SF Giants’ games in Mexico City have been ‘electric.’ Is it a viable option for MLB expansion?
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a desire to expand to 32 teams. Why not Mexico City, North America's largest market?
MEXICO CITY — Major League Baseball’s first regular-season foray into North America’s largest market has been a rousing success, with sold-out crowds, passionate fans and rave reviews from players (yes, even the pitchers). So, with commissioner Rob Manfred already outspoken about expansion, why not Mexico City?
The atmosphere, with a cacophony of noisemakers, crowd karaokes that put “Sweet Caroline” at Fenway Park to shame and alternating chants of “Let’s go Giants!” and “Let’s go Padres!”, has been second to none, and not even a pair of losses to the Padres — dropping Sunday’s finale, 6-4 — could spoil the Giants’ perception of the trip.
“I think it’s great,” infielder J.D. Davis said. “It’s a little bit of a launchpad and everything. Obviously the pitchers probably don’t like it as much. It’s fun. The atmosphere is great. I think it’s electric. It’s just a great place to play. I have nothing bad (to say) about it.”
However, launchpad is putting it lightly, as there’s been no bigger story this weekend than the onslaught of offense, mostly via home runs — 11 on Saturday and four more Sunday — meeting little resistance from the thin air, 7,350 feet above sea level. MLB has played exhibitions here before but never games that count in the stat column, which can have financial repercussions for pitchers.
Asked after his start Saturday if the environment was viable for pitchers, Sean Manaea said, “Yeah, I mean if the average ERA is 6.00.
“If guys get paid like that, then why not. It would be a very interesting dynamic here.”
While reliever John Brebbia has maybe had the most fulfilling cultural experience of anyone, visiting the famed archeology museum, taking in a lucha libre wrestling match, logging many miles on foot and even venturing to some pre-approved local restaurants, he cackled at the idea of a full-time team in CDMX.
“From what we’ve seen so far, it’s so drastically different than a typical regular season baseball game,” Brebbia said. “But the city’s great. And the fans are awesome. … God forbid someone is going through arbitration or going to become a free agent and they have to pitch here. Arbitration doesn’t give a (expletive) where you play, so there’s not a lot of equity if you happen to be stuck here – not stuck here, again, it’s a cool place – but having to play here versus a place like San Francisco, they are not comparable whatsoever. So there would have to be some type of pretty extreme buffer or system to figure out how to equate the two.”
Manager Gabe Kapler said this weekend’s venue, Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, home to the Mexican League’s Red Devils, who have made baseball work here for more than 80 years, was comparable to a top-notch Triple-A ballpark. With a capacity of just over 20,000, MLB would almost certainly require a brand-new venue with more seating in line with the rest of the league, especially in a market of more than 20 million potential fans.
A new ballpark would also allow for more appropriate dimensions, even after the ones here were adjusted from 325 to 331 feet to each foul pole and from 400 to 410 in center field. Outfielder Mitch Haniger suggested 430 feet to center and an additional 20 feet in the corners, though even those fences wouldn’t have held in either of his two mammoth blasts this weekend, including a 460-foot solo shot Sunday (one of nine total to travel 440-plus feet).
Haniger was playing his second international series, after traveling to Tokyo with the Seattle Mariners in 2019.
“Both of my experiences playing internationally have been really fun,” Haniger said. “In front of these crowds here and when I was in Japan, the energy is a little different. I would say it’s a little better than sometimes in the states. It’s definitely fun to play down here.”
That said, “I think it would be a challenge,” Haniger added. “I don’t know the answer. It’s a different game playing at this altitude, for sure.”
There are other potential complications, too. More than 600 miles south of the border, the closest MLB city is Houston, where the Giants head next, a 2½-hour flight away. While the Giants stayed in the upscale Polanco neighborhood, with more Top 50 World restaurants in a square-mile radius than all of San Francisco, and the city is as safe as any other major metropolis, some players might be dissuaded by misconceptions about a foreign city.
A half-mile higher than Colorado’s Coors Field, catcher Blake Sabol was sucking supplemental oxygen to keep him fresh for all nine innings behind the plate Saturday, and Brebbia said he’s toned down his usual workout routine to not exhaust himself before he enters the game.
There are also no shortage of domestic markets that could be good fits, such as Las Vegas, Nashville and Charlotte.
And then there’s the beef, some of it containing traces of steroids, leading teams to ship in their own meat for this series and dissuade their players from eating out. Is that a sustainable way for players to live over a 162-game season?
“Every time we walk by some of those taco stands,” Davis said, “I’m like, man…risk it?”
While Manfred said in 2016 that Mexico City would be one of his two “personal frontrunner(s)” for expansion (along with Montreal), in comments to the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend, the commissioner said that the hope was to turn the country “into kind of a Japan, with a thriving domestic product, great players coming into the big leagues, everybody’s boats rising.”
Furthermore, Manfred said he “can’t say enough good things” about the set-up for the games this weekend and that MLB has “clubs standing in line” to take part in the next series here.
“Mr. Harp has done a phenomenal job,” Manfred said, referring to Alfredo Harp Helú, the owner of the Red Devils who also has a partial stake in the Padres. “It’s a really nice ballpark, the enthusiasm in the ballpark is amazing … It’s an easy trip, great atmosphere (and) facilities.”