Minor League Baseball News

[LMU 5,940]

Confirmed.

 

 

[JTernup 291]

17 minutes ago, LMU said:

Confirmed.

 

 

This is going to be so inconvenient for the Nats when they're in the middle of blowing a division race...

[LMU 5,940]

2 hours ago, JTernup said:

This is going to be so inconvenient for the Nats when they're in the middle of blowing a division race...

Yep. No direct flights.

 

[Wings 1,969]

5 hours ago, LMU said:

I walked by the Fresno ballpark back in April.  It's in a lovely neighborhood of pawn shops, a casino, and urban blight.

 

The Mediterranean restaurant/brewery was excellent though so there's that.

 

As a midsize city as it is, Fresno should still probably be in the Cal League. 

[buzzcut 246]

1 hour ago, Wings said:

 

As a midsize city as it is, Fresno should still probably be in the Cal League. 

Who'd replace it in the PCL? I don't know who'd fit the bill that isn't a PCL reject.

[oz615 22]

On 9/8/2018 at 6:55 PM, Wings said:

PCL

Tacoma

Sacramento

Reno

Fresno

Salt Lake

Las Vegas

Albuquerque 

El Paso

Round Rock

San Antonio

Oklahoma City

Wichita

Omaha

Iowa

Memphis

Nashville

 

 

It still bug me to this day as to why Nashville is in the PCL as the only team East of the Mississippi River. i just wish it was an for Nashville (and Memphis) could be in the IL.

Edited September 19, 2018 by oz615
Specifiying the post.

[Wings 1,969]

Maybe we should have more than 2 AAA leagues. Cut down on travel. 

[leopard88 2,449]

11 hours ago, LMU said:

Yep. No direct flights.

 

 

Fresno seems like one of those cities that Southwest would serve.  Maybe the Lerners can make some calls.

 

P.S.  I just discovered that the Fresno airport code is FAT.  That's rather unfortunate.

[NicDB 2,380]

Supposedly it's to make AAA ball more like MLB where there's two leagues.  But the idea of a minor league that spans three time zones is ridiculous... I'm looking at you too, AHL.

[AstroBull21 1,878]

16 hours ago, nickp91 said:

Did the Rangers not want San Antonio? Or were they caught sleeping while the Brewers were aggressive?

A new ballpark has yet to be approved for San Antonio.  It thought the Rangers passed due to this reason.

[Wings 1,969]

Pacific Coast League

Albuquerque 

El Paso

Fresno

Las Vegas

Reno

Sacramento

Salt Lake

Tacoma

 

American Association*

Indianapolis 

Iowa

Louisville

Memphis

Nashville

Oklahoma City

Omaha

Round Rock

San Antonio

Wichita

*if they can get the name back

 

International League 

Buffalo

Charlotte

Columbus

Durham

Gwinnett 

Lehigh Valley 

Norfolk

Rochester 

Scranton/Wilkes-Barre

Syracuse

Toledo

Worcester

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kroywen 2,241]

With all these changes in AAA affiliations, I tried to create a 'platonic ideal' of AAA affiliates, with the intent of minimizing distance from each ML team to their AAA affiliate. Think I did pretty well with it.

 

AAA Team	ML Affiliation
Albuqueque	Arizona
Buffalo	Toronto
Charlotte	Miami
Columbus	Cleveland
Durham	Washington
El Paso	San Diego
Fresno	Los Angeles (2)
Gwinnett	Atlanta
Indianapolis	Chicago (2)
Iowa	Minnesota
Las Vegas	Los Angeles (1)
Lehigh Valley	Philadelphia
Louisville	Cincinnati
Memphis	St. Louis
Nashville	Chicago (1)
New Orleans	Tampa Bay
Norfolk	Baltimore
Oklahoma City	Kansas City
Omaha	Milwaukee
Pawtucket	Boston
Reno	Oakland
Rochester	Pittsburgh
Round Rock	Texas
Sacramento	San Francisco
Salt Lake City	Colorado
San Antonio	Houston
Scranton	New York (1)
Syracuse	New York (2)
Tacoma	Seattle
Toledo	Detroit

 

The Florida teams, by necessity, get a bit screwed, since there's no AAA teams anywhere close to them. The San Diego/El Paso combo is by far the worst, but some southwestern ML team was inevitably going to draw the short end of the stick. Other than that, almost every affiliate would be a few hours drive or a couple hours flight away, tops. No Fresno-to-DC affiliations, at least. 

[LMU 5,940]

Looks like a classic needs to make a return.

 

[B-Rich 849]

13 hours ago, oz615 said:

It still bug me to this day as to why Nashville is in the PCL as the only team East of the Mississippi River.

 

New Orleans is also east of the Mississippi River, as is the AAA baseball stadium in Metairie.

