Canadians are going from Jays to A's in switch of parent clubs, report says
Oakland Athletics merchandise could be on its way to becoming a staple at Nat Bailey Stadium.
Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Vancouver Canadians are slated to be the single-A affiliate of the A's next season as part of sweeping changes across minor leagues. She is also reporting Rico Brogna, the former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies first baseman, will be the C's manager next season.
Major League Baseball's working agreement with its farm teams ended in September, and MLB is pushing to drop 40 or so teams in a bid to cut costs. With those changes, each MLB club would have only four affiliates, plus one spring training complex team.
Baseball America has also suggested MLB wants affiliations that make greater sense geographically to help with the budgets.
The C's were an Oakland affiliate from 2000-10. They switched to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2011 and have been one of their entry-level clubs ever since.
Toronto was slated to have five affiliates in single-A and above this past summer. Farm teams never got to play, though, and minor league baseball called off its season altogether on June 30 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
C's president Andy Dunn explained Tuesday morning that his group hadn't been informed of any new agreements. It's safe to guess, though, that MLB would hold off on announcing anything until after the World Series is complete.
“We all expect a lot of changes are about to happen across baseball,” Dunn stated recently. “From possible affiliation changes, to player travel to facility specifications to terms of the new agreement as well as length of our schedule.
“As of today we have not been notified of any changes regarding our affiliation. Once we receive official information from Major League Baseball notifying us to what exactly any changes will be, then and only then will we be in a position to relay to our fans, partners and supporters factual information.”
The MLB plan includes abolishing the entire short-season, single-A tier, which is what the C's have played since the Southern Oregon Timberjacks moved from Medford, Ore., to The Nat in time for the 2000 season.
The C's and other select clubs from their eight-team Northwest League are expected to become full-season, single-A squads moving forward.
Traditionally, teams at that level have had 140-game seasons, starting in April. As a short-season, single-A team, the C's played 76 games starting in June.
Toronto's current full-season, single-A team is Michigan's Lansing Lugnuts of the Midwest League. They've been affiliated with the Jays since 2005. Lansing is a five-hour drive from Toronto, compared with a five-hour flight for Vancouver and Toronto.
Vancouver has won four Northwest League titles and lost once in the final in their time with Toronto since 2011. They went to the final twice in their stint with Oakland from 2000-10. The league expanded its playoff format in 2010, doubling the number of post-season teams from two to four.
Assuming the C's and the Jays split, it will be interesting to see what happens with the TV deal that Dunn and Co. signed with Sportsnet to broadcast Vancouver games. The C's had six games on TV in 2019.
Sportsnet is owned by Rogers, which also owns the Jays. Details of the TV deal with the C's have never been made public, but the C's would likely be paying a fee and then selling ads for those games to help make the money back. That's a common occurrence for minor-league teams, particularly with radio broadcasts.
Dunn said in July 2019 that it was a “multi-year deal,” and that there's been a “long-term vision with this from the start.”