The Sugar Land Skeeters will become the Astros’ new Triple-A affiliate, Mark Berman of Fox 26 reports. The two sides reached an agreement in which the Astros will have an ownership stake in the Skeeters, according to Berman. The length of the deal isn’t known yet.
This is a big step for the Skeeters, a Texas-based team that has been an independent club in the Atlantic League since its inception in 2010. They’ve had a number of familiar major league names on their roster since then, including Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro and Scott Kazmir. With no minors campaign in 2020, the Skeeters launched the four-team Constellation Energy League, which they won with help from some ex-major leaguers you may recognize when looking at their roster.
The fact that the Astros have a new Triple-A team will leave the Round Rock Express with some uncertainty. Round Rock spent the previous two years as Houston’s top minor league club, though it only got one season of play (2019) because of the pandemic.
NO WAY I SAID SOMEONE SHOULD PICK THEM UP AS A JOKE THE OTHER DAY I DIDN’T THINK THIS WOULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN
COOL STORY!!!!!!!!
It’s been rumored to happen for awhile now, mentioned earlier this year even. The same consideration is being given to the St. Paul Saints becoming a Minnesota Twins’ affiliate in 2021 (and beyond).
Yeah, I’ve heard about that.
That one kinda puzzles me. The Saints – by all accounts – turn a decent profit every year.
I’m trying to figure out why this would appeal to them.
You would assume a MLB club taking an ownership stake brings 2 big things to the table:
1) existing ownership gets cash for the share sold;
2) expenses (including salaries) and updates subsidized by a source with generally/comparatively deep pockets;
Remember, most business in general took a big hit from covid. You can be rich and not have a ton of liquidity to cover that sort of thing.
Woops.
I sorta forgot about the whole Covid thing.
Yeah. I see what you’re saying here. In a normal environment I wonder if they’d still be interested. My guess is that they wouldn’t?
But it’d be a sweet move for the Twins to have their AAA squad just over the bridge.
I remember that, D.D. You’re psychotic (as the joke goes)!
maybe Texas will move back there and get out of the carolina league
The Carolina League is HIgh A. Currently there isn’t a HIgh A league in Texas. There is talk of Texas moving their AAA back to Round Rock (they are currently in Nashville, TN – which is a facility that is only 2-3 years old).
Carolina League is Single-A. Their triple-A is in Nashville, so going back to Round Rock would be closer.
Woo. That feeling when your Major League team gets affiliated with the minor league team that’s a 12 minute drive from your house.
Could you show your work in the margins? What time of day is this estimated drive scheduled? Which route do you take? How fast are you driving? Are you following all applicable laws and staying within the posted speed limits?
All good questions that Rick Hahn probably wishes Reinsdorf had asked La Russa during his recent interview.
@agentx: THANK YOU. I truly laughed out loud when I read your post :-)
I needed that laugh today. Thank you, again !!
Great
Love the avatar! Long live the blue bomber!
Love this. Wish I still lived in Sugarland.
Sugar Land Cheaters!
lol….Gotta learn somewhere
You REALLY need to just go sit down.
I dunno. It’s been a long time since I found an “Astros* are cheaters” joke funny.
That one was, though.
You have a low threshold for humor..
That could certainly be true, sir.
Hahahaha that’s a good one!
you can tell which ones are astros fans in here and which ones aren’t
Then again, some of us are just baseball fans who get tired of the same old whining, griping, complaining, holier than thou comments. If God can let go of the TRANSGRESSIONS that ALL of US make: who are WE (you & you & you AND especially ME) to CONTINUOUSLY judge and ridicule others?
Will they have bang a trashcan for nickel beer night?
Even as an Astros fan that made me chuckle. Not bad, not bad.
Distancing themselves from Nolan and Reid Ryan.
They also own the CC Hooks so….. how’s that?
Don’t the Astros own the Round Rock Express, or something like that? I might be making that up, but if that’s the case then I can’t see them completely cutting ties with them.
The Ryan family does
Yeah, the Ryan’s do. So them going from the Rangers affiliate to the Astros affiliate wasn’t that big of a deal for them. It was probably because JD had a scuffle with Nolan a few years ago, so they just flipped to Houston.
it was part of a bigger rotation that involved Oakland’s AAA affiliate as well
Look at all those steroid users. Ah, memories.
