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Radical changes to minor league baseball possible in 2021
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 17, 2019 20:27:37 GMT -5
The GCL and Arizona Leagues are sometimes referred to as "complex" leagues because the games are played at the team's spring training complexes. Those aren't going anywhere. The restructuring only has to do with the affiliated minor league franchises.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Nov 17, 2019 21:16:42 GMT -5
Anybody who'd like to get their heads wrapped (double and triple wrapped) around this stuff needs to listen to the podcast. I'm doing that right now. Not only does Hatfield get into the weeds, he's got the rototiller in there and he's plowing up the territory.
Just a lot to absorb about the whys, wheres, and whats of the proposal.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Nov 17, 2019 22:18:47 GMT -5
The GCL and Arizona Leagues are sometimes referred to as "complex" leagues because the games are played at the team's spring training complexes. Those aren't going anywhere. The restructuring only has to do with the affiliated minor league franchises. Just a wild guess but I'd assume the complexes take on a different role when all this actually does go down. Around the year training in addition to live games.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 18, 2019 11:29:39 GMT -5
The GCL and Arizona Leagues are sometimes referred to as "complex" leagues because the games are played at the team's spring training complexes. Those aren't going anywhere. The restructuring only has to do with the affiliated minor league franchises. Just a wild guess but I'd assume the complexes take on a different role when all this actually does go down. Around the year training in addition to live games. That's already the case, increasingly. ST -> XST -> Instructs -> mini-camps, rinse, repeat. I could see repeating at the complex level becoming more common.
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Post by jimed14 on Nov 18, 2019 11:57:36 GMT -5
Just a wild guess but I'd assume the complexes take on a different role when all this actually does go down. Around the year training in addition to live games. That's already the case, increasingly. ST -> XST -> Instructs -> mini-camps, rinse, repeat. I could see repeating at the complex level becoming more common. That sure is incredibly boring for prospect fans since we get a total of zero reports from complex teams unless a fan is there and even then, it will be based on which players they're looking at doing who knows what. You can't even scout a box score. I wonder what teams will even do with scouting these players. You're basically scouting practice. And then if players repeat these levels, you're talking about going more than a full year of not ever playing a single live game.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 18, 2019 12:00:37 GMT -5
That's already the case, increasingly. ST -> XST -> Instructs -> mini-camps, rinse, repeat. I could see repeating at the complex level becoming more common. That sure is incredibly boring for prospect fans since we get a total of zero reports from complex teams unless a fan is there and even then, it will be based on which players they're looking at doing who knows what. You can't even scout a box score. I wonder what teams will even do with scouting these players. You're basically scouting practice. And then if players repeat these levels, you're talking about going more than a full year of not ever playing a single live game. You'd be surprised how many orgs don't scout short-season, never mind the complexes.
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Post by iakovos11 on Nov 18, 2019 15:18:03 GMT -5
That sure is incredibly boring for prospect fans since we get a total of zero reports from complex teams unless a fan is there and even then, it will be based on which players they're looking at doing who knows what. You can't even scout a box score. I wonder what teams will even do with scouting these players. You're basically scouting practice. And then if players repeat these levels, you're talking about going more than a full year of not ever playing a single live game. You'd be surprised how many orgs don't scout short-season, never mind the complexes. Will scouting the complexes be the new market inefficiency? Maybe Chaim can find a way to exploit this.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 18, 2019 15:36:05 GMT -5
You'd be surprised how many orgs don't scout short-season, never mind the complexes. Will scouting the complexes be the new market inefficiency? Maybe Chaim can find a way to exploit this. Kiley and Eric at FG have at least discussed, if not written about, just that! I'm inclined to agree.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Nov 19, 2019 13:34:17 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 19, 2019 15:40:39 GMT -5
