As Baseball America’s Josh Leventhal writes, yesterday marked a two-week period where Major League clubs are free to negotiate with available minor league organizations. Major League clubs sign player development contracts with minor league organizations much like players will sign contracts with teams. As such, Leventhal notes that the “affiliation shuffle” is akin to free agency for minor league teams. Leventhal’s article provides more insight behind many of the moves and offers quite a bit of detail for those who are curious to read more about this process.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll see multiple teams sign deals with new affiliates, and MLBTR will keep track of them here for those that are interested …
Class-A Advanced
- The Braves announced that they have moved their Class-A Advanced affiliate from Lynchburg, Va. to Zebulon, N.C. (formerly an Indians affiliate) after agreeing to a two-year PDC. They will inherit the Carolina Mudcats moniker.
Earlier Updates
- Daytona (formerly the Cubs’ affiliate) has announced that it has reached a PDC with the Reds.
- GM Jon Daniels says the Rangers will move their High-A affiliate from Myrtle Beach to High Desert, FOX Sports Southwest’s Anthony Andro tweets.
- The Cubs announced that they will be moving their High-A affiliate from Daytona to Myrtle Beach (previously occupied by the Rangers).
- The Indians announced that they will be moving their High-A affiliate from Carolina to Lynchburg (previously occupied by the Braves).
Double-A
- The Twins announced that they will be moving their Double-A affiliate from New Britain to Chattanooga (previously occupied by the Dodgers) after agreeing to a four-year term.
- The Dodgers announced that they will be moving their Double-A affiliate from Chattanooga to Tulsa (previously occupied by the Rockies).
- New Britain (formerly the Twins’ affiliate) has announced that that it has reached a PDC with the Rockies.
Triple-A
- The Giants announced that they have reached a two-year PDC with Triple-A Sacramento (formerly occupied by the Athletics).
- The Brewers announced that they have reached a two-year PDC with Triple-A Colorado Spring (formerly occupied by the Rockies)
- Fresno (formerly the Giants’ affiliate) has announced that it has reached a PDC with the Astros.
- The Athletics have announced that they will be moving their Triple-A affiliate from Sacramento to Nashville (previously occupied by the Brewers).
- The Dodgers have announced that they will be moving their Triple-A affiliate from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City (previously occupied by the Astros).
- The Rockies announced that they will be moving their Triple-A affiliate from Colorado Springs to Albuquerque (previously occupied by the Dodgers).
- The Brewers have announced that their Triple-A affiliation with Nashville has been terminated by the Sounds.
The Giants are moving from Fresno to Sacramento,,, The Brewers are moving to Fresno… The A’s are moving from Sacramento to Nashville…
None of these are in the books yet, but we’ll update if they are announced.
If it’s whispered, we hear it.
True! But minor league affiliation changes are more of a peripheral concern … in this case, we will hear the whispers but not repeat them.
It states in the article, Sacramento is prepared to end its 14-year affiliation with the A’s to bring the Giants to town; which was confirmed on Sacramento ABC ch. 10 and on KNBR, the Giant’s radio network…
Sacramento already did and filed the paperwork. It’s a pretty open secret in the Bay Area that they’re latching on with the Giants; Susan Slusser had this scoop back in May.
Right, Susan Slusser reported that paperwork has already been filed. If this were a player transaction, it would be on the site. But we are waiting for actual announcements from the clubs in this case.
What kind of things lead to the change?
See my response below … as with any business relationships, I’d say financial considerations are the basic driver.
MWL. The Cubs are also looking at South Bend. I doubt they move, but that will likely result in a Oakland moving back to Kane County and Arizona going to Beloit. I guess it’s 80/20 that they stay in Kane County.
I live in CT and graph at Rock Cats games every chance I can get, and I have to say that I’m a little disappointed to see the twins leave but excited for the new crop of players coming.
If Eddie Butler and/or Jonathan Gray are still at Double A next season you will be delighted how nice they are.They each will approach graphers and ask if you need them to sign anything. really hope both have very successful careers.
Twins were smart to get out, the Rock Cats are moving from New Britain to Hartford soon and attendance will surely drop
2016 at the earliest.
Don’t think attendnance should drop that much. They are trying to draw more people into downtown Hartford, which is absolutely empty after work hours. It may not have the people nearby, but they are hoping some people stick around after work, and also that placing it right off of 84 makes it a bit easier to get to.
Umm … Hartford is a heckuva lot bigger than New Britain and is one of the bigger cities in the country without a major league professional sports team. I grew up in CT. You have it backwards.
What causes these moves? Is there bidding for affiliations?
Generally, money. More specifically, lots of other considerations (logistics, history, marketing, etc) that ultimately probably boil down in large part to money.
