San Jose minor league team shifts to low Class-A affiliate
The Giants’ announcement Wednesday that they ’ ll have a minor league team in San Jose for the 33rd straight season doesn’t mean things will remain the same for their affiliate in the South Bay.
And we’re not talking about the possibility of having no fans or no weekly fireworks shows at newly named Excite Ballpark this spring.
For the first time in 33 years, the San Jose Giants will no longer be an advanced Class-A affiliate. San Jose and all the California League members — including the A’s Stockton Ports squad — will become low Class-A affiliates, a level where most team’s top prospects don’t ordinarily spend a lot of time playing.
The change is just part of a myriad of moves made in the aftermath of Major
League Baseball’s overhauling of its minor league system to streamline its costs.
The good news for San Jose fans is that, considering there was no minor league baseball season last spring because of COVID-19, the Giants figure to have their 2020 first-round pick, catcher Patrick Bailey from North Carolina, and their third-round pick, De La Salle High pitching star Kyle Harrison, spending some time in the South Bay this coming season.
San Jose Giants president and CEO Daniel Orum is glad to extend their partnership with their parent club and he remains hopeful of welcoming back fans.
“We are excited for our fans to return to the ballpark for fun, affordable, family entertainment as we remain the destination to witness Giants’ stars of the future,” Orum said in a statement.
The Giants’ new highA team, in Eugene, Ore., is actually an old affiliate. The Eugene Emeralds were one of the Giants’ first minor league teams after they moved to San Francisco in 1958. Eugene, which had been partnering with the Cubs since 2015, won Baseball America’s franchise of the year award for short- season teams.
A lso, for the si x th straight season the Sacramento River Cats will be the Giants’ Triple-A team. San Francisco’s DoubleA affiliate in Richmond, Virginia, will also stay the same.
Meanwhile, the Augusta Greenjackets, the Giants’ low-A affiliate since 2004, have now partnered with the Atlanta Braves.
As a means of slashing costs, MLB will be eliminating 43 minor league franchises and instructing each big league team to have just four main minor league teams — TripleA, Double-A, Advanced-A and Low-A — in addition to developmental teams in either Arizona or Florida.
Salem-Keizer in Oregon, which had been the Giants’ short- season team since 1997, was one of the 43 franchises that didn’t receive an invitation to partner with an MLB team.
There’s also a chance that the Fresno Grizzlies, once the Giants’ longtime Triple-A home, could be left out in the cold next spring. Just one more piece remains in MLB’s 120team minor league puzzle and it’s up to Fresno whether it wants to become the 120th affiliate.
The Grizzlies franchise protested after MLB told them Fresno had to accept being switched from a Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League to a Low Class-A team in the Cal League.
If Fresno turns down MLB’s offer and becomes an independent team, then the Lancaster JetHawks will become the Rockies’ Low A squad and remain in the Cal League.