeping the Colorado Rockies.

Houston Astros to Astronauts
When the Houston team moved to a new stadium in 1965, the then Houston Colt 45's were intended to rename the team to the Astronauts, but since the domed stadium wanted to end in Dome as suffix, they instead renamed the team to the prefix Astros. Now since the Astros moved out of in 1999, the team name is now eligible to extend it to the original proposal, the Astronauts. During the 2012-13 season when the Astros were transitioning to the American League, team owner Jim Crane considered to possibly extended this nickname along with several entirely different names before keeping the name. In 2033, the team will be rebranded as the Houston Astronauts. From then on, the Astros will still be referred as their alternate nickname.

Atlanta Braves to Oaks
In 2035, due to the Braves' association with Native Americans, will be renamed to Atlanta Oaks, due to the abundance of oak trees in the Atlanta area. The uniform colors will be maroon, white and gray with green texts.

Oakland Athletics to San Jose
The will move to San Jose, California for the 2039 MLB season and the team will be renamed to San Jose Athletics. The team colors will remain the same except they will also add green pinstripes to their home uniforms that same year. San Jose is just 40 miles south of Oakland (technically down the freeway) and the San Francisco Giants will still be the interleague rival.

After moving to San Jose, they would not win the World Series for the rest of the century, though they will appear in the 2043 and 2061 World Series.

San Francisco Giants to Seals
In 2039 following their 80th anniversary of the franchise move to San Francisco from New York, the team owner decides to rename this nickname to Seals after the  that resided in San Fran until 1957. Giants was named after their original city that is the giant among the cities in the U.S. A decade prior to renaming, the minor league soccer franchise moved to San Jose while keeping Seals as their name, countering with the major league soccer team San Jose Earthquakes moving to San Francisco while retaining their name.

Toronto Blue Jays to Buffalo Browns
In 2040 the Toronto Blue Jays will move to Buffalo, NY after failure to get a new stadium. However the city of Toronto will purchase the Blue Jays name thus forcing a name change. They will choose the name Browns after their new owner Robert Brown. The Buffalo Bisons will relocate to Toronto and become the minor league Blue Jays. Their home stadium will be Niagara Bank Stadium where the will host the New York Yankees in their inaugural game in Buffalo winning 3-0. The home uniforms will be a brown cap with a orange visor and orange block letter B and white home jerseys with brown pinstripes and brown and orange text. They will win their first World Series in 2049 4-1 over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Chicago White Sox to Indiana
In 2048 the White Sox will move south to Indianapolis to become the Indiana White Sox. They will play at a stadium built on the site of the previously demolished stadium, Victory Field (home of the minor league baseball team Indianapolis Indians). Their new Stadium, Sprint Center, will be twice the size as the Guaranteed Rate Field and also be home to the Indianapolis Clowns (NFC North team relocating from the Detroit Lions in 2038).

The interleague rival will still be the Chicago Cubs, calling the matchup the I-65 Series (formerly the Crosstown Series when White Sox were in Chicago).

I predict that after the relocation, they would appear in six more World Series by the end of this century, winning three, including their World Series title during their first year in Indiana over the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.

Division realignment
With two new teams added in 2026, leagues will who’dat into four four-team divisions by replacing AL Central and NL Central with AL South, AL North, NL South, and NL North. That division split will have greater competition between rivals and also reduce travelling. The most important effect of the alignment is that each league will get one more division winner, hence one more playoff berth while keeping two wild cards.

Season scheduling
Season scheduling will be somewhat different by 2050 than present scheduling. Currently, every team play 20 interleague games per season. But by 2050, all teams will play 27 interleague games per season. Like present, they will play 162 games in the season by mid-century. Dates of, season finale, All-Star Game, and schedule will be the same, but the postseason will be little different to be mentioned below. By that season with four four-team divisions in each league, the number of series teams will play with the other teams are listed below.


 * Against the division rivals, every team will play 54 games/18 series (18 games/6 series against each team).
 * Against the interdivision opponents, every team will play 81 games/27 series (6 games/2 series against each of the selected 9 teams, 9 games/3 series against each of the selected 3 teams).
 * Against the interleague opponents, every team will play 27 games/9 series, including 6 games/2 series against the interleague rival. Since they won't be playing against every team from a different league, teams will mainly be played in an interleague division determined by the four-year rotation as well as at least one team from three other divisions.
 * In the years when every team play in an interleague division outside of their cross-division (e.g. AL West vs. NL East, AL East vs. NL South), they will play all four teams in their designated division for 3 games/1 series each, 6 games/2 series against the interleague rival (3 games/1 series each at home and on the road), and 9 games/3 series against teams from other interleague division, 3 games/1 series against one team from each non-designated division, including one from the cross division.
 * In the years when every team play in the cross interleague division (e.g. AL North vs. NL North), they will play all four teams in their cross division for a total of 18 games/6 series, including 6 games/2 series against the interleague rival and 6 games/2 series against the randomly selected other team from that cross division, 3 games/1 series each at home and on the road, and 9 games/3 series against teams from other interleague division, 3 games/1 series against one team from each non-designated division.