[sc49erfan15 1,659]

4 minutes ago, B-Rich said:

New Orleans is also east of the Mississippi River, as is the AAA baseball stadium in Metairie.

 

To be fair, New Orleans is every direction but south of the Mississippi River. 

[pmoehrin 947]

18 hours ago, buzzcut said:

Who'd replace it in the PCL? I don't know who'd fit the bill that isn't a PCL reject.

 

The only city that really strikes me as being a possible replacement would be Boise.

 

Metro area is about 700K and growing which is perfectly suitable for a AAA market. Plenty of disposable income in the surrounding area. No other sports to really compete against.

 

The only cons I could see would be how isolated the market is and the lack of a AAA ready ballpark, but the market itself seems like it could hold some promise.

 

Beyond that, you have Canadian cities like Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton which could work provided the right situation and ownership, but any of them would be a stretch. Same goes for Honolulu.

 

Why a non-California team would even bother with a market like Fresno is beyond me, but as long as you have more AAA teams west of the Mississippi than you have MLB teams west of the Mississippi, you're always going to have at least one team left holding the bag looking stupid at the end. In recent years its been the Mets more often than not. 2019 will be Washington's turn.

 

It will be fun watching Fresno change affiliates three times over the next decade.

[LMU 5,940]

 

16 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

 

The only city that really strikes me as being a possible replacement would be Boise.

 

Metro area is about 700K and growing which is perfectly suitable for a AAA market. Plenty of disposable income in the surrounding area. No other sports to really compete against.

 

The only cons I could see would be how isolated the market is and the lack of a AAA ready ballpark, but the market itself seems like it could hold some promise.

 

Beyond that, you have Canadian cities like Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton which could work provided the right situation and ownership, but any of them would be a stretch. Same goes for Honolulu.

 

Why a non-California team would even bother with a market like Fresno is beyond me, but as long as you have more AAA teams west of the Mississippi than you have MLB teams west of the Mississippi, you're always going to have at least one team left holding the bag looking stupid at the end. In recent years its been the Mets more often than not. 2019 will be Washington's turn.

 

It will be fun watching Fresno change affiliates three times over the next decade.

Fresno's the new Las Vegas except replace God awful facilities to God awful location.

 

Portland should be up there except for A-they may be getting too big to settle for AAA, and B-the ballpark issue.

 

There was the proposed Escondido project a few years ago that fell through leaving the Padres to go to El Paso.

 

The only real options moving forward would be moving lower level markets up to AAA.  Spokane has a larger seating capacity right now than Tacoma.  Brooklyn and Staten Island could work if the Yankees and Mets wanted to put the AAA club in their backyards.  The Eastern and Southern Leagues would be much easier to pluck from as Hartford, Richmond, Birmingham, and Jacksonville could definitely support AAA baseball plus it would be easier to find A and AA markets as replacements.

[pmoehrin 947]

52 minutes ago, LMU said:

Fresno's the new Las Vegas except replace God awful facilities to God awful location.

 

Portland should be up there except for A-they may be getting too big to settle for AAA, and B-the ballpark issue.

 

There was the proposed Escondido project a few years ago that fell through leaving the Padres to go to El Paso.

 

The only real options moving forward would be moving lower level markets up to AAA.  Spokane has a larger seating capacity right now than Tacoma.  Brooklyn and Staten Island could work if the Yankees and Mets wanted to put the AAA club in their backyards.  The Eastern and Southern Leagues would be much easier to pluck from as Hartford, Richmond, Birmingham, and Jacksonville could definitely support AAA baseball plus it would be easier to find A and AA markets as replacements.

 

Portland will never be considered for a AAA team again.

 

Any efforts relating to minor league baseball are being focued squarely on promoting and expanding the Northwest League.

 

Portland is all in on getting an MLB team and I would say it’s all but a foregone conclusion they will get an MLB expansion team within the next ten years.

 

The Mets and Yankees could and should work out a deal where they both play in the NYC metro area. In addition to being an upgrade for both of those franchises it would also open up two other markets. Why they haven’t is a question you’ll have to ask the teams about.

 

And yeah there’s plenty of potential AAA markets at the ready that you mentioned. All you need to do is pull one or two teams out of the PCL and you would solve a lot of problems.

 

Apparently that’s too difficult.

[oz615 22]

8 hours ago, B-Rich said:

 

New Orleans is also east of the Mississippi River, as is the AAA baseball stadium in Metairie.

 

yeah,but are barely

[NicDB 2,380]

If we're talking about new AAA markets, can the Brewers have a top level affiliate in Madison?  They would need a new facility, but the Madison Mallards are far and away the best supported college summer league club by over 2,000 fans per average attendance.  Madison (#80) is also a bigger media market than Syracuse (#85), El Paso (#92), and Reno (#112); and in the same class as Toledo (#78), Rochester (#76), Omaha (#74), and Des Moines (#69).