As the notes show, some of the moves are spurred by the MLB clubs, others by the MiLB outfits (who presumably have their eye on better deals with other MLB teams).
I’d guess that the Brewers wanted to stay in Nashville, yet the Sounds decided to go with the A’s. After years of having a decaying ballpark, they finally built a new one. If the A’s have bad AAA teams for a few years if not more, it seems as if the difference in revenue between the fee from the A’s rather than the Brewers wouldn’t match the loss of ticket sales and ancillary revenues from having the A’s.
I wonder what the involvement of MLB is.
From Doug Melvin’s comments yesterday, the Brewers definitely wanted to stay with Nashville. He seemed quite perturbed.
Nashville seems like it would be one of the plum gets. New ballpark, big city with a big airport, centrally located. Good for the A’s, who have nothing in their farm so the team is gonna be less than interesting for a while. Course, looks like their 2015 draft position is getting better and better by the day!
Totally disagree that the cupboard is bare. The AA Rockhounds won the league. Most of those players move up to AAA next year. Can’t remember the last time AAA had a losing record. A’s like to keep the farm stocked in case of injuries and trades.
Every team likes to keep their farm stocked in case of injuries or trades.
Yankees added a Appalachian team in Pulaski. MILB had a release.
Thanks for noting. I think that came down a little while back. Not sure if we are dipping below the High-A level, but I’ll confer with the team.
To confirm, we’re going to stick with High-A and above.
Why?
Gotta be a little weird if you happen to be a fan of one of those AAA or AA clubs for the roster to 100% change on you over the offseason when they change affiliations
Meh, all the players change every year anyway.
I’m glad we are done with the Braves but I will forever miss the Lynchburg Mets,
And with all these potential changes at AAA, the Mets are stuck in Vegas.
I hope Daytona gets a team back
No doubt about that one: it will happen.
And it now has: it’s the Reds.
Pirates moving Short Season A from Jamestown to Morgantown, WV…
Would have been nice for the mets to hold off on reupping with Las Vegas. A move to Nashville would have been beneficial.
I think Vegas draws really well, doesn’t it? But yeah, that’s a real bad fit for the Mets IMO. Maybe they’re trying to give their hitters some confidence before hitting NYC.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. Everyone is playing musical chairs, and the Mets are still stuck in Las Vegas. It’s brutal on all levels. The pitchers don’t get any confidence, the hitters get TOO confident, most fans don’t get to see them because it’s on the other side of the country, they don’t play road games anywhere near most Mets fans, and it’s a LONG flight to NYC. They really need to get out of there and Nashville would have been MUCH better for everyone involved.
We finally have a farm system worth writing home about now. You would think that we could entice someone to take us on now. I guess that Wilpons ARE that difficult to work with after all.
Despite what the BA story says about time requirements, it was reported quite a while ago that the Sounds deal with the A’s was completed. It could be that the Wilpons just didn’t blow off the rules the way that Beane did. Maybe nobody really cares about those rules. If the Wilpons want to move to Nashville, they ought to have the owner up to NY for a get acquainted junket now. Plan for the next move now.
I’m not sure if this counts, but the Huntsville Stars (Brewers AA affiliate) are moving the team to Biloxi, MS. Sad to see the only real hometown pro sports team to go, but it’s not surprising. Attendance seemed like it was in the double digits some nights.
I considered covering that but decided not to since a) it’s the minor league organization that is moving, not a change in affiliation and b) it really happened some time ago (the new development is just the Brewers extending their agreement). But thanks for noting.
Does the elevation in Albuquerque have something to do with the Dodger’s switch?
There is speculation that it has something to do with it, yes. (Though there are other major factors, like being able to own the franchise there. And now they can have the AA and AAA teams near each other, fwiw.) But there’s no doubt the Dodgers were tired of not being entirely sure what they have in some of their pitcher prospects, due to elevation related issues not just with home runs allowed but occasional inability to get breaking pitches working and so on. (And with hitters some have argued it’s a similar issue, power numbers are inflated, but in that case it’s still a bit easier for scouts to know what they have in hitters.)
That’s kind of what I thought. It’ll be interesting to see if this helps their prospects or hurts them. I hate baseball at high elevations… I get that it’s kind of the only option if you want baseball in Colorado and New Mexico… but it’s just not “honest” baseball… but it is what it is.
A member of the Dodgers management group, Peter Guber purchased the Oklahoma City team. I think more than anything it was a business move. Obviously it makes a lot of sense to affiliate with a team owned by a member of their ownership group.
Some of these just don’t make sense. Why would the A’s move their AAA team all the way to the out east? And I don’t get the Rockies moving from Colorado Springs. I thought teams wanted their AAA affiliate close.
I don’t understand the Rockies move either. That made perfect sense to me, because it was a legitimate way to start prepping both hitters and pitchers for Coors Field. I can’t see anybody else jumping at the chance to go to the Springs. The Rox were the only natural fit there.
