This Canadian City Deserves to Be MLB's Next Expansion Team

Soon, Major League Baseball will be expanding.

Commissioner Rob Manfred has made it his mission to keep pushing the sport of baseball forward, and following the pitch clock and the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) System, the next logical step is to increase the number of franchises in MLB from 30 to 32.

While it might have taken him longer than he would have liked, with the Athletics still a few years away from playing in their new home of Las Vegas, it feels like Manfred is finally ready to add two new franchises, with valuations of franchises going up across the board.

Where will those two teams be located?

While there are currently two reported “heavy favorites” in Nashville and Salt Lake City, I think there’s a chance a different region could get one of the expansion franchises.

And it’s not in the United States.

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I am OK to sign off on Nashville. The south needs another team besides the Atlanta Braves, and a Tennessee team would instantly give the Braves a true rival of their own down in that region of the United States.

But I’m not completely sold on Salt Lake City.

Instead, I believe the MLB should do the right thing and bring baseball back to Montreal.

Canada has shown, with its support for the Toronto Blue Jays in the most recent World Series, that the country can host another team, and the former Montreal Expos are one of the greatest what-ifs in sports history.

If the league hadn’t shut down in 1994 when the Expos were the frontrunners for the World Series, Montreal could have won it all, shot their franchise value through the roof, and then found an owner in Canada that would have kept them there instead of moving to Washington, D.C.?

Right now, in the NHL playoffs, it’s clear that Montreal loves sports. And it’s not just hockey. The city continues to host yearly Expos conventions, a team that did little to nothing, success-wise, during its existence, where they celebrate old players like they’re legends of the game.

Manfred has made many sound decisions during his tenure as MLB’s leader.

Bringing back the Expos to Montreal might be his magnum opus.

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This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 8:05 PM.