Dunedin cons:
Saunders injury
Rain
Attendance
Rain

Zona cons:
Weird desert diseases
Distance

More and more teams are going west. Building a new facility makes much more sense in Arizona than Florida.

Outside of distance, I don't see how anything in Florida is preferable to Arizona (obviously the Ontario/Eastern snowbirds won't be able to continue to see the Jays in Florida, although the West Coast ones will). Having been to both areas, Arizona is vastly superior for the ST experience from this desk.

If they do move to Arizona, it's at least CONCEIVABLE I could drive there (Phoenix is ~10 hours from Silicon Valley).. I'm not a spring training type of guy, although maybe I just need some Jays fans to hang with :-)

I think I read somewhere that all the teams who moved to Arizona were part of a tourism initiative that has ran out of money or the initiative has achieved its goal in terms of the number of teams in the area. So it wouldn't be as beneficial to move there.

Does anyone know anything about this? I might just be making this up.....

Move into the Port St Lucie Stadium with the Mets! There are two teams in Jupiter and by 2017 , two more teams in West Palm Beach.

Zona for me, please.

Zona for me too. 

More and more teams are going west. Building a new facility makes much more sense in Arizona than Florida.

The migration of teams from Florida to Arizona appears to be over, at least for now. Just about everyone now has a modern facility, or is in the process of getting one. With the Astros and Nationals building a new facility together, it appears that only the Braves and Brewers are looking for new spring training homes. The Braves won't leave Florida for geographic reasons, and the Brewers have trained in Arizona since they were the Pilots.

There might be an opportunity for the Blue Jays to partner with the Braves at a new Tampa-area site, although the plan is on hold at the moment. That option probably makes the most sense.

Hope they stay in Florida. I especially like that Tampa location, just a quick scoot across the Gandy Causeway from my brother's house.

Zona would be great for me as well, thx!

I go to spring training in Dunedin every year, watching games  at both the major and minor league complexes. The "major league" park is a great place to see a game since it is so tiny, and almost all the fans are from Ontario or the east coast so none of us would be happy to see the Jays go to Arizona. However, it is a terrible park for training or practice, the seats are uncomfortable, and the capacity is far too small to bring in the kind of revenue that other teams get in the spring. There may be almost enough room at the minor league complex, however, to build an entire new multi-field facility, except perhaps for parking, but Dunedin would probably have to rezone (it is in a quiet residential area) and/or allow them to take over a public park that adjoins the property. Sharing a space in the Tampa area might be really problematic because Tampa has TERRIBLE traffic jams relying on one major expressway cutting across the city.

I've been to Florida lotsa times,  and love the experience.  I've only been to Arizona once, and it seemed like Orlando: warm weather with tons of malls and no Beach. The Florida ST experience is older towns with character like Dunedin, Bradenton, Clearwater and Winter Haven (which Shapiro ditched).  Jevant, tell us more about your ST experience in Arizona,  and how it's better. I do agree the Florida traffic is horrendous, and Dunedin needs to pony up to get us a facility in one spot,  rather than the fenced off training park 20 minutes away from the stadium.

@vw_fan17, maybe we could do a car pool or convoy from Silicon Valley if they end up in Arizona. I bet there are lots of Jays fans here. I drove to Phoenix from Silicon Valley 2 years ago and it is doable in 12-14 hours including stops for food.

As long as Arizona continues to have racist ID laws, I think nobody should do business there.

Toronto isn't much better with their carding program.

Florida prohibits state employees from using the words "climate change" and "global warming".  Which would be funny if it weren't so sad.

Everyone has their own lines about what kind of governmental rules/behavioiur might affect decisions on doing business or visiting. 

I think that a move to Arizona will have most appeal to those who don't go to spring training now and won't in the future. The vast majority of those who do go now will, i suspect, feel negatively about the move to dull and more distant Arizona mall burbs.

The other considerations, beyond the death or diminishment of the spring training fan market, might be:

1) the loss of all the AL East competitors in spring training, with the additional assured sellout of the Phillies and less certainly the Tigers. When Cleveland left Winter Haven for AZ in 2009, the Royals had already moved to AZ, and the White Sox were moving there as well. That's not the situation for the Jays, who would be the only AL East team in AZ.

2) MLB wants to maintain a certain number of teams in Florida.

3) The Blue Jays have a FSL franchise in Dunedin and that has been stable for decades. No one goes to the games during the regular season, but that''s not going to change by moving the team. When the Indians moved, their A+ team was in the Carolina League and it has changed location in that league twice since.

4) The important point that has been touched on by others, the division of the major and minor league complexes. Someone suggested building on Solon, but I really can't see that. Buying land closer to US 19, similar to the Clearwater park, makes more sense to me.

5) There is apparently already agreement in place to use public funds in Dunedin to keep the team there.

If you're going to fly down for a week or two of ST, does it matter if it's a three or five hour flight

How about Cuba?