Albuquerque is still w/in 4-5 hours of Denver, which is better than most clubs have it and pretty amazing considering how far apart things are in the region.
And ‘querque is basically the exact same elevation.
Albuquerque’s the same time from Denver as Colo Springs (one you fly, the other you drive). Albuquerque’s also a much bigger city, with a nice new park and no competition for sports dollars (outside of college bball season). And most importantly, the Rockies need to expand their market outside of Colorado. No doubt they would have preferred Salt Lake, but the Angels wouldn’t budge. So Albuquerque it is. Colo Springs was a disaster for them. Not only is it 1000+ feet HIGHER than Denver, but’s oriented so that the wind’s always blowing out. It’s a single A level facility at best. This is a huge step up for the Rockies org.
Finally, THAT makes sense. Thank you.
Rockies are moving from a facility that was built in 1987 to one that was built in 2004 and is in a bigger market.
Sacramento wanted to be with the Giants, so the A’s had a choice of Nashville, Fresno, Albuquerque, and somewhere else. Fresno has a decrepit field in a very blah area of Fresno (although most of Fresno is very blah). Albuquerque isn’t a very good place for player/pitcher development so that’s a pass. Nashville has a new stadium opening up next year and it’s a really nice city in general. Location is nice but it’s not the end all when it comes to choosing a new AAA affiliate. The A’s still have Stockton so their major leaguers can rehab close to Oakland if need be.
a minor league team needs to come back to Wichita!
Wichita has never supported any team for long…they’d need to get rid of Lawrence Dumont
I still don’t know how this works, is it just the minor league affiliates moving to a different park? Or is it the whole Minor league roster being bought out and moving to the major league buyer?
MLA moving to a new park, usually it has to do with how nice the facilities are and if the teams feel its a good place for their players to develop.
Think of it like a band playing a venue. The players, coaches, etc all stay with the MLB org. All the tickets, marketing, etc are done by the affiliate, though of course often part of the deal involves joint promotions and such.
One level down, the Cubs moved their Class A affiliate to South Bend, leaving Kane County.
We’re just going to cover High-A on up in the post (not to dissuade you from discussing other affiliates in the comments, just by way of explanation).
FYI, three-way shuffle in the Northwest League (short season-A): Boise Hawks to Rockies, Eugene Emeralds to Cubs, Tri-City Dust Devils to Padres. With that, only High-A and Low-A left; all other levels have finished the shuffle.
I wonder if Kane County isn’t a nice place to play? The Royals dropped it just a couple of years ago and now the Cubs.
Epstein said that facilities factored into the decision, so the stadium may be outdated.
Cubs have not re-signed with the Boise Hawks as well in Short-A. But there are rumors they could potentially renew.
Just announced: Cubs to Eugene, Rockies to Boise, Padres to Tri-City.
Just announced: Mariners moving High-A affiliate to Bakersfield. Leaves High Desert and Carolina open for Reds and Braves; they’ll be duking it out for Carolina to get their affiliate as close as possible.
My bad… it’s the Rangers and Braves; Cincy got Daytona.
Many of these make no sense.. Whay would Colorado give up Colorado Springs? I thought that (logistically) was the model for what many franchises were doing.
The move to Nashville was reported long before the 2 week period. The news report sounded as if the negotiations were complete. I wonder when they actually began. If there is a violation of the rule, will MLB take substantive action. From the outside I’d say it depends on the parties involved – so no.
diamondbacks are taking over the kane county cougars class a affiliate.
could someone comment on what happens to the rosters. Does the entire farm team roster just get moved to a different city/town, and are there any provisions for the minor league players with regard to their housing, moving costs, etc?
For what it’s worth the Cubs have moved their Single-A affiliate to SouthBend. Becoming the SouthBend Cubs after being the SouthBend SilverHawks, An affiliate of the D Backs. The D Backs are taking over Kane County
Yes, because that is an announcement. I mean, it’s either official or not, it’s not a matter of degree.
I know there were reports this morning (and much earlier) that it was a done deal, etc, but in this case, for this particular topic, we are waiting for announcements, which do not come until the ink is on the paper.
So does this mean that the Fresno Grizzlies now just become the Sacramento Grizzlies, and location is the only change? Personnel all stays the same?
Not quite. The Fresno Grizzlies are still the Fresno Grizzlies, but now they will have players and coaches from the Astros. The guys who wore Grizzlies uniforms last year (Giants Triple-A players and coaches) will now play for the Sacramento River Cats.
As I wrote in another comment below:
“Think of it like a band playing a venue. The players, coaches, etc all stay with the MLB org. All the tickets, marketing, etc are done by the affiliate, though of course often part of the deal involves joint promotions and such.”