MLB Reportedly Pursuing “Radical Restructuring” Of Lower Minors

[Redsfaithful]

Ehhh, not everything has to be political.

Minor league baseball is entirely too watered down. There’s no reason for teams to have 6-7 farm teams each. Why are there multiple rookie ball teams? Why is there high A and low A?

We absolutely must have a team in Greeneville, TN to appease 2,000 fans?

We have this weird thing where we pretend 30 rich idiots own baseball instead of the communities that support the teams and if you can't see parallels there, well

[RedTeamGo!]

We have this weird thing where we pretend 30 rich idiots own baseball instead of the communities that support the teams and if you can't see parallels there, well

I can see the parallels there with the MLB teams, but you didn’t address my point.

Minor league ball is too watered down and it’s having a negative effect on the product on the field IMHO.

[M2]

Ehhh, not everything has to be political.

Minor league baseball is entirely too watered down. There’s no reason for teams to have 6-7 farm teams each. Why are there multiple rookie ball teams? Why is there high A and low A?

We absolutely must have a team in Greeneville, TN to appease 2,000 fans?

We have this weird thing where we pretend 30 rich idiots own baseball instead of the communities that support the teams and if you can't see parallels there, well

RTG touches on the business school fault line that seems to be the cause of these tremors. If you were designing a development system for a sports corporation with 30 franchise, the current MiLB setup is wildly inefficient. MLB is propping up a ridiculous number of affiliates, and carrying a wholly unnecessary number of minor league contracts. Other sports don't light money on fire so that a pile of guys in their 20s can stave off adulthood for an extra decade.

Yet Redsfaithful also makes a good point that since when is the whole system beholden to the whims of 30 oligarchs? If they really want to streamline their development system and shed the whole stewards of the game responsibility that's the basis for their antitrust exemption, then let's get rid of the exemption, free up the minors and require whatever MLB affiliates exist to operate in leagues that they don't control, often playing against unaffiliated teams.

[TNRED]

I hate to see the demise of the minor leagues but from a financial aspect the best thing to do is just scrap all of them and have no minors like the NFL and NBA.

[RedTeamGo!]

I hate to see the demise of the minor leagues but from a financial aspect the best thing to do is just scrap all of them and have no minors like the NFL and NBA.

NBA has a minor league system.

NFL does as well, it’s called NCAA football, and it’s extremely corrupt.

[REDREAD]

Just food for thought.. Would Pujoils or Piazza ever been drafted if the minor leagues were "optimized" back then? What about a guy like Aquino.. he was cut loose last winter, no one wanted him and the Reds gave him another chance.

I disagree that minor league baseball is "watering down" MLB.. Does not make sense.. The cream rises to the top. Sure most of the guys in minor league baseball do not amount to anything, but if the number of minor leaguers is drastically cut down, the sport will lose some MLB quality players just because evaluating young talent is so difficult.

Minor leaguers are paid so little (I am guessing MLB helps pay them and that's what the beef is? but I am not sure).

MLB is acting like Clark Grizwald's boss and canceling the Xmas bonus for a negligible affect on the bottom line.

I suspect the truth is like someone else said.. MLB wants to own the entire Minor league system and this is the way to bully teams into selling out to them.

[redsof72]

There’s no reason for teams to have 6-7 farm teams each. Why are there multiple rookie ball teams? Why is there high A and low A?

We absolutely must have a team in Greeneville, TN to appease 2,000 fans?

I hear comments like this fairly frequently and they are a little puzzling. Let’s look at the Reds.

They had six farm clubs for years and years. An opportunity came open to add a seventh (Greeneville) and they jumped at it. Now why would they do that?

They took on a lot of expense with this seventh club, adding four full time coaches, full time trainer and strength coach, part time video operator, 35 players, the additional workman’s comp to pay for surgeries and such for those players, costs to fly rovers in and out, the cost of the time/attention given to that team, all the other operational costs, and more. They did all that for one reason.

Was the reason to ensure that the small fan base in Greeneville would continue to have a team? Of course not. The reason was because they felt they could justify all that expense through player development.

It was their choice. It was a yes or no question. Is it worth it or isn’t it? They felt it was.

I would ask this: where was the push to fold big league Owned and Operated Short-Season clubs before now? This would have been a very easy, seamless process, as long as it was done with an even number of teams to avoid scheduling problems. I mean, 20 big league clubs have a seventh farm club (a third Short Season team) many owned by the big league team similar to a GCL or AZL or DSL team, where teams are added and subtracted all the time with little fanfare. Why wasn’t that 20 team total shrinking to 18, 16, 14? Seems a little odd if that is the true motivation here.

