A Seismic Minor League Baseball Realignment Scenario

For context, here is my previous piece which will get you up to speed.

As the future of minor league baseball hangs in the air, the possibilities for the 2021 season remain in constant flux. We don’t know which teams will be playing in 2021. We don’t know who most of those teams will be affiliated with. We don’t know how many leagues will take shape and how they’ll be aligned.

All of this will remain in perpetual limbo until the powers at be in MLB and MLBPA come to an agreement with regards to the 2020 MLB season. After that, MLB will turn its sights to addressing the 2020 MiLB season and the looming Professional Baseball Agreement negotiations. While MiLB hasn’t been completely ignored by MLB as it engages with the MLBPA, talks have certainly come to a standstill.

Until then, it’s up to me to satisfy my baseball itch on my own accord and tackle the prospect of MiLB realignment head-on. As a detailed in my previous piece, a Johns Hopkins research team led by Anton Dahruba, a minority owner of the Hagerstown Suns, has published the most detailed realignment proposal to date. While I’m going to use this research as a bit of a background for my own conclusions, I do have a few key assumptions and proclamations that will make my realignment proposal and theres noticeably different.

• Existing leagues aren’t tied to their existing affiliate level
• New leagues may be formed in order to alleviate geography & travel concerns
• No league is safe from realignment or reclassification
• No team is safe from realignment or reclassification
• The only teams who are guaranteed to retain their existing affiliation are ones with direct ownership stakes from their parent club
• Desire to have a AAA affiliate as close as possible to the parent club will be a major factor when feasible
• MLB-owned MiLB teams may be relocated
• Teams outside of MiLB, besides St Paul and Sugar Land, are eligible for incorporation into the league at another team’s expense

Beyond this, I will also be utilizing the original list of 42 contracted teams while highlighting alternatives when deemed fit. I’ll also be maintaining existing criteria such as an even number of teams per league, one affiliate for each MLB team in each of the four remaining levels, and desire from MLB teams to have all their affiliates as close as possible when feasible. Some of my team realignments will align with the more prevailing assumptions such as the Brooklyn Cyclones moving from the New York-Penn League (SS A) to the Eastern League (AA).

I will not be taking the sentiment of MiLB owners into consideration given MLB’s growing potential to have absolute control over the realignment process. I won’t start from scratch and will maintain as many existing affiliations as possible given the familiarity.

No MLB team will have more power than another in the realignment process. The desirability of certain MLB affiliations will not be a factor. MLB teams with 5 or more affiliates, after factoring in the original 42 contracted teams, will predominantly factor in facilities and geographic proximity of their existing MiLB teams when deciding which team(s) to cancel their affiliation with if they don’t lose an affiliate in another manner.

AAA

A new league was hinted at during the initial leaks last fall for AAA given the geographic disparity present in the Pacific Coast League. The creation of an 8-team “Continental League” removes the possibility of Tacoma and Nashville ever playing each other again.

Of note is also one of my boldest claims that hasn’t been brought up as a possibility by many; the incorporation of the Madison Mallards into MiLB alongside St Paul and Sugar Land. While Madison is a summer collegiate team, unlike St Paul or Sugar Land, the raw facts say they’re outgrown the perception that comes along with a summer collegiate team and then some.

The Mallards have averaged more than 6,000 fans per game the past few seasons; tops nationally amongst summer collegiate teams. Milwaukee’s current AAA affiliate, San Antonio, is having difficulty funding a new ballpark. Madison is far more of an ideal geographic situation for Milwaukee. Warner Park could use some upgrades but, after being brought in by the Brewers, it isn’t hard to fathom those will be hard to come by given the overwhelming local support for the Mallards.

AA

Wichita’s AAA aspirations seem to have come to a halt. If St Paul and Sugar Land are brought into AAA then that means two teams have to drop down. With Fresno seemingly a foregone conclusion for the California League, that leaves Wichita’s prime location at the edge of the Texas League, where the Wichita Wranglers formerly resided, a logical assumption. San Antonio being demoted back to the Texas League after a one-year stint in AAA also makes sense if Madison is brought into the picture by Milwaukee and helps balance out the league.

Had Atlanta not owned both Mississippi and Rome then both teams would be in the Southern League. Alas, given Bowling Green’s inclusion, a team had to be removed to balance things out and Tennessee’s proximity to Carolina League competition led to their demotion.

Eastern League is currently up for debate. If Erie are able to make satisfactory renovations to their ballpark then they’ll take Tri-City’s spot. Tri-City are the most geographically distant from their newly promoted NYPL counterparts like Lakewood and Hudson Valley so that’s why I opted for their inclusion in the EL. Colorado’s affiliation with Hartford is also up for debate though there’s no logical alternative in the Texas League or Southern League.