This still feels like a wakeup call for some of the lesser-kept franchises to improve their facilities and a negotiation tactic for MLB to have over milb franchise-moving restrictions. Like I've said in a couple places, the Auburn Doubledays installed artificial turf this year because the stadium wanted the local community college to be able to use the park and they can't grow grass in late March out there. You can't be out here installing turf in 2019 and then crying foul when an MLB franchise doesn't want to support you by sending top prospects your way. (What's even sadder is that the grass playing surface was pretty well-regarded). The Batavia Muckdogs, one of the poorest franchises in milb, and currently without an owner, tried to move to Waldorf, MD for the 2017 - they had a buyer lined up (incidentally, it would have been the only minority-owned milb franchise at that time), but the Baltimore Orioles, the Eastern League, and the Carolina League objected based on territorial rights issues. dutchbaseballhangout.wordpress.com/2016/05/28/move-of-muckdogs-to-waldorf-falls-through/These are extreme examples, of course. There are franchises on that list that have no business being dissolved - like, the Chattanooga Lookouts are a staple franchise, I cannot figure out why they'd be on that list. But milb does need some radical restructuring and I think there's a lot of space here to get that done.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Nov 20, 2019 1:51:04 GMT -5
The podcast and this thread make sense in terms of improving facilities, travel, etc. However, this proposed restructuring still looks like contraction. MLB should not contract in any area. Baseball became nationally successful by marketing itself through barnstorming, local marketing across the nation, the Johnny Appleseed of American sports. Local teams, affiliated teams, MLB teams, expansions, even a number of major leagues followed.
The owners need to get their greedy act together or be forced out, as the game is literally at stake In the face of expanding football, soccer, even LaCross, this is a time for baseball to continue to grow, which is best done from the bottom up, at the local/fan level. As Tip O’Neil clearly demonstrated, all politics is local. So is marketing. Contraction of any sort, especially by reducing proximity to the local game, is the antithesis of local marketing and of expansion. Cutting 40 teams removes 40 local fanbases, which is stupid and shortsighted.
An alternative would be for MLB to wake up and spend the relative pittance to upgrade player wages and bennies; and to create and enforce a model to improve the facilities, the product, local marketing and the fairly easy job of deeply involving each local community in the process. (Worcester baseball fans and the community in general are excited, Pawtucket and now Lowell are rightfully hurt and angry.) Instead of fearful “the game is dying” memes, this is an important opportunity to improve the game locally for the purpose of enlarging the base. Contracting and fixing do not belong in the same sentance.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Nov 20, 2019 8:46:11 GMT -5
Contraction of any sort, especially by reducing proximity to the local game, is the antithesis of local marketing and of expansion. Cutting 40 teams removes 40 local fanbases, which is stupid and shortsighted. An alternative would be for MLB to wake up and spend the relative pittance to upgrade player wages and bennies; and to create and enforce a model to improve the facilities, the product, local marketing and the fairly easy job of deeply involving each local community in the process. (Worcester baseball fans and the community in general are excited, Pawtucket and now Lowell are rightfully hurt and angry.) Instead of fearful “the game is dying” memes, this is an important opportunity to improve the game locally for the purpose of enlarging the base. Contracting and fixing do not belong in the same sentence.I basically agree with everything you're saying about the minors, except that contraction has no role to play in improving the system. It seems pretty unanimous among the people who know the minors best that we have too many teams. There's so much filler on these rosters. Even before you get to the bad facilities and the towns that just don't have the population or the economy to support these teams in any real way, seeing two or three guys on a team that have any chance of making the majors isn't a great baseball experience. (PS. If you really want to grow the game by going local, eliminate the minor leagues entirely and use a relegation system instead.)
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 20, 2019 12:55:00 GMT -5
Looking at the list that came out, I think the arguments about why contracting teams would be bad could reasonably apply to maybe 20% of the 42 teams. That's spitballing with a large margin for error.
I'll use it as an example because I've been there - I knew Hagerstown would be on the list. Park is bad, nobody goes to games, bad player dev environment. I can't think of a good reason to raise against removing the franchise's affiliation.
I just don't think "growing the game" requires MLB to provide players for an affiliated minor league club in every locale. There just doesn't seem to be a correlation. Best example I can think of - the Florida State League is easily the worst full-season league in terms of attendance. Meanwhile, Florida is one of the best states in terms of producing ballplayers.
