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Radical changes to minor league baseball possible in 2021
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Post by grandsalami on Dec 13, 2019 21:26:48 GMT -5
I don’t think MILB AND MLB like each other very much.
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Post by grandsalami on Dec 14, 2019 0:38:15 GMT -5
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 14, 2019 0:49:27 GMT -5
Baseball hardball.
MLB to MiLB: "Let us shoot you or we'll cut your throat".
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 16, 2019 13:21:00 GMT -5
Have had a couple tweet threads on this, with links, so I guess I'll post here. Click through for the rest of each.
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Dec 30, 2019 11:16:16 GMT -5
A. If the 12 teams with TWO short-season teams want to contract, let them contract. Raise minimum pay & contraction will result.
If the Sox & Phils want to contract, they can share the roster in Lowell.
B. It seems that perhaps 18 teams want to contract and don't want to be at a competitive disadvantage. So contract the 42 teams down to 15.
C. What happens to all the extra players? Free agents?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 30, 2019 15:27:53 GMT -5
Do you have any factual basis for statement B?
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Post by DesignatedForAssignment on Dec 30, 2019 17:31:38 GMT -5
Do you have any factual basis for statement B? It's reasonable to conclude that a majority of the club's are pushing for contraction. It's likely the teams with 6 domestic affiliates. It's the Reds & Pirates that have 7 and send their young prospects to Montana & Appalachia for the summer. Low attendance, long bus trips. I'm sure the Reds see a competitive advantage in having an extra roster of low-level players
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2020 23:09:29 GMT -5
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 8, 2020 10:44:03 GMT -5
I feel like LeLacheur needs some major work if it's going to be a full-season park. I also don't get how that'd work sharing with UMass-Lowell, but maybe that can be worked out.
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Post by sittingstill on Jan 8, 2020 11:05:48 GMT -5
I love the Spinners, and in the grand scheme of things would support whatever they do to keep a team there, but I am not sure how you're going to get families with kids in there when it's freezing in April. Even on weekends the April and May games are often not well-attended in Portland and Pawtucket. I don't know if there exist accurate attendance numbers for MiLB teams--there are obviously a lot of folks for whom it's worth it to have season tickets even if they attend only a fraction of the games. If there are no fireworks and no giveaway there seem to be a lot more empty seats than there used to be apart from July/August prime time.
I wonder too about the change in gameday staff from summer gigs to having a staffed park from early April.
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Post by jamesmcgillstatue on Jan 8, 2020 13:02:34 GMT -5
The Red Sox (Fenway Sports Management) own the Salem club outright, and the Lowell NYPL franchise is owned by an entrepreneur. I don't know whether that would be plus or minus for a relocation. A lot depends on whether MLB/MiLB might agree to bump up the NYPL to a High-A vs. Low-A full season league with fewer member clubs than the current Short Season A circuit. That would make a move from Greenville and the SAL more likely, which would be too bad because from what I hear the Drive and their ballpark are highly thought of.
But, more to the point, what about player safety, especially pitcher safety? I don't have the numbers at hand, but the number of cold-weather April and May games that Portland and Pawtucket play, along the number of their early-season, weather-related postponements (necessitating summer doubleheaders), might be an issue in making the NYPL a full-season circuit. (It played as a full-season league from its founding through 1966.) The Carolinas do get a lot of rain in the spring, but common sense dictates that the temperatures there are milder than here when we're having a cold/wet spring.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 8, 2020 15:00:54 GMT -5
I think you're closer to hitting on a key point in that last graf: I think given the choice between having their 2 A-ball affiliates in Salem, Greenville, or Lowell, the org would pick Salem and Greenville.
1) Weather is better. That's not just a safety thing but a games played thing - they don't need a third affiliate that has insane rain issues in April. At the AAA and AA levels they can deal with it because the benefits of proximity outweigh the detrimental effects of the weather. 2) They own the Salem franchise. Benefits there are obvious. 3) The Drive is a model MiLB franchise (in 2017 they won an award that's basically for MiLB franchise of the year) in a great city. The club owns the ballpark and renovated it to have a mini-monster, etc. 4) Lowell is owned by a MiLB entrepreneur who owns 3 other teams and bought this one when his California League team was shut down. The city owns the park and the org shares it with the college. It's great as a NYPL affiliate because players can stay in the dorms, but you lose that going to full-season. I'll stop there for now.
I don't think they'd even think twice about the decision.
But hey, with climate change, maybe this won't be an issue in 5 or 10 years!
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Post by soxin8 on Jan 8, 2020 15:14:04 GMT -5
So does all of this mean there will definitely be no more NYPL? Are those changes for this year? (Sorry if this has already been answered)
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Mar 11, 2020 12:47:36 GMT -5
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Apr 28, 2020 21:00:43 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Apr 28, 2020 23:07:20 GMT -5
I will check out the article tomorrow, but just out of curiosity I have to ask if he goes deeper into the Batavia situation? Not only did the Pirates not meet the asking price, they were outbid in 2016. The Rochester Red Wings, who owned the Muckdogs at the time and were operating them at a loss, accepted an offer from a group who would move them to Waldorf, MD. The buyers would have been the only black owners in all of minor league baseball (not sure that is still the case). The Baltimore Orioles, in all of the Baltimore Oriole-ness, exercised their territorial rights and blocked the move, so the deal fell through. The Pirates apparently would not match the price the Waldorf offered. Just a total mess, and of course it flies completely in the face of MLB's #42-promoting lip-service to diversity.
All that aside, without a move or a buyer Batavia would probably the very first team on the list to be cut. They need a major facilities upgrade and Batavia's in the middle of nowhere.
