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What are some typical reasons for minor league teams changing their major league affiliations?
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Are the staffs of minor league teams – managers, coaches, trainers – employed by the minor or the major league ballclub? That is, when the minor league team changes affiliation, do these guys pick up and leave town?
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What’s the largest (American) city with no professional baseball whatsoever? I found this thread, which mentions Portland (584K) and Anchorage (292K).
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What’s the largest city with no major or minor league sports of any kind? The linked thread mentions Tuscaloosa, AL (pop. 93K). However, Tuscaloosa is home to the University of Alabama Crimson Tide – which is a de facto minor league football team and “major league” sports franchise, if that makes sense – so the answer kinda goes against the spirit of the question. So, anyone have a large town that’s not served by a minor league baseball or hockey team, nor by a Division 1A football (or basketball?) program? Tough question to answer.
Typical old business reasons - got a better deal from somebody else, or the major league team got a better deal with somebody else. Geography, fan base and municipal sweeteners are the ones that come to mind immediately. You know, one city tells the team it’s going to build a new facility, it has X Y and Z to offer, and the team decides that’s going to be worth more to the franchise than the current arrangement, so they move. It’s a very complicated calculus. Sometimes teams try to strike a perfect balance between having their affiliates close enough to be fans of the MLB team, but not so close that the presence of baseball in town is going to keep people from buying tickets to drive out and actually see the big leaguers play.
The Phillies dropped the affiliation with Scranton/Wilkes Barre a few years back in order to affiliate with the Ottawa Lynx and move them to Allentown, which is a much easier trip to shuttle people (not just players but team executives) back and forth on than Scranton. The Phillies got a new stadium for their players to play in closer to the home base, new practice and training facilities, that type of thing, and the Ottawa Lynx got to relocate and got a different playerbase to work with - young Phillies instead of Orioles.
I don’t know if it’s necessarily like this everywhere, but in the Phillies system the major league club pays the coaching staff. Everybody else has a contract with whatever entity runs the minor league team. The trainers and such at the spring training complex are in the employ of the Phillies, but if there’s full-time medical staff at the minor league facilities I am pretty sure those are not.
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Geography is a major part of it, not only for marketing purposes but for ease of getting a player from the AAA club to the MLB club right away in an emergency. (Scranton is too far from Philly? Really?). Sometimes the minor league ownership isn’t providing facilities the MLB club considers adequate. Sometimes it’s just that the MLB guys thinks the minor league guys are a bunch of jerks, or vice versa.
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The MLB organization provides all players, managers, coaches, and trainers, and has full control over who they are.
Yeah, I can see how geography and simple logistics would be important. Kinda surprising, then, that the Mets had their AAA team in Norfolk for so many years (and even now it’s in Buffalo, which is a 7 hour drive, not much closer).
Honolulu is almost certainly the answer for number 3 and would be for 4 without the college team caveat. There’s about 900k people in the city limits and they haven’t had a pro sports team since their AAA baseball team left in 1987.
Who owns the minor league teams? Are they independent, or owned by the Major League club? Or does it vary between AAA, AA, and A?
For example, the Toledo Mudhens have been Detroit’s AAA minor league team forever, as far as I know. Are they at least owned by the Tigers, or could they jump ship and become an affiliate of Cleveland?
Actually, the Mud Hens have been affiliated with Detroit only since 1987, which isn’t that long a time in the sweep of Mud Hens history. Prior to that they had been affiliated with the Twins, and before that the Indians, and before that the Phillies, and on and on.
They are a separate business and so some day could be affiliated with another team.
Can I piggyback here?
I’ve always wondered how much minor leaguers make these days. Not bonus babies, but say your average minor leaguer. If, say, someone under contract with the Mets or whoever, gets sent down, does his salary fall? Is there a minor league minimum? In reading the Ron Luciano books, players talked of receiving pittances, even by standards of the seventies.
Joe
It varies, but usually the clubs are owned by a local group that has a working agreement with the major league club.
There has been a minor trend recently of the Major League club going to a AAA minor league club that’s relatively near them as a convenience factor. Ultimately the minor league affiliate in AAA goes with the best financial offer. The convenience factor doesn’t apply to AA and lower, since players don’t have to be brought up to the major league club all that often.