Postseason
Since there will be an extra division, hence one more division winner in each league, two more playoff qualifiers will be added to MLB to increase the number of playoff qualifiers to 12, six in each league. The LWCS will be different as it won’t have just wild card teams playing, but wild card qualifiers playing against the lower seeded division winners, just like the Wild Card Round in the NFL. The winners of LWCS will advance to the LDS, the winner of #3 and #6 seeded team matchup will face the #2 seeded team in the LDS, while the winner of #4 and #5 seeded matchup in the LWCS will face the #1 seeded team in the LDS. From then on, playoff format will be the same as present, with the best-of-five LDS, best-of-seven LCS, and best-of-seven World Series.

Present
Below lists the current teams with six divisions, three in each league. Each division contain five teams.

Future
Below shows what the divisions and team colors will be like in 2050. Relocated and renamed teams except for White Sox will have different colors than current name teams in current cities. The team colors for Minnesota Twins would be changed by 2050, plus minor changes for Milwaukee Brewers, Dallas Rangers, and New York Yankees. They will have eight divisions (four in each league), each containing four teams.

Interleague rivalries
Below lists interleague rival pairs as well as series matchup names between them by 2050. These pairs play six games against one another every year, three at each ballpark. Two pairs are located in the same city (New York and Los Angeles), three pairs are in different cities within the same state (e.g. Cleveland Blues & Cincinnati Reds), and eleven are in different states, districts or provinces (e.g. Toronto Blue Jays & Montreal Saints).

Possible milestones
By 2050, I expect that we will have lot more milestones and a lot of current records will break. The examples of milestones may include (current records are in parentheses)
 * A batter may hit 800 s in their career ( hit 762 home runs in his career)
 * A batter may hit 80 home runs in a single season (Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001)
 * A batter may hit home runs in 10 consecutive games ( (1956), (1987), and  (1993) hit home runs in 8 consecutive games)
 * A batter may get 200 s in a single season ( had 191 RBIs in 1930)
 * A batter may hit 40 in a single season ( hit 36 triples in 1912)
 * A batter may hit in a single season in at least 500 s ( had a .440 batting average in 539 at-bats in 1894)
 * A batter may have a 60-game ( had a 56-game hitting streak in 1941)
 * A batter may get 300 in a single season ( had 262 hits in 2004)
 * A batter may get 5,000 hits in their career ( had 4,256 hits in his career)
 * A player may play 3,000 consecutive games ( played 2,632 consecutive games)
 * A runner may reach base 100 consecutive games ( reached base 84 consecutive games in 1949)
 * A runner may 150 bases in a single season ( stole 130 bases in 1982)
 * A runner may steal 1,500 bases in their career (Rickey Henderson stole 1,406 bases in his career)
 * A pitcher may throw 10 consecutive s ( threw 6 consecutive shutouts in 1968)
 * A pitcher may throw 3 consecutive s ( threw 2 consecutive no-hitters in 1938)
 * A pitcher may throw 2 consecutive s (23 pitchers threw 1 consecutive perfect game)
 * A pitcher may throw 10 no-hitters in their career ( threw 7 no-hitters in his career)
 * A pitcher may throw 3 perfect games in their career (23 pitchers accomplished the feat once)
 * A pitcher may record 6000 strikeouts in their career ( recorded 5,714 strikeouts in his career)
 * A pitcher may go 100 innings without issuing a ( went 84.1 innings without issuing a walk in 1962)
 * A pitcher may throw 30 straight hitless innings ( went 25.1 straight hitless innings in 1904)
 * A pitcher may throw 300 straight homerless innings during the ( went 269.1 straight homerless innings from 1979–1982)
 * A pitcher may throw 75 straight scoreless innings ( went 60.1 straight scoreless innings from 1988–1989)
 * A pitcher may throw 20 straight perfect innings ( went 15 straight perfect innings in 2009)
 * A pitcher may throw 110 mph (106 mph pitch thrown by in 2011)
 * A team may win 30 straight games (Cleveland Indians won 22 straight games in 2017)
 * A team may finish the 162-game season with 120 (116 wins by Chicago Cubs in 1906 and Seattle Mariners in 2001)
 * A team may score 20 in one inning (Chicago White Stockings scored 18 runs in 7th inning on September 6, 1883)
 * A team may score 40 runs in a game (Chicago Colts scored 36 runs on June 29, 1897)
 * A team may shutout the opponents 40 times in a single season (Chicago Cubs shutout the opponents 32 times in 1907 and 1909)
 * A team may overcome a 10-run deficit in the ninth inning and win it (1901 Blues and 1990 Phillies overcame an 8-run deficit in the ninth inning and won)
 * A team may get 20 s in a single season (New York Yankees got 17 walk-off wins in 1943)
 * A team may get involved in 40 games in a single season (Boston Red Sox played 31 extra inning games in 1943)
 * A team may turn 5 s in a single season (Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics turned 3 as the most recent record in 1979)
 * A game may last 30 innings (a game between and  lasted 26-innings that ended in a tie due to night fall on May 1, 1920)
 * There may be 5 perfect games during the single MLB season (3 perfect games in 2012)
 * There may be 10 no-hitters during the single MLB season (9 no-hitters in 2021).