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Post by vermontsox1 on Oct 29, 2020 9:33:22 GMT -5
Bumping this thread up. MLB (in conjunction with Prep Baseball Report) is proposing to convert the New York-Penn League to a wood bat summer league for draft-eligible prospects. Note that this league would specifically be for rising college seniors so as not to overlap with the Cape Cod League. MLB has also proposed to convert the Appalachian League to a wood bat summer league for rising college freshmen and sophomores. www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-proposes-converting-new-york-penn-league-to-summer-wood-bat-circuit/
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Post by Canseco on Oct 29, 2020 9:37:15 GMT -5
I love baseball, but owners just seem like vile human beings. Probably a response to increased costs related to paying minor league players more money and, more importantly, having to give up more of the gross to MLB players in the next CBA. Heaven forbid!
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 29, 2020 9:42:23 GMT -5
Bumping this thread up. MLB (in conjunction with Prep Baseball Report) is proposing to convert the New York-Penn League to a wood bat summer league for draft-eligible prospects. Note that this league would specifically be for rising college seniors so as not to overlap with the Cape Cod League. MLB has also proposed to convert the Appalachian League to a wood bat summer league for rising college freshmen and sophomores. www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-proposes-converting-new-york-penn-league-to-summer-wood-bat-circuit/I believe the Appy League thing is already done. MLB clubs own the teams in that league, so it was kind of in a unique situation. The article does also say that teams in the NYPL might be part of the 120 that remain (Aberdeen will for sure remain affiliated and I think is becoming a Double-A team or something, which makes sense b/c it's a terrific park), and that some NYPL teams may opt to become indy teams instead.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Oct 29, 2020 11:03:36 GMT -5
This is obviously one part of "rationalizing" the minor league game. There are probably a few pitfalls here. One that comes to mind is the value of having a wide array of prospects thrown into the same mix.
As one example, the Sox got to see Gilberto Jimenez rake against such an array at Lowell, including older college types. He seemed to care not at all who was on the mound and his contact rate showed that. That's valuable information when evaluating a player.
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Post by RedSoxStats on Oct 29, 2020 21:18:20 GMT -5
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 4, 2020 22:18:05 GMT -5
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Post by Oregon Norm on Nov 5, 2020 1:25:03 GMT -5
A lot of information, and a lot of uncertainty. MILB owners are really on the ropes. Hard to promote with that being the case.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,882
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Post by ericmvan on Nov 5, 2020 4:28:50 GMT -5
I spent a couple of days messing around with this a year ago, based just on geography, ballparks and attendance.
I had the Midwest League moving up to high-A and the FSL to low-A (but by merging with the Sally). That was clear from the parks and attendance. I originally also created a new high-A league from clubs in the Carolina and Sally leagues, which it seems they're doing, but I got rid of it in a revision.
The point here is that some of these changes were indicated by the above factors, which the linked article doesn't much mention. I'm excited to see the ML promoted to a better level of play, which their fans deserve. If you just looked at ballpark capacity and attendance, you'd guess that Dayton, Fort Wayne, West Michigan, Kane County, and Lansing were all AA or even AAA clubs, and most of others look like high-A. And this is despite the high density of MLB clubs in the region.
One thing they're not doing that I thought was semi-obvious geographically was to return to three AAA leagues by reviving the American Association. Omaha, Iowa, Nashville, and Memphis aren't that close to the Pacific Coast. Add Charlotte, Indianapolis, Durham, Louisville, Norfolk, and Gwinnet from the IL. Divide into two 5-team divisions and maybe have the East play interleague with the IL and the West play with the PCL. That would save a lot of aviation fuel.
Meanwhile, I'm now onboard with getting rid of the short-season A leagues provided that they institute that level of play at the complexes, a la the GCL and Arizona Lg. You still need a separate level of play for college draftees as opposed to HS kids, and as an option for the latter in their second year. The ability to do lots of hands-on instruction in what used to be A- would be a boon, as would the ability to move players between the two levels more freely.
It also seems as if we learned that intensive instruction and training has unique benefits that differ from competitive game play. That has me wondering whether low-A shouldn't just play from Thursday to Sunday while devoting 2-3 days for instructs, with high-A and maybe even AA playing 5 (all against the same club). In low-A and high-A starting pitchers would pitch just once a week; you'd wait until AA or even AAA until they transitioned into a 5-day rotation. One possibility is to have the first half of the AA season structured like high-A and the second half like AAA and MLB. Pitchers promoted to AA in the second half could either continue pitching once a week, or join the rotation.
Playing five-game series against a team means all your starters face the same hitters (more or less) in a given week, and all the pitchers eventually end up facing all the opposing clubs. Both of those give you a better baseline and more data for comparisons and assessments. And there would be much less complicated travel.
You'd lose some revenue from fewer games, but you could extend the season a week or two into September, and you could charge a cheap admission to one day of instructs per week, which the serious fans would eat up. You can see a top prospect get many more swings in an afternoon of BP than in a game. If the session lasts longer than a game, and the atmosphere is congenial enough, you do nicely at concessions. You can do stuff to market the team, e.g., interviews with the players.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Nov 5, 2020 11:53:17 GMT -5
Just based on numbers, the Red Sox would almost have to replace the SSA team with a second GCL team. Look at our 2021 projections - both rosters are already close to full before adding 2021 draftees.
And I wouldn't hate it if FSG sold Salem, Greenville moved up to High A (they fit nicely in the Carolina League), and the Red Sox joined the Florida State League. Having the Low A affiliate at Fenway South could be tremendous for player dev, and makes the transition to full season for players a bit easier with the loss, potentially, of Lowell and the UMass Lowell dorms. Realized there's no way this would happen with another FSL affiliate in Fort Myers already.
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