There's also been an argument about jobs. I don't have time to look at every team, but would point out that the Spinners website lists all of 2 front office employees who've been with the franchise for longer than Main Street Baseball llc's ownership of the team. I'm sure there are lower level employees who've been around (e.g., Del the Dogman), but these aren't operations with dozens of full-time employees here.
The biggest argument against the plan, to me, is that raising salaries 50% isn't nearly enough. Not even close. 6,000 increasing to 9,000 is nonsense. Start at like 20,000 or 30,000, and play players during all baseball activities like Spring Training and Instructs, and we'll talk.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Nov 22, 2019 9:17:11 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 22, 2019 9:24:23 GMT -5
It's the perfect issue for grandstanding!
(Own those puns, people. Embrace them.)
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Post by Oregon Norm on Nov 22, 2019 10:40:35 GMT -5
I did use the term "rationalizing" earlier. Politicians and the people who cultivate them don't always play in that league. (I'll own that one(
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Post by voiceofreason on Nov 23, 2019 12:37:15 GMT -5
After reading all your thoughts here and thinking about it the situation baseball finds itself in is a position that reflects the double edged sword analogy perfectly. The causes and affects of each solution or argument have repercussions that are impossible to ignore.
I am not actually talking about the minor leagues future as much as I am the coming CBA negotiations.
Seems to me that doing some combination of increased minimums, quicker to arbitration and FA freedom along with establishing a soft cap that more directly reflects revenues are all part of the solution. The need to protect small market teams while at the same time motivating them to be competitive both on the field and off is emperative. Not an easy thing to do but they are the ones that will be negatively impacted by paying players what they are worth earlier in their careers; which I think we all agree needs to happen.
The older I get the more I learn how greed ruins most things, not a great lesson to learn in life.
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Post by jimed14 on Nov 23, 2019 12:58:45 GMT -5
Of note, some of the teams on the chopping block have had millions of dollars spent on them by city governments in recent years to improve their facilities. Some are planned or in progress, so I think the reasoning for picking the teams to go is shoddy. They won't even give them a chance to improve to their undefined standards? Probably will be some lawsuits coming. BP had an article about it yesterday.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 23, 2019 16:12:45 GMT -5
Of note, some of the teams on the chopping block have had millions of dollars spent on them by city governments in recent years to improve their facilities. Some are planned or in progress, so I think the reasoning for picking the teams to go is shoddy. They won't even give them a chance to improve to their undefined standards? Probably will be some lawsuits coming. BP had an article about it yesterday. 1) Doesn't mean the money was spent on player facilities. Keith Law's article mentioned one park where they just put a bunch of money into it but it was almost all exterior. 2) Even if money was spent on the player facilities, doesn't mean it was done well. James has given the example in here multiple times of the Auburn Doubledays park, where they installed artificial turf so that another team could use the field before the pros start. In other words, they literally made the facilities worse. 3) BP's article, assuming you mean the one that ran on Thursday ( www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/55422/mlbs-minor-league-plan-would-cut-off-four-million-fans/ ) is a joke. They literally just calculated the combined attendance of the 42 teams on the chopping block, which was just over 4 million, and made the story "4 million fans would lose out on minor league baseball," a claim based on a number of obviously faulty assumptions, as I pointed out on Twitter (e.g., you're assuming every person went to one game, that that's actual attendance and not ticket sales, that those people don't have another team nearby, ignores the two indy league teams getting brought in that draw better than any of the 42 teams that would lose affiliations, etc.). The lack of robustness in that analysis was alarming. There's also a point in there about the jobs that'd be lost, which is one I don't buy. You'd be astounded how few full-time employees minor league teams have at the lower levels, particularly short season. I bet most have fewer than 10. That's obviously awful for whatever full-time employees the teams have, and I don't mean to downplay that, but it's not like we're talking about shutting down a factory that employs hundreds of people here. ------ To me, there are problems. You kind of hit one that the timeframe they're calling for is pretty unfair. I question a few of the teams on the list (as I pointed out on Twitter, of the 4 million in attendance, 1/3 of that comes from the top 6 drawing teams) and think MLB should consider letting some of them get a chance to improve facilities, if that's the only issue. But I'd like to see a team-by-team analysis of why that team was picked, which I just don't have the time or resources to do. For Lowell, for example, the issue might just be that if they're eliminating short-season baseball, it's just not feasible to have a full-season team at LeLacheur. It's completely MLB's prerogative if it decides it wants to eliminate a level of the minors. Nobody says they need to have