Valleycats holding breath
Meanwhile, Mets to keep Binghamton as a minor league affiliate
While the Mets are keeping their Binghamton franchise, the fate of the TriCity Valleycats remains unclear.
Baseball fans in Binghamton could rejoice on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a nervous wait continued in Troy.
New York Mets team president Sandy Alderson announced on a conference call the franchise is keeping the Binghamton
Rumble Ponies as a minor league affiliate. It was a wonderful surprise for Binghamton, a city that was on the original list of 42 clubs that were to lose their major-league affiliation in the contraction of the minor leagues.
On the other hand, the TriCity Valleycats were considered on the “safe” list last November. But they said they ’ve received no word either way as the inevitable day approaches when Major League Baseball, which has taken control of the minors, announces the final list of 120 affiliates.
For every team that gets off the cut list, it's replaced by another. Valleycats general manager Matt Callahan said it’s likely they ’ll hear something “in the very near future,” possibly this week, so teams can begin preparing for next season.
“I think that the uncertainty with each passing day adds some anxiety and some chal
lenges,” he said. “We’ve been trying to do the right things the whole time and control what we can control and keep ourselves and put ourselves in the best position to maintain an affiliation and also exploring options to keep professional baseball in the market if we have to go in a different direction.”
The Valleycats spent the past 18 years with the Houston Astros in the New York-penn League, which will no longer exist as an affiliated shortseason league under the new plan. Tri-city ’s relationship with the Astros is expected to be over.
If the Valleycats keep an affiliation, it won’t be the Yankees or Mets, who became the first two clubs to announce their four full-season affiliates under the new minor league system.
The Yankees said Saturday they ’ll be affiliated with Triple-a Scranton/ Wilkes-barre, Double-a Somerset (N.J.), highClass A Hudson Valley and low-class A Tampa (Fla.). Alderson said Tuesday the Mets will be paired with Syracuse, Binghamton, Brooklyn and St. Lucie (Fla.). Binghamton, which has been the Mets’ Double-a affiliate since 1992, could remain at that level.
The Valleycats were a Mets affiliate from 1989 to 2000 when they were in Pittsfield, Mass. The Valleycats have the same ownership group, while the Mets have a new owner in hedge-fund billionaire Steve Cohen, who was introduced Tuesday.
Callahan said he couldn’t confirm if the Valleycats tried to become re-affiliated with the Mets before Tuesday’s announcement.
“We’ve been trying to keep our options across all of Major League Baseball, so I can’t really confirm any specific conversations,” Callahan said. “But we’ve been trying to keep our name out there and make sure people understand the facility and the operation that we have and what a good situation we feel it is for an affiliated team to come in and play here.”
Should the Valleycats lose their affiliation, Callahan said, it would be their preference to remain professional, even in an independent league. As an independent team, the Valleycats would pay the players’ salaries, which is handled by the major league club in affiliated ball.
He said Tri-city would prefer not to be part of a summer wooden-bat league for college players that would include teams from the New York-penn League, a proposal first reported by Baseball America.
“I’m not prepared to get into a lot of detail,” Callahan said. “I can tell you our preference to remain affiliated, but our focus is to keep professional baseball in the market. We don’t feel like that (amateur) model is the best fit for our fans and our franchise right now.”