Big news for the Skeeters and Somerset Patriots (NJ) for being picked up by MLB teams.
Patriots will be afiliares with Yanks
AA Eastern League. Nice Park. Well run indy team, well it was an indy team. Trenton joins the Atlantic League.
And, a big cut in travel expenses for the rest of the Atlantic League.
Come back to the Rangers RRE!!! I live fairly close to Round Rock, so I’d love to see them partner back up with the Rangers!
Wouldn’t be surprised to see Round Rock be Rangers AA. Frisco is so close to Arlington and such a nice stadium they will be AAA imo.
interesting its the two teams that hosted makeshift leagues (Somerset and Suger Land) that made the jump
They (Sugar Land for certain) were rumored before the pandemic ever hit. So those make shift leagues really didn’t have an effect.
no, not saying they had an effect, rather the opposite. something about their ability to organize things was probably already known to the league when they considered these moves. something related to ownership creativity/effort. i dont know what, but there seems to be slme linkage in my mind.
And the MiLB game of musical chairs has begun.
Round Rock becomes TEX’s affiliate and Nashville goes out on their own in an expansion bid?
Interesting and definitely possible, DarkSide.
Dombrowski & Co. could even emulate Sugarland’s recent strategy with a Constellation Energy-type independent league of their own while pursuing a MLB expansion team or existing franchise of their own.
which lines up with Nashville’s desires for a FA camp this year. i wouldnt be suprised to see any permutation that involves them doing something beyond affiliated ball next year.
I thought the same darkside great minds think alike, opens Nashville for Dave dom and company to go for the gold…
The Rays are going to locate ALL their farm teams in Tampa, and run 5 games a day beginning at 10AM (the lower classification games going seven innings, since many of the Florida located-teams play in the morning/early afternoon anyway), at the Trop. Admission for the whole day will be $15 Come anytime, leave any time, come back in if you like.
The best solution is always the simplest.
I’m surprised that an oddball owner like Bill Veeck never tried a stunt like that.
Orlando as one of Tampa Bay Farm Teams,
As a guy who was born in Boston and grew up with that fan base and learned to love the game in general. Then moved to Tampa as a teen and saw the rise of the tampa bay franchise. I think its a great idea for that area and would work as far as fan appeal and players. but it would also mean the owner cheap stu would have a much higher overhead, so thats a no go. Dude needs to go, I’ve never heard an owner complain as much as he has, pretty much from day one, as if he didn’t have a clue what he was buying and bought it anyway…
Might be good for the Rays, but terrible for baseball trying to connect with more fans in more places.
Ignorant question: What happens to the players already on Skeeters team.. Do they now belong to Houston or are they now free agents?
if it follows how id expect it to, technically the indy outfit and the Houston team are different teams, just with the same name/ownership group. i dont think most indy teams sign guys for multi year deals, but im assuming they are bought out.
Well, their contracts were owned by the skeeters, and not by the astros.
Id presume there’s two parts to your question.
1) if the affiliation and partial ownership stake addressed acquiring any of the players, the asyros would gain that extent of control.
2) the skeeters would then have to release and payoff the balance of the unassumed contracted positions, much like they would any staff who was owned money since those were skeeters liabilities.
What will probably happen is Trenton and a North Carolina team replace Somerset and Sugarland. Any player that had a contract with the teams leaving the Atlantic league should probably be part of the expansion draft. Almost all indy league contracts are for one year and players rarely resign in the indy leagues until after ST for MLB starts on the off chance they can get a ST offer. So I wouldnt expect either team has more than 2 or 3 players at most signed for next season . Probably none tho
Doug funny and lil johns favorite team
I see that former Mets prospect Gavin Cecchini played for the Skeeters last season. He’ll always be a fun Mets trivia answer for hitting his first (only?) major league homer off of Kershaw
Didn’t Tracy McGrady play for the Skeeters, too?
Lol yup 4 starts for them in 2014, had a 6.75 ERA in 6 2/3 IP with a 10:0 BB:K ratio.
Round Rock I would imagine goes back to being a Rangers affiliate. I would also not be surprised if San Antonio and/or El Paso and/or Wichita go to the Texas League, which would indirectly make room for the St Paul Saints.