If the Yankees keep rolling along during the 21st century like they did during the 20th century, they may have 50-time World Series Champions by 2100. But, I predict that the Yankees will only win three more world championships this century, which will only then be a 30-time World Series Champion by 2100. I also predict that all 32 teams will win at least one world championship from now till the turn of the 22nd century.

Predicted World Series Champions

 * 2022: White Sox over Padres 4–0
 * 2023: Astros over Brewers 4–3
 * 2024: Dodgers over Rays 4–3
 * 2025: Dodgers over Angels 4–3
 * 2026: Mariners over Marlins 4–2
 * 2027: White Sox over Reds 4–1
 * 2028: Athletics over Mets 4–2
 * 2029: Athletics over Rockies 4–3
 * 2030: Pirates over Rays 4–3
 * 2031: Pirates over Guardians 4–2
 * 2032: Dodgers over Mariners 4–2
 * 2033: Rays over Rockies 4–0
 * 2034: Saints over Astronauts 4–0
 * 2035: Brewers over Rays 4–1
 * 2036: Nationals over Rays 4–1
 * 2037: Guardians over Mets 4–3
 * 2038: Rockies over Angels 4–2
 * 2039: Rangers over Rockies 4–2
 * 2040: Yankees over Reds 4–0
 * 2041: Nationals over Astronauts 4–0
 * 2042: Reds over Royals 4–2
 * 2043: Cubs over Athletics 4–0
 * 2044: Cardinals over Twins 4–2
 * 2045: Marlins over Pioneers 4–1
 * 2046: Brewers over Pioneers 4–2
 * 2047: Angels over Padres 4–2
 * 2048: White Sox over Phillies 4–2


 * 2049: Browns over Dodgers 4–1
 * 2050: Nationals over Astronauts 4–2
 * 2051: Phillies over Red Sox 4–2
 * 2052: Cubs over White Sox 4–1
 * 2053: Rockies over Twins 4–3
 * 2054: Twins over Padres 4–3
 * 2055: Rangers over Rockies 4–3
 * 2056: Rockies over Orioles 4–3
 * 2057: Yankees over Saints 4–0
 * 2058: Mets over White Sox 4–1
 * 2059: White Sox over Diamondbacks 4–1
 * 2060: Cubs over Athletics 4–3
 * 2061: Phillies over Athletics 4–3
 * 2062: Pioneers over Marlins 4–3
 * 2063: Pirates over Rangers 4–0
 * 2064: Oaks over Pioneers 4–3
 * 2065: Royals over Diamondbacks 4–3
 * 2066: Rays over Marlins 4–2
 * 2067: Browns over Nationals 4–3
 * 2068: Cardinals over Guardians 4–0
 * 2069: Red Sox over Padres 4–0
 * 2070: Twins over Padres 4–0
 * 2071: Saints over Tigers 4–0
 * 2072: Tigers over Phillies 4–0
 * 2073: Cubs over White Sox 4–2
 * 2074: Seals over Tigers 4–1


 * 2075: Seals over Guardians 4–3
 * 2076: Royals over Phillies 4–1
 * 2077: Mets over Red Sox 4–2
 * 2078: Pirates over Angels 4–3
 * 2079: Oaks over Pioneers 4–0
 * 2080: Seals over Pioneers 4–1
 * 2081: Padres over Angels 4–1
 * 2082: Brewers over Yankees 4–0
 * 2083: Diamondbacks over Yankees 4–1
 * 2084: Seals over Royals 4–3
 * 2085: Orioles over Rockies 4–2
 * 2086: Nationals over Angels 4–3
 * 2087: Cubs over Yankees 4–3
 * 2088: Browns over Cardinals 4–0
 * 2089: Cubs over Red Sox 4–3
 * 2090: Marlins  over Guardians 4–2
 * 2091: Athletics over Reds 4–3
 * 2092: Guardians over Dodgers 4–3
 * 2093: Oaks over Rangers 4–0
 * 2094: Seals over Yankees 4–1
 * 2095: 'Yankees over Mets 4–3
 * 2096: Mariners over Diamondbacks 4–1
 * 2097: Browns over Cubs 4–3
 * 2098: Pioneers over Reds 4–3
 * 2099: Nationals over Angels 4–3
 * 2100: Cubs over Rays 4–3