Average minor leaguer without a major-league contract (which most don’t have)? Peanuts. A couple thousand a month during the season. A first-year minor leaguer gets $1100/month maximum, and then it goes up to whatever, usually on a graduated scale based on service time. They get a few more peanuts for meal money on the road, but that’s it.
A minor leaguer with a major-league contract is a different story. Those guys get a minimum of about $33,000/year even if they’ve never been in the majors, or about $66,000/year - again, minimum - if they’ve spent at least a day in the majors. For the time they’re in the majors, they get the prorated major league minimum, which is a bit more than $400 thousand per season.
What this means is that even if you get sent all the way back down to the lowest levels, once you put in a day at the major league level, you’re doing OK financially for the duration of that contract, and if you never get there, you’re not, unless you’re some hot prospect with a signing bonus and a major league contract from day one.
My reply was totally scooped by Jimmy.
The Portland (ME) Seadogs were originally the AA affiliate of the Marlins, but recently became the Red Sox affiliate, due to the geography reason.
Exactly the info I was after! Grazie!
Joe
Teams can go in the other direction too though; Toronto switched from Syracuse to Las Vegas.
That was reportedly because Syracuse was tired of the Jays’ chronic lack of commitment to winning, and wanted to be affiliated instead with an organization that would give the local fans something more interesting to watch. So who’d they get instead? Washington. 
Who was left for the Jays to sign with? Somebody 3 time zones away. At least it isn’t like when the Florida Marlins had to settle for Edmonton as an affiliate.
The Jays tried to get Buffalo when they came on the market last offseason, but the Mets got there first despite the Jays’ having had plenty of time to do the spadework. So, blame both organizations for letting emotions overrule planning. They both hurt themselves.
BTW, affiliation contracts are for anywhere from 1 to 4 years. Some of them come due every offseason, and there’s a little musical-chairs action every time, although some mutually comfortable arrangements are renewed repeatedly for decades.
Ugh, don’t get me started, lol. If only someone would have the sense to use the practically empty Lynx Stadium, put a AAA farm club here, and call them the Ottawa Blue Jays. Then their minor leaguers get a shorter trip, I get to watch baseball…everyone’s happy!
When a team switches to an affiliate further away, it’s usually due to necessity, not choice. When the Norfolk Tides switched to Baltimore after decades of being a New York Mets affiliate, the Mets affiliated with New Orleans in the PCL. That created problems if you had to bring someone up quickly. Despite their claims that they would be in New Orleans to stay, no one was surprised that they switched to Buffalo two years later.
This is the same team that keeps letting Edwin Encarnacion play third base.
This is often a factor when the minor league franchise initiates the shift, especially in the lower minors where geography isn’t as important. As a minor league owner, what can you do when you’re dissatisfied with your talent? You can’t fire your general manager, or hire better scouts, or increase your team payroll, because you aren’t responsible for any of those things. All you can do is–change your affiliation!
Looking at IL standings, to my admitted surprise, Washington’s given Syracuse two winning seasons in a row.
But then, if you think about it, that kind of makes sense; a team’s success at the major league level affects the minor league affiliates in indirect ways, and a bad major league team doesn’t necessarily mean a bad AAA team. In 2010, Syracuse had a truly amazing number of quadruple-A veterans. The only regular starting pitcher under 25 was 23. The core of the bullpen was 25, 25, and 28, and the leader in saves was 34 (Joel Peralta.) The only two position players to play 100 games were Peter Orr, who is 31, and Chase Lambin, who is 30. The Chiefs had one position player - ONE - under the age of 25 come to bat a hundred times.
In other words, the Chiefs were the ultimate example of a team staffed with journeymen. I guess Washington is an extreme believer in using AAA as a reserve team and keeping the kids at AA - everyone does that to some extent but the Nationals/Chiefs were a remarkably dramatic case. It’s not going to help the Nats much, but these veterans beat up youngsters enough to get a winning record.
By comparison, Pawtucket, who of course serve the Red Sox, had a losing record, but the team had major league prospects on it. Their average age was more than a year under Syracuse’s and at least to my eyes included more legitimate future major leaguers.
But then the SWB Yankees were the best team in the league AND had younger players than either Syracuse or Pawtucket. So I guess you never know.