Valleycats join Frontier League for 2021 season
Tri-city chooses circuit over Atlantic League Valleycats need to hire manager, set up roster for mid-may opener.
A month after losing their Major League Baseball affiliation, the Tri-city Valleycats are joining the independent Frontier League for the 2021 season, team and league officials said.
The Valleycats chose membership in the Frontier League over the Atlantic League following weeks of negotiations. It’s a three-year deal with the expectation to continue after that, according to the Valleycats.
In the Frontier League, TriCity plans to play a 96-game
regular-season schedule — 48 home, 48 away — starting in the middle of May and ending on
Labor Day weekend. That is subject to change this season, depending on the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tri-city becomes the 16th team in the Frontier League, which has franchises in seven states and Canada separated into two divisions. The closest team is the New York Boulders, located in Pomona, about 120 miles south of Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy, home of the Valleycats.
“Now with the independent leagues, we’re responsible for the on-field costs, management, and expenses around that,” Valleycats president
Rick Murphy said. “When we looked at the Frontier League, we looked at the number of games, we looked at our existing facility, we looked at our fan base, we looked at the caliber of player, we looked at the additional risk from a business perspective, and when we put all of that together, the Frontier League without question became the league that we felt would give us the highest probability to continue and to be successful in this market.”
Tri-city paid an entry fee to join the Frontier League. Valleycats officials and Frontier League commissioner Bill Lee declined to disclose the amount.
“They’re a tremendous organization,” Lee said. “They draw real well, they ’ve got a great facility, strong ownership, great management and a great market. That all lends itself to a successful team.”
In September, the Frontier and the Atlantic became “partner leagues” of MLB with joint marketing and promotional opportunities.
The Valleycats found out Dec. 9 they were not among the 120 teams invited to be MLB affiliates next season. Tri-city spent the past 18 seasons as the New York-penn League affiliate of the Houston Astros.
In the NYPL, the Valleycats played a 76-game schedule that began in mid-june. Tri-city was one of the NYPL’S highestdrawing teams, averaging more than 4,000 fans per home game for 11 straight seasons from 2008 to 2018.
No longer connected to an MLB team, the Valleycats will find and pay their own players for the first time. Tri-city general manager Matt Callahan said the quality of player will be “probably more polished,” than the NYPL, which consisted mostly of players straight out of the college draft or young Latin American prospects.
Callahan said the average Valleycat in the Frontier League will be 23 or 24 years old, a majority of whom have played at some level of minor league baseball — many at the Single-a or Double-a level before being released by an MLB club. Many use independent leagues to try to get back into affiliated baseball.
“You’re going to see guys that know the professional game a little bit better,” Callahan said. “They understand the rigors of it and the fundamentals that go along with it, whereas at the New York-penn League level, a lot of guys are really just getting their feet wet in professional ball.”
The Valleycats are beginning a search for a manager, whose responsibilities will include finding players.
The Atlantic League, which the Valleycats declined to join, offers a higher caliber of play with many former major leaguers. However, the Atlantic also plays a longer season of 140 games that begins in April — when harsher weather can make it harder to draw fans. The salary structure is also higher with a minimum salary of $1,300 per month compared to about $600 per month in the Frontier League.
Callahan said travel is more manageable in the Frontier League with teams reachable by bus in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec.
The Atlantic League also has a listed entry fee of $3 million, though Baseball America reported MLB is willing to cover the entry fees for teams that were left out of the 120 affiliates in exchange for signing a waiver agreeing not to take legal action against MLB.
An MLB spokesman declined comment on that report.
“We negotiate all our own deals,” said Murphy, asked if having MLB pay the entry fee was an option. “It’s our business and we negotiate all the terms that affect our business enterprise.”
Murphy said the Valleycats didn’t want to pass on increased costs to the fans in the form of higher ticket prices.
“I have nothing but the utmost respect for (president) Rick White and the Atlantic League,” Murphy said. “It’s not a question of one better than the other or competing with each other. It came down to what we felt was a better fit given the dynamic.
“Obviously, the Atlantic League has an older player,” Murphy continued. “A lot of those players have major league experience and from a caliber of player, that’s a high-profile league. But it’s also, from a business perspective, a higher risk in terms of cost operation and it’s a significant increase in cost to our business operations and we just didn’t feel as though the riskreward made sense.”
Joining the Frontier League puts an end to more than a year of uncertainty since MLB first decided to contract the minor leagues from 160 affiliates to 120.
“I’ve been through the rollercoaster of emotions,” Murphy said. “I still at times ask the question why (Tri-city lost affiliation). But as we move on in the ValleyCats’ life, I’m cautiously optimistic in terms of what the future’s going to bring and I know our staff is going to put the effort forth.”
The Valleycats are the area’s first independent minor-league team since the Albany-colonie Diamond Dogs ceased operations following the 2001 season.