I’ve seen rumors that SA and Wichita are headed for the Texas League again
would they move Wichita without having even played s year as the Marlins affiliate?
well that stinks. We go to about 25% of the games each season in RR. The stadium is nice and draws decently so surely they’ll find some level of affiliate to put there.
Yeah this off-season has been a disaster for established AAA towns. I’m concerned mine is gonna go too because they haven’t meaningfully updated their stadium since it was built
I doubt Round Rock will be empty. It’s in a major US city and not far from Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston. It’s a great location.
What makes the least sense is San Antonio dropping down from AAA to AA. That metropolitan area could support a major league team, at least as well as Portland or Nashville. There are so many factors at play including facilities, ownership, proximity to the major league club as well as other teams in the league, and the likelihood that the team or city losing its team will initiate costly and/or time consuming litigation.
Ya I think San Antonio wouldn’t be a terrible location. But Houston and South Oklahoma might not be happy about it. I’m sure that’s the reason they haven’t. I mean Austin is about a hour away. I’d venture to guess that would be a couple of million people, just like the side of Houston and Dallas.
Did the SA Missions get demoted from AAA to AA? I know they used to be AA, and were now AAA. I haven’t seen news that their level changed this year.
This is at least the third independent team that has replaced an established minor league team. As someone who lives in a AAA town, I’m concerned
You should be.
The whole thrust of the MLB mandated minor league downsizing was the ML teams could have more “control”.
You know like owning all their minor league teams and buying them on the cheap from independent league owners.
Minor league teams are going to be changing hands rapidly over the next few seasons as the smart owners realize what is happening and bail.
I’m not saying this is necessarily bad or good for the game,but it erodes the foundation of baseball in this country over the last eighty years.
I think it’s a terrible move for the future of the game when, for example, you have the Twins (who don’t get a ton of fans out of Minnesota anyway) dumping Rochester as their AAA affiliate and are talking choosing the St Paul Saints as their new AAA affiliate. I don’t know how many upper New York fans they were getting anyway, but I’m sure *some*. And now their entire system is right in the twin cities. As someone who has lived in a AAA market my whole life, I fell in love with baseball from the ability to see baseball in a non-major league town…: and then watch those players on TV after they moved on. I’m in a major enough city that if we became unaffiliated, we’d probably still have an independent league team, but that’s just not the same. I knew they were already restricting the reach of the fan base by folding up teams, but if they’re also gonna move all the AAA teams to a 20 minute drive from the major league team… that is going to be a crucial blow to the future popularity of the sport
Roger Clemens and Rafael Palmeiro are going to make a come back
Would like to see the Rangers to RR and Milwaukee to Nashville. San Antonio is going AA so Milwaukee will need a home.
Now that musical chairs has begun how long will the Nationals keep their AAA team in Fresno? Long way from home.
Round Rock to Rangers, Nashville to White Sox, Charlotte to Nationals?
So what happens to the rosters on the team? The skeeters have a roster and I’m the Astros have a triple a roster.
Are the skeeter’ players just FA?
When this team started up, it was assumed by some to be inevitable that this would happen with the Skeeters. My surprise dates back like 10 years, so I apologize for my lack of shock.
I thought this was all about facilities? You are now telling me SLK has MLB class facilities?
Sugarland doesnt have to have MLb quality facilities.. they have to have AAA quality facilities. And according to what I’ve read you’ve seen the 3 best indy league parks added to MiLB in Sugarland St Paul and Somerset. So this still fits the facility upgrades.
Yeah I’m pretty sure this is nothing but cost control of keeping the AAA team close by. Twins are doing the same, trying to get St Paul independent league team as their AAA team. This is short sighted and terrible for baseball.
It is not just about upgraded facilities. MLB teams located close to the three best Indy league facilities ( Yankees, (Somerset), Twins, ( St Paul), and Astros, (Sugar land)), picked them up. Why? Because of the cut of the number of farm teams ( and of course players), the patent clubs now want greater control, and thus their farm teams close to them. For example: The Yankees ditched Pulaski and Charleston ( along with Trenton and Staten Island), for Fishkill ( Hudson Valley NY) and Somerset, while keeping Scranton ( which is less then 100 miles from Yankee Stadium), and Tampa ( which is also their Spring Training home)
Bang bang