Major Minor League Change on the way

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Interesting piece in Baseball America on discussions around a radical change to MiLB as sides renegotiate the expiring agreement.



Perhaps just a starting point but MLB proposing pay raises for players but at the cost of dozens of teams, hundreds of players, a radical realignment and introduction of an affiliated but unsupported Dream League as a salve for some shutouts.



https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-floats-proposal-that-would-eliminate-42-minor-league-teams/https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/mlb-floats-proposal-that-would-eliminate-42-minor-league-teams/

[Fman99]

As someone who lives in a AAA city that annually under draws, and can't sell out their stadium, this kind of chatter makes me nervous. I also used to live in Watertown, NY, in the 1990's, and they lost their A ball team around the same time I left town, and while it was replaced by a non affiliated semi-pro team, it wasn't the same. My friends who were and are baseball fans who still live up there still haven't gotten over that loss.



I know my city is no danger of losing their MiLB team, but still.

[G-Fafif]

Two views, recently published:



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-we-even-need-minor-league-baseball/https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-we-even-need-minor-league-baseball/



https://deadspin.com/maybe-you-just-like-watching-baseball-games-1838013774https://deadspin.com/maybe-you-just-like-watching-baseball-games-1838013774

[Edgy MD]

Ending affiliation is where it's at.

[MFS62]

Are there are plans to replace them with hockey and chess teams?

All roads lead to Putin.



Later

[G-Fafif]

Bill Madden offers details...



https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-minor-league-luhnow-madden-20191116-73ssnr7ybvdwzdr5vd44vh4e5m-story.htmlhttps://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ny-minor-league-luhnow-madden-20191116-73ssnr7ybvdwzdr5vd44vh4e5m-story.html

[Edgy MD]

I'm not sure what Mr. Madden's complaint is.

[Frayed Knot]

That the perfection that has been the long-term minor league set-up will be disrupted.

[Guest 41Forever]

When I first heard about this plan, I thought it was just an opening threat, like when teams threatened to move to Tampa. I get the idea of limiting the number of minor league teams per team, and some geographic shifts to league membership. But the rest of that doesn't make a lot of sense. Are the teams looking to shift younger players to college and have the colleges essentially serve as a minor league, like the do in football and basketball?

[Frayed Knot]

What Madden (intentionally) fails to point out is that many of the teams/leagues slated for elimination are those which are owned and operated by the ML clubs themselves with attendance at those games basically

being the friends & family plan, so the complaint here about putting the small entrepreneur out of business and robbing small town America out of baseball is overstated at best and blatantly misleading as a whole.



And, yeah, the idea is that the big league clubs don't have to control so many players particularly when the percentage of them who will one day become major leaguers is so small. Colleges certainly play a larger

role in the feeder system than they used to with those guys often skipping the low-level leagues that will disappear. Going forward, independent leagues could pick up more slack in the future where any player

could then be available to any organization rather than being tied to just the one he is indentured to as the result of a years-earlier draft.

[Guest 41Forever]

I went to a Florida State League game in July and got three foul balls -- and I wasn't even trying. There were, maybe, 50 people in the stands.



Now, small crowds look smaller in stadiums that are built for spring training games, which draw a lot of people. And the stadium I went to is used by two teams, so there is a game every day, which might cut down on crowds, too.



But I also get that teams use those spring training sites as their southern offices, with year-round activities of some kind.



I've never been to a Cyclones game. Do they draw well?

[Frayed Knot]

Minor league baseball, taken as a whole, has been doing quite well in recent years. After a large reduction in the number of leagues, teams, and fans starting around the 1940s and running thru the '80s,

attendance started climbing again since then (despite the oft-repeated phrase that no one cares about baseball anymore). The Cyclones are in a unique situation in that it's a low league team in the biggest

city in the country. Madden's article mentions them as graduating to a AA franchise, something which the Yanquis used to be able to prevent since it affects their 'home turf' but maybe that kind of veto

power is going away with this new world order.



And let's also not bury the big reveal here: a large part of this is about heading off legal action over pay for minor leaguers. Part of this restructuring is going to be an adjusted upward in minor league salaries

which, like a raise in the minimum wage, is going to cause a reduction in the number of jobs at the very lowest level.

[G-Fafif]

Marc Normandin considers the ramifications on players.



https://www.marcnormandin.com/2019/11/18/mlb-thinks-paying-milb-players-is-a-waste/https://www.marcnormandin.com/2019/11/18/mlb-thinks-paying-milb-players-is-a-waste/