[Danny Serafini]

I hear comments like this fairly frequently and they are a little puzzling. Let’s look at the Reds.

They had six farm clubs for years and years. An opportunity came open to add a seventh (Greeneville) and they jumped at it. Now why would they do that?

They took on a lot of expense with this seventh club, adding four full time coaches, full time trainer and strength coach, part time video operator, 35 players, the additional workman’s comp to pay for surgeries and such for those players, costs to fly rovers in and out, the cost of the time/attention given to that team, all the other operational costs, and more. They did all that for one reason.

Was the reason to ensure that the small fan base in Greeneville would continue to have a team? Of course not. The reason was because they felt they could justify all that expense through player development.

It was their choice. It was a yes or no question. Is it worth it or isn’t it? They felt it was.

They didn't add an extra team though. They cut one of their DSL teams to add Greeneville. They were already paying those coaches and trainers and players, they're just spending their money in Tennessee instead of the Dominican now.

[WrongVerb]

One thing I would like to see MLB do is fold all international teams under its wings. Create several strategically located academies (DR, Venezuela, Australia, Mexico, maybe even Cuba) where athletes can get proper nutrition, schooling, baseball, english courses, etc. without being subject to the whims of individual clubs. Then when the kids turn 18, they become subject to the first year player draft.

[WrongVerb]

My other solution (despite not quite fully understanding how this all works) is for MLB teams to create "slots" at each level that MiLB teams compete to fill. The parent team will be responsible for the on-field product, the MiLB team pays a franchise fee to the parent club, then supplies the stadium facilities and personnel, and keeps all the stadium revenue as well as the merchandise rights.

[dougdirt]

They didn't add an extra team though. They cut one of their DSL teams to add Greeneville. They were already paying those coaches and trainers and players, they're just spending their money in Tennessee instead of the Dominican now.

Some of what you are saying is sort of true. But the staff in the Dominican didn't change size when they cut down to one team. So they still added all of those coaches and trainers jobs in Greeneville. They also added the part time jobs with the video and trackman operator in Greeneville. The player salary? You think it's bad here? It's a lot lower in the Dominican Republic for the complex level players there. They may have the same roster size, but the player salary more than tripled. And since the Reds own the team, they have to also cover the travel expenses for the Greeneville team - and while very few trips are overnight ones in that league, they still have to pay for the bus every road trip and all that comes with it. There were plenty of expenses added on simply by "shifting" a team from the DSL to the Appy League.

[M2]

It was their choice. It was a yes or no question. Is it worth it or isn’t it? They felt it was.

It was worth it given the current system. Doesn't mean they wouldn't prefer a different system.

[redsof72]

There seems to be a feeling in some circles that the MLB owners want to reclaim the profitable minor league franchises and benefit from their revenue and value. What is overlooked is that the minor league owners built the environment that has led to profitability by taking the risks AFTER the MLB owners, in large numbers, sold them failing, high-debt businesses with little thought to their future potential.

I would make this analogy: a municipality has a largely abandoned piece of property that is basically just wasting away, located on the outer edge of a commercially-viable area. A businessman comes along, buys the property, builds it up, invests in it, uses bold and aggressive marketing strategy, and the property becomes a big commercial success, now worth 100 times what he paid for it. So now the municipality says, that profit should be our profit, and we are going to annex that area back into our control. It is part of our development, and should belong to us.

Not every minor league city is profitable, but some certainly are. Otherwise, you wouldn’t see franchises selling for $20 million and higher. But the minor league owners built that value after a period of time when almost all the MiLB teams were owned by the MLB parent club, and were being operated without any real staffs, marketing budget, or investment. The MLB owners seem to be eyeing those money-making teams, wanting a larger chunk of the money. Remember, all minor league teams already turn over a percentage of their ticket revenue to MLB. But MLB wants more.

[JaxRed]

Well, looks like MLB has won. Minors are apparently caving. Sorry Billings......

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor...tion-in-teams/


The article references a Ballpark Digest article. Here it is

https://ballparkdigest.com/2020/04/1...e-endgame-now/

[Kinsm]

Well, looks like MLB has won. Minors are apparently caving. Sorry Billings......

https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor...tion-in-teams/


The article references a Ballpark Digest article. Here it is

https://ballparkdigest.com/2020/04/1...e-endgame-now/

https://twitter.com/MiLB/status/1252688807725535232