42 MiLB teams fighting contraction
SAN DIEGO – Underneath impossibly blue December skies, baseball’s lovers and dreamers who comprise the guts of Minor League Baseball have again assembled for the undercard of the sport’s winter meetings.
It is here you fall in one of two camps. A minor league executive for a team confident in its long-term viability – or one for a team that finds itself on The List: 42 franchises MLB has targeted for virtual extinction, by virtue of a new professional baseball agreement that would reduce by nearly 25% the number of affiliated minor league clubs from coast to coast.
Those 42 clubs are asking a simple question: Why us?
“There’s been a lot of emotions we’ve experienced,” says Ryan Keur, the 31year-old general manager of the Daytona Tortugas, the Reds’ Class A Florida State League team. “You think a little bit about why Daytona is on the list, especially when you consider all the positives going on in Daytona Beach – typically toward the top end of league attendance, have invested a couple million dollars the last couple years in the facility, and you can’t forget about the history of the ballpark.
“We play at Jackie Robinson Ballpark, which is where Jackie broke the color barrier in 1946. For baseball, which prides itself on diversity and inclusion, to think about removing professional, affiliated minor league baseball from the place where Jackie broke the color barrier is something tough to swallow.”
That history means little now, particularly when Keur’s Tortugas are one of just two FSL teams that don’t play at a spring training stadium owned or operated by a major league team. Never mind that the Tortugas just set a season attendance record of 137,000 and rank third in the FSL in attendance. Or that the team and the city each poured in some $2 million to upgrade the playing surface, even as MLB claims substandard facilities are a driving force behind its proposed franchise euthanizing.
The State College Spikes can relate.
When Scott Walker was an undergrad at Penn State, he’d drive by an edifice rising from the central Pennsylvania mud: A ballpark that beginning in 2006 was home to the Spikes. A $14 million redevelopment grant from the state made the park possible. By 2008, Walker was the club’s GM.
“It really comes down to the community,” says Walker. “If the Spikes weren’t to be part of it anymore, it would be devastating. The whole premise of the ballpark being built was there was going to be a professional franchise playing in that facility. You’re talking about ripping a community apart.”
That hasn’t escaped notice of politicians.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf sent a letter to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and deputy commissioner Dan Halem, urging them to think twice. “Pennsylvania is proud of our place in the history of our country and with baseball,” he said in a statement.
“Pennsylvania’s professional baseball affiliates help provide affordable, family-friendly entertainment and improve the quality of life in each of their communities. The MLB’s antitrust exemption and exclusive control of local professional baseball operations unfortunately could make this decision lifeor-death for these community teams.”
Pennsylvania stands to lose three teams: the Spikes, the Williamsport Crosscutters and the Erie Seawolves. Erie and the state recently committed $12 million of a redevelopment fund to upgrade UPMC Park.
To be fair, there are substandard facilities in the minors. And a 40-round draft (MLB suggests 20) and 160 affiliated clubs probably aren’t all necessary to identify and develop the greatest players to populate a 750-player league.
But is this the move for a sport with an aging fan base and increasingly ambivalent ticket-buying public?
“Do you know how many people come to the ballpark and tell me it’s their first time at a game, or their son or daughter’s first time at a game?” says Walker. “How are these people going to see the game of baseball at a professional level if we’re not around.”
Says the Tortugas’ Keur, whose club is 170 miles from St. Petersburg (Rays) and 265 miles from Miami (Marlins): “Ultimately, if facilities need to be upgraded, minor league teams are willing to upgrade to meet the criteria set forth by Major League Baseball.”
Therein lies the great unknown. Manfred is a notoriously tenacious negotiator and sets aggressive starting points. He will receive pushback from Minor League Baseball, which aims to salvage as many franchises as possible.
“We’re planning to be in Frederick for years to come, and everyone has rallied around us,” says Dave Ziedelis, GM of the Frederick (Maryland) Keys, the lone Carolina League franchise on the proposed chopping block. The franchise has seen $6 million to $7 million in improvements to its 30-year-old stadium in recent years, including a new field surface, lights, locker room space and expanded safety netting for fans.
“Many projects are directly related to the player and the (major league) team. It’s a partnership,” says Ziedelis, whose club has been an Orioles affiliate since its 1989 inception.
A vast majority of teams polled here believe negotiations on the next PBA will fester long into the new year, making the 2020 season something of an individual referendum on every franchise.
“It’s a really big focus of Minor League Baseball to stay united as 160 teams,” says Keur. “There’s 41 other teams on that list, and 119 teams besides that that would be affected in some other regard.
“This changes the landscape of professional baseball forever if something like this were to go through.”