The effort to bring Major League Baseball to Portland has a lot of moving parts. There are multiple possible stadium sites and various options for potentially landing a team. I had one of the project's managing partners, Mike Barrett, on the radio show this week to talk about things. But it got me thinking about the manner in which Portland might actually land a team.

Expansion? Or relocation? And if it's relocation... which teams?

So lets make a run at the potential ways the Portland Diamond Project might land a Major League Baseball team:

RELOCATION

Relocation would be the fast-track option for getting a MLB team to Portland. Two options there: A) An ownership group forming and purchasing an existing team with the intention to relocate to Portland; or B) An existing team simply looking for a stadium and relocating to Portland.

Oakland A's -- Moving the team to San Jose, which would be ideal, isn't an option as the neighboring San Francisco Giants own the territorial rights in the South Bay and won't give them up. In fact, the Giants television rights territory is a huge obstacle that has pretty much locked the A's into having to build any new stadium inside the Oakland city limits.

The club's first choice, owned by Peralta Community College District, fell through when it turned out the district didn't want to sell the parcel. In late March the A's offered to buy the existing Coliseum complex site, but that would come with a hefty $135 million payoff to the City of Oakland that is still owed on the property for renovations to the Coliseum and Oracle Arena. They've also talked about building on a proposed waterfront site known as Howard Terminal, but the entire thing feels shaky at best. There's an aerial tram involved there. Oakland has lost the Raiders to Las Vegas and will lose the Warriors to downtown San Francisco. So the best argument for the A's staying in Oakland may be the political capital at stake here for city leaders. The clock is ticking.

Tampa Rays -- The existing stadium was built in the wrong spot and with poor design. It's a tough haul for fans to make the trip. Also, baseball just hasn't consistently resonated in the state of Florida outside of Spring Training. In February, as they were celebrating their 20th Anniversary, the Rays unveiled a plan to build a new stadium on a 415-acre parcel near Ybor City. It now looks like a lot of show, with no real go. That plan hit a snag that has made the Rays suddenly look like a vulnerable dance partner for the MLB to PDX effort. There's not an attractive site available and the financing of the stadium is a huge question. The Tampa mayor recently asked the state to reconsider the fact that it failed to designate the Ybor stadium parcel to be eligible for a federal tax break. Lots of red tape. No clear solution. Again, clock ticking.

Arizona Diamondbacks -- Maricopa County leaders voted last month, 4-1, to allow the Diamondbacks out of their relocation clause. They can potentially leave Chase Field as early as 2022. Chase Field opened in 1998 and was simply too big (48,519 capacity). The Diamondbacks may first look inside Maricopa County for a new site, but if they struggle to find one, Portland suddenly becomes an interesting option. Which explains why the Diamondbacks have been poking around the perimeter of the Portland Diamond Project, watching to see what's developing in Portland. It's possible the Diamondbacks could use the Portland Diamond Project for leverage in getting Maricopa County to sweeten the deal. But there's clearly a viable third possibility that has emerged here.

EXPANSION

In Seattle in September, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said that he needed to get the stadium situations in Tampa and Oakland settled before he'd consider expansion. But be sure, MLB needs to realign and because of that will expand to 32 teams at some point. Scheduling has been tricky and travel isn't ideal. It will happen. Manfred isn't just hinting at it. He's saying it outright.

It's been more than 20 years since the Rays and Diamondbacks were formed. Prior to that, MLB hadn't gone more than 15 years without adding expansion franchises.

If you're the Portland Diamond Project your hope is that you either help solve the stadium issues for the A's or Rays by relocating them to PDX, or that they quickly get settled by Oakland and Tampa. Again, expediency helps everyone because Manfred won't address expansion until he has the existing teams settled.

Make sense?