High-A

Hear me out. It makes a lot of sense for the Midwest League to be promoted to High-A in the place of the Florida State League and the newly promoted full-season Northwest League to take an extra step up the affiliation ladder at the California League’s expense.

As brought up in a Baseball America podcast episode, Florida State League’s status in High-A makes little sense. As someone who once spent a summer traveling around Florida and taking in the league, the teams handle their operations from a fan perspective in the same way that a summer collegiate team tends to and it shows in the attendance figures. Midwest League’s operations and subsequent attendance numbers are far more in-line with what’s to be expected at the step below AA.

Northwest League’s inclusion over California League is also along these lines as well as a numbers game. The NWL and CalL are capped at 6 and 8 teams respectively. The Carolina League would need to lose two teams, most likely Winston-Salem and Greensboro which are highly desirable teams, to the newly rebranded South Atlantic League. NWL teams have sneaky high attendance figures. After losing Tri-City and Salem-Keizer, every single NWL team had a higher attendance figure per game then every single CalL team in 2019. While we can’t foresee how NWL’s promotion to full-season will effect these numbers, summer weather conditions for players in the Pacific Northwest are far more favorable to development than in California.

The Carolina League has the most overhaul of these three leagues. The CarL and South Atlantic League are likely to see the most changes given their intertwining nature and relative similarity amongst the teams. Using the Virgina-North Carolina as a cut-off line, all teams south of that line from the two leagues (besides Carolina, Down East and Kannapolis) find themselves in the Carolina League along with Tennessee; formerly of the Southern League.

Low-A

No extra changes to speak of in the Florida State League, beyond its classification change. Same goes for the California League who see the addition of Fresno in place of Lancaster.

The South Atlantic League are rebranded as the Mid-Atlantic League to better represent their new geographic makeup. Many affiliations in the MAL are up for debate. Given the geographic isolation present in the CalL and FSL, the MAL were the lone league that retained flexibility when it came to

At this point, you might also notice that, in place of the Madison Mallards being brought into MiLB by Milwaukee, I decided that the West Virginia Black Bears would be the team that sadly receives the short end of the stick. Much like Lexington and the West Virginia Power, the Black Bears are more geographically isolated from competition than other teams. West Virginia were also 12th out of 14th in NYPL team attendance last season with their nearest NYPL counterpart being promoted, Aberdeen, sitting at 5th and in a far more optimal geographic location.

The Black Bears inclusion to this point is likely due to two facts: the newly-built ballpark for West Virginia University they utilize and their ownership. West Virginia are owned by Bob Rich Jr who also operates the Buffalo Bison and NW Arkansas Naturals. While conventional wisdom would say the MLB took into account multi-team ownership groups, Rich Baseball Operations wouldn’t be the only multi-team ownership group effected by contractions. Maryland Baseball Holdings operates three MiLB clubs (Norfolk, Bowie, Frederick) and are set to lose the Keys according the original list of 42 teams despite their attendance success and optimal location for their parent club Baltimore.

First and foremost, a lot of this can change. Like I’ve already mentioned, the original list of 42 teams is not set in stone. One could argue there are organizations that are on the list that shouldn’t have been and vice versa. A path for there to be more than 120 MiLB teams in 2021 remains to be seen. Details regarding MLB’s proposed Dream League are up in the air and the amount of genuine interest in the concept by those clubs on the outside looking in has yet to be shown.

As I brought up with the addition of Madison, teams being brought into MiLB at the expense of existing ones isn’t a foregone conclusion. St Paul allegedly have no interest in joining MiLB and prefer to retain their independent status. However, the economic prospects for the American Association moving forward might adjust their opinion.

MLB could also being setting themselves up for a further power grab by scooping up various baseball franchise for pennies on the dollar as their financial situations are currently in flux; further changing the realignment map. This goes for MiLB teams and independent/summer collegiate teams with favorable facilities and locations. Could the Chicago Cubs purchase the Chicago Dogs franchise, getting the brand new ballpark and geographic proximity that comes with that? Could the Braves finalize their MiLB portfolio; outright owning every single one of their affiliates?

Baseball in the US doesn’t operate in under a single umbrella, much like how professional soccer is governed across the world. I could go full totalitarian and bring the various summer collegiate and independent leagues into this but that’s for a different time. Only MLB and MiLB leadership have grasp on all of the factors at play. The proposed changes to the PBA up to this could already be seen as seismic.

I merely wanted to take that extra step in the realignment discussion to flesh out some lingering thoughts I had (I have no idea why Winston-Salem and Greensboro are in different leagues). I fully admit that it’d be like winning the lottery if this realignment scenario is 100% accurate. However, with no baseball these days, this is what I’m left doing. Hopefully you enjoyed my little spurt of sports czar madness.