short-season A/advanced rookie. The only sort of cogent point in the hack job piece on this that was in the New York Post the other day, I think, is that this is the direction a lot of teams are going with player development - consider that Fall Instructs is turning into something based more on direct instruction than on playing yet even more games. If orgs want to eliminate short season, work with more guys at the complex, and yeah, cut down on the number of players in the system in the process, then I don't get why that is such a nightmare to people. As Manfred stated in his comments (which were partly unfortunate - the school bus comment is not remotely true to my understanding), plenty of MiLB teams have moved in recent years. The Potomac Nationals are moving to Fredericksburg. Certainly many of the people who worked at the park in Woodbridge aren't going to move. Certainly many of those fans aren't going to drive down to Fredericksburg. Yes, there is now access in Fredericksburg, but where's the outcry for the poor residents of Woodbridge? A couple years back, two franchises were relocated across the country from the California to the Carolina Leagues. Nobody cared about the loss of jobs in California or the fans out there then. The problem is how this got out and how it was characterized, and how MLB is doing a piss-poor job of getting its side of the story out there. That may be in part because there are definitely problems still with its proposal - the biggest being that a 50% pay increase is still not NEARLY enough, imo. But they also just might not care, which while ill-advised, is also their prerogative.
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Post by jimed14 on Nov 23, 2019 16:20:30 GMT -5
If they actually cared about the player facilities and it's not just a convenient excuse to save money, why wouldn't they allow teams time to actually bring them up to their standards before just chopping them? That would actually make it seem like they care about the player facilities.
I'm sure some owners and cities would step up and get it done.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 23, 2019 16:25:13 GMT -5
If they actually cared about the player facilities and it's not just a convenient excuse to save money, why wouldn't they allow teams time to actually bring them up to their standards before just chopping them? That would actually make it seem like they care about the player facilities. I'm sure some owners and cities would step up and get it done. If facilities were the only thing they were saying was the problem, you would be right. It is not.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Nov 24, 2019 13:44:12 GMT -5
If they actually cared about the player facilities and it's not just a convenient excuse to save money, why wouldn't they allow teams time to actually bring them up to their standards before just chopping them? That would actually make it seem like they care about the player facilities. I'm sure some owners and cities would step up and get it done. If facilities were the only thing they were saying was the problem, you would be right. It is not. m Yes, but “facilities” is, in fact, one of the stated problems, and one which could be remedied in many cases. And job loss may be considered minor compared to GM or Amazon, but it is a real issue nonetheless. These teams don’t exist in a vacuum. These clubs contribute to the local economy, sometimes significantly. Loss of revenue by local plumbers, electricians and other contractors, computer and office supply stores, food and drink distributors, etc. will be painful. FWIW, my family, friends and I have spent many an hour and dollar in nearby restaurants, pubs, even gas stations around milB gemes on both coasts. These teams are also often important to local pride, local entertainment, and as a driver for local interest in and support of baseball, including youth and adult baseball leagues. These should not be dismissed lightly. Losing that local base, however small, would diminish the game in aggregate. It is, whatever spin may be used, a contraction of baseball which, as anyone in marketing will admit, is just long term stupid. The loss of 40 small town operations, whether car dealerships, food distributors, chain restaurants or retail outlets, organic farms or political campaign offices would, in every case, be damaging on so many levels. This simply cannot be denied. Baseball, which is struggling against other sports and video games, will not benefit from closures of 40 local support systems, 40 pro teams which support more than 40 local little leagues, park leagues, beer leagues, high school leagues. The smart move by MLB, an organization which has assumed the responsibility of keeping baseball Our National Pastime, would be to Insure that these 40 local baseball outlets become as successful as possible, enhancing support of and love for the game. Finally, regarding the reality that MLB has the right to decide what happens to these local teams, economies, support systems. Of course they do, but CEO’s and bosses and elected officials and judges have similar power. Which is where the old WWII term FUBAR came from: people in power making wrong decisions with harmful consequences. Both MLB and the Players Association excel at fubar. I am all in favor of re-organizing the minors, but as an opportunity for baseball to improve its position, including in small town America. Billionaires using contraction to save pennies to increase player salaries is shortsighted and bad for their golden goose. These guys are making unreal $$$ in both income and value of assets. Re-investing some of those $$ in the players and local support of the game through their milB system, which is also a brilliant PR system, is wise. Contraction for pennies is stupid.
