The Nationals announced Tuesday that they’ve reached an agreement with the Fresno Grizzlies to serve as their new Triple-A affiliate. The newly agreed upon player development contract (PDC) is a two-year arrangement.
The Nats reportedly had interest in partnering with the Nashville Sounds, which would’ve been a much more favorable geographic and logistical arrangement for the organization. Instead, their top minor league affiliate will now be nearly 2800 miles from Nationals Park in Washington D.C.
Previously, the Nationals’ top affiliate had been located in Syracuse, though the Mets purchased the Chiefs last season in order to put an end to the sizable gap between their previous Triple-A affiliate, Las Vegas, and their home park.
The Nats were one of five teams — joined by the Astros, Rangers, Brewers and Athletics — vying for five affiliate spots as recently as this weekend. But with the Astros agreeing to a PDC with the Round Rock Express, the A’s teaming up with the Las Vegas 51s, the Brewers partnering with the San Antonio Missions and the Rangers just recently announcing a new PDC with the Nashville Sounds, the Nationals didn’t have much in the way of previously established alternatives.
lol that kinda sucks
Thankful all of our affiliates are close(Baltimore)
Braves’ AAA affiliate is 20-30 mins away – feels like an additional roster spot they way they (rightfully) use it.
And the Braves own all but 1 affilate. Don’t have to worry about where your minor.league teams are going to be.
That’s the way it should be. Having something like this go down is unacceptable. They’re probably going to be utilizing double A for some callups. Not a good scenario at all.
They should pony up and buy an AAA club outright and move it closer.
Then Tampa Bay Triple-A Team be in Orlando or Sarasota. Maimi’s in city near by.
A club has to be for sale for that to happen.
Fresno has a nice stadium and good fan support. The players who play there will enjoy many things about Fresno, but the temperature won’t be one of them. It routinely tops 100 degrees during the summer.
Fresno has a reputation for having terrible baseball facilities.
Can you explain yourself where you got this information from? It’s a relatively new ballpark replicate it from the Giants Stadium. The players love it here because they can go to Yosemite in Fresno has all the big city amenities and an international airport. They have one of the biggest Club houses in all of minor league baseball.
I’d much rather have the Angels in Fresno than Salt Lake. For one, the altitude makes it difficult to evaluate how pitchers will perform down at sea level, and being a one hour flight away is always better.
Plus I grew up in the Central Valley and like to see minor league games.
Meh, it’s just 2 years. They will end up doing what the Brewers did when they got stuck in Colorado Springs in 2016, changing places more quickly in 2020 and sticking it to someone else.
Wow, total competitive disadvantage for shuttling players back and forth. Have to imagine the shuttle players (26th man, extra reliever) will be stashed at Harrisburg instead of Fresno for the next two years.
I came here to make the same point but you beat me to it
Off topic, but what’s the story behind the Nationals and Orioles beef?
I don’t think I could link this website, so copying this paragraph from it:
“The Nats, of course, remain in this seemingly-never-ending MASN dispute, which has been going on with the Orioles since 2012 – yes, more than half of a decade. … One of the stipulations for the Expos moving to D.C. and invading Orioles territory (and make no mistake: P.G. County, Montgomery County, Fairfax County and elsewhere were – and in the minds of some still are – Orioles territory) was this setup under which both teams’ games were carried by an Orioles-owned network. The Nats’ annual rights value was to be renegotiated after the 2011 season and every five years thereafter to arrive at fair-market value for those rights. The crux of the dispute is what exactly is ‘fair-market value.'”
Sounds like the dispute will be heard this fall, per ESPN:
espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/24124829/washington-nation…
“MASN was established in March 2005 after the Montreal Expos relocated to Washington and became the Nationals, moving into what had been Baltimore’s exclusive broadcast territory since 1972. The Orioles were given a supermajority partnership interest in MASN, starting at 90 percent, and Washington made a $75 million payment to the network for an initial 10 percent stake.
The agreement called for the Nationals’ equity to increase 1 percent annually, starting after the 2009 season, with a cap of 33 percent. The network’s rights payments to each team were set at $20 million apiece in 2005 and 2006, rising to $25 million in 2007, with $1 million annual increases through 2011.”
Thanks! I’ve always wondered. I did hear it was about MASN, but I didn’t know what about it.
Basically a team came back to dc and bmore laid claim but hey the Os are from Milwaukee and came over from St. Louis. Maybe the Yankees should be like, “hey we started in bmore so we got dibs”
OH MY GOD GUYS! Bryce Harper is FOR SURE not coming back now!
Looks like Doug Melvin was in charge for Washington this year.
Barring the unexpected, the Washington Nationals will probably work to get an affiliation with an International League club in 2021.
A fairly natural location for Washington to have its AAA affiliation would be Richmond, where the Braves had their AAA affiliation for over four decades.
Ownership in Washington certainly has the assets and then some to follow the path by the Phillies, Yanks, Dodgers, and most recently Mets in buying a AAA franchise and even possibly relocating it.
There are at least a few AAA level MiLB clubs that could be susceptible to this in the next two years.
Richmond is no longer a AAA club. In order to get your AAA club in Richmond, you’d have to buy a club, move it there, then buy the AA club in Richmond and move it elsewhere. Further, that ballpark is ancient and in need of replacement. To go back to AAA you’d also need to build a new park.
The Lerners are smart. They need to buy a Tripe A team and get them to Richmond. Richmond can only be done with a new park. Maybe they can team up with Richmond, shoot for every historic grant out there and redevelop something big. Transform the old Canal into a bustling district anchored by the ballpark. George Washington came up with the idea for the canal long before he was president. There is no better tie-in then the team from our nation’s capital. City kicks in cash with VCU for facility (VCU once controlled the original canal project). Richmond instantly becomes a city with a unique historic attraction with the help of federal dollars.
Again, and I speak from the standpoint of having worked in professional baseball at the minor league level and knowing how the business side works.
Richmond has a team- it’s a Double-A Eastern League team affiliated with the Giants. You can’t buy a Triple-A team and ‘evict’ the Double-A team. You’d have to buy the Double-A club or arrange with their ownership to move it somewhere (within the Eastern League footprint), and then buy a Triple-A team to move into Richmond. Can be done, but won’t happen before either of the next two opening days. What’s more likely is two years from now they try and hook on with maybe, say, Charlotte, and replace the White Sox and see if maybe they’ll be the odd team out that gets stuck in Fresno.
Has anyone heard about how the Padres have been enjoying their AAA affiliation with El Paso? Curious whether they’d ever work their way back to California by way of Fresno or if they’re more likely to re-up with El Paso after their current agreement ends.
To me this is just another failure on the part of Major League Baseball. You want people to stay engaged, you want to attract new fans, but you set up an arrangement where people in Fresno are supposed to go see a team that supports a squad 3000 miles away? Why would they have any interest, other than just going to see a baseball game? Seems to me that you could create more Baseball fans by drawing more attendance to minor league stadiums if they were in proximity to their Major League clubs.
Although I think this is a really dumb move on behalf of the nationals to have their players on the other side of the country, As a resident at Fresno for my whole life I can tell you that it doesn’t matter what team it is, fresno will support it. The stadium is always packed