12/18/19

OPEN THREAD – No Minor Leagues???




I’ve been reading various reports out there that the negotiations between major and minor league baseball has reached the boiling point. All this started when the parent division recommended that a bunch of minor league franchises, including two Mets, be eliminated from the program.

Now, leaks have come out of the talks that the big boys threatened to blow up all of minor league baseball and come up with a new system using Indy teams and such.

Crazy.

And, in my opinion, even crazier if you think you could get this done before next spring.

So I ask…

What are your thoughts on this mess?

7 comments:

Tom Brennan said...

Intriguing...and cut throat...and a certainty of a blizzard of lawsuits to come if it truly heads in that direction.

That said, how many "minor leagues" does the NBA have?

I wonder if this is somehow a ploy by uber-rich MLB owners to squeeze more $$ out of state and local governments - after all, no politician wants to lose THEIR constituents' team.

Tom Brennan said...

Could anti-trust rear its ugly head against MLB owners? That would be a concern.

Jack Flynn said...

Manfred is posturing, and he sounds like a fool. The cost of torching the entire minor league system and building an entirely new system from scratch would be so prohibitive that the owners would come together to fire Manfred before the ink was dry on his executive order.

I am of the opinion (and I suspect that it's a minority one on this site) that no team needs more than four affiliates, and no draft needs more than 20 rounds. Triple-A, Double-A, Single-A and Rookie/Short Season ball is all an MLB franchise needs.

If anything, a more robust indy league system is better for fringe players, because it gives them more choice in selecting their employer. Getting drafted by the Pirates in the 25th Round, for example, is hardly better than going undrafted and finding an indy league team with a development program that will help you get noticed by the entire league.

You may not like that if you live in St. Lucie or Kingsport, but if you've got the facility and the fan base to support a minor league team, an owner is going to find you. If not, there's always the possibility of an indy league looking to stake a claim in your territory.

Mack Ade said...

Jack -

I actually now think 5. 4 full season clubs and one for the rookies in the GCL warm weather... also keep the DSL

Things would move a lot quicker and we wouldn't have to keep tracking the bunch of mostly late round draftees that really have no chance of making it to Queens.

Either way, the lawyers will tie this up until at least the 2021 season.

Jack Flynn said...

Mack - I would be comfortable with a fifth U.S.-based affiliate that functioned as an "instructional league team" and was based at the spring training facility, playing three or four games a week only at other Grapefruit League/Cactus League venues. That would preserve St. Lucie in a more logical fashion then its current High-A designation.

Three Single-A teams, two rookie ball teams AND two DSL teams is absolutely excessive, and MLB should be questioning the wisdom of the current set-up. The financial resources being dedicated to employing 175 fringe baseball players (on top of the 100 to 125 who would still be employed under a new structure) are being used in an incredibly inefficient fashion. You'd be lucky if five of those players ever made it to the parent club. MLB should maintain the status quo based on the 3% chance of those players ever suiting up at the highest level? I don't think so.

Tom Brennan said...

Jack, I especially agree on the DSL teams. So few non-bonus guys come out of the DSL - and it seems half of them that do graduate from the DSL never get above lower stateside rookie ball.

If you're keeping the DSL at all,
cut the number of teams in half and let the better half of the Mets players, let's say, combine with another MLB team's better players.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a huge fan of the current minor league system or, for that matter, ML ownership.

But I do love the game of baseball.

I highly recommend viewing the documentary on Netflix, "The Battered Bastards of Baseball."

It's about the Portland Mavericks, a defunct minor league baseball team in Portland, Oregon. The Mavericks were an independent team operating in the 70s, without the affiliation of a parent team in the major leagues. They were fun and ragged and outrageous and beloved in Portland.

Baseball like it ought to be.

Jimmy