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Post by James Dunne on Nov 24, 2019 15:49:16 GMT -5
The loss of 40 small town operations, whether car dealerships, food distributors, chain restaurants or retail outlets, organic farms or political campaign offices would, in every case, be damaging on so many levels. This simply cannot be denied. Baseball, which is struggling against other sports and video games, will not benefit from closures of 40 local support systems, 40 pro teams which support more than 40 local little leagues, park leagues, beer leagues, high school leagues. The smart move by MLB, an organization which has assumed the responsibility of keeping baseball Our National Pastime, would be to Insure that these 40 local baseball outlets become as successful as possible, enhancing support of and love for the game. I found this a really great comparison point. If a chain restaurant or retail conglomerate announced it was closing 42 stores nationwide, would it be major news, with Congresspeople getting inovlved? Absolutely not. But I can assure you, your local Olive Garden employs far, far, far more people than most of these baseball clubs, operates 300 more days per year, and is a much bigger contributor on the supply chains. Basically any individual store in any town is a more important part of the economy than 30 or so of these 42 baseball teams. As far as ensuring each franchise is as successful as possible, how? If the MLB club paid all stadium employees, all upkeep, and any upgrades the team wanted, the attendance would not improve significantly - it's throwing bad money after good. Does MLB have a responsibility to the teams that have already moved and lost franchises? Does it owe something to Savannah, whose team moved to Columbia, SC because Savannah (rightly) didn't consider the baseball team enough of an attraction to a tourist-centric city to devote the public funds the team wanted? Again, the rollout here was bad. Places like Chattanooga and Lowell, that support their teams and have nice parks, deserve an explanation rather than just their name being dumped on a list. But MLB isn't responsible for keeping a team in Batavia that hasn't been able to find an owner for more than a decade.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Nov 24, 2019 17:22:32 GMT -5
Good points, but is the number of these 42 teams failing to contribute to the local economy or to local baseball or to baseball as the national pastime really as high as 30? To say that only a handful of teams like Lowell have value seems a stretch.
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Nov 24, 2019 17:53:34 GMT -5
And while it is certainly true that large national chains add more to the local economy than some or even most of these 42 teams, all of these teams are, in fact, important to many elements of those economies. Small towns and small businesses depend on such minor engines of the local economy. It’s not just a matter of scale, nor even the number of full or part time jobs, it’s that these teams are often important sources of local revenues.
It’s only good money after bad for teams and communities which have failed despite best efforts. That doesn’t seem to apply to all 42 teams. Stakeholders usually get the wrong end of corporate efficiency moves. And corporate contraction to enhance the bottom line is often a precursor to more such efficiencies; which seem to be the likely narratives here.
IMO, such a major move as reorganizing the minors should enhance the game and benefit its stakeholders. Such reform would be good for everyone and the sport. I have seen enough CFO so called “rightsizing” and quarterly-report-necessitated-downsizing to recognize that this one is not about improving the game or honoring its stakeholders. It truly worries me.
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