The year-long saga of overhauling the entire minor league baseball system officially came to a head last week as the new league structures and "improvements" were released by Major League Baseball. All of the historical league names that have decades, and in some cases more than a century, of history, have been replaced with unimaginative geographic names and divisions. For instance, the Pacific Coast League and International League have been replaced with Triple-A West and Triple-A East respectively, but within those leagues, there are further geographic subdivisions that further convolute and confuse things. An example of this is the Albuquerque Isotopes play in the eastern division of the Triple-A West league. I give this about 2 years before leagues and divisions either change to something generically patriotic or naming rights are sold, sort of like the NBA G-League. This is all done under the guise of reducing travel time for affiliates and having affiliates be on average much closer to the parent clubs, but in reality there is a lot more to unpack from this process and what MLB's true motivations are.
Like most everything else with Commissioner Manfred and the owners, this reorganization is almost entirely about money and control. There are definitely some nice side effects to this realignment, such as mandated improved player facilities, increased player salaries, stability in local communities, and the aforementioned geographic reasons, but the true driving factor for these changes is to give MLB complete ownership and operation of the minor leagues. The business model of MiLB and MLB operating as two separate entities for over 100 years has given way to MLB controlling and owning every aspect of the minor leagues, and thus managing the minor leagues as they would any other for-profit business. This was done almost completely unilaterally by MLB; they simply waited out the clock for their latest professional agreement to expire on September 30th of last year, and then proceeded to set their own terms. The teams that MLB wanted to retain were offered new "licensing agreements" and if those teams didn't like it, then they would just find somebody else who did. In the end, most teams didn't have a lot of choice. It was either agree to MLB's terms and have a "partner" that would now control every aspect of their club, or struggle to make it financially in a competitive and cutthroat summer collegiate or independent league market, during a pandemic no less. Many clubs were not even given that choice, and there are some teams like the Burlington Bees or Clinton Lumberkings that were left scrambling to find new leagues after 100+ years as a minor league affiliate, with little to no warning. Two of the teams that Erik and I visited on our Appy League trip in 2019 are now playing in an MLB-sponsored summer collegiate league under different names, and many of the teams I have seen over the years no longer exist. This reorganization may be a huge relief to the teams that made the cut, but for the 40+ teams left out in the cold, it was a huge blow to their local communities and economies. I title this article as an MiLB "overhaul," but "takeover" is probably a more appropriate word.
I think this is something we will look back on in 10 years and realize it was the right move. The geographic alignments make sense and it also makes sense to cut out a lot of the unnecessary rounds of the draft and levels of development. Besides that, I think some of these teams will be invited back when the league expands to 32 teams anyways. But that doesn't mean that the way this was handled was the right way. Rob Manfred has a long standing reputation of operating baseball as any other business and has no regard for maintaining any aspect of tradition in lieu of efficiency and profitability. He knows that making the 30 MLB owners money hand over fist is going to keep him in power for years to come, but at some point he will have to come to reckon with and understand the long-term effects his assault on the game will have on fans and its popularity, which ultimately effects what he holds most dear - the bottom line.
PS - Happy Pitchers & Catchers Day!
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.