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Minor League Diary: 4/7/07

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EVIL~! alkeiper

Entry posted by EVIL~! alkeiper ·

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As some of you might know, I have a side engagement scoring baseball games for a company called Baseball Info Solutions. I score occasional games in Scranton, mark hit locations and trajectories, and send them in via computer afterwards. I get to watch the game from a good vantage point for free and I get some money on the side. This is my third year. The first two years Scranton was the AAA affiliate of the Philadelphia Phillies. This year however Scranton is now the affiliate of the New York Yankees. The transition of teams comes with higher attendance, as there is simply more interest in this region for the Yankees.

 

* I joke that Yankee fans are obnoxious. Some are, some are not. Honestly, you get unbearable dopes in nearly every large baseball crowd. This game, four guys sat two rows behind me, consumed large amounts of alcohol and proceeded to make a show of themselves heckling the players. ALL game. It really gets on your nerves after a while. There's no respite.

 

* The weather is absolutely brutal. Game time temperature was 35 degrees, easily the coldest professional game I have ever attended. You can stand that kind of weather if you dress for it, which I did. After three hours though, the cold digs into you. It snowed about three times during the game, never sticking to the ground but creating a nuisance. The wind picked up at times, and in the configuration of the stadium it swirls.

 

* Even though I watch a lot of games, my scouting eye is not discerning enough to reveal much more than the statistics. I can tell you that Garrett Olson at one point retired seven straight batters on fly balls. Olson is just 23 and has struck out over a batter an inning in the minors while walking 70 and giving up just 13 home runs in 220 career innings. In my view, he is one of the unheralded pitching prospects in baseball.

 

* Something was missing overall. My enthusiasm just wasn't there for this game, and I wasn't sure if it was the loudmouths, the team or the weather. There are few legit prospects on the Yankees' farm club behind the rotation, and the Norfolk Tide had even less. I want to do less AAA games this year and maybe hit some other local teams (Harrisburg, Reading, Sussex County, etc.).

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EVIL~! alkeiper
How often to minor-league teams change affiliates like that?

The standard agreement runs two years, and most teams re-up their agreements. Some teams like Pawtucket and Richmond have retained their parent organizations for thirty years. Usually it's a question of geography. A league like the Pioneer League, run around Montana/Wyoming, will see more changes than the International League where many clubs are close to Major League cities. This was an odd year as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre club split with Philadelphia after 18 years. Norfolk split with the Mets after 37 years. Columbus had the Yankees for 28 years. So those were three long term agreements ended. So the answer is that it depends based on geography and stability.

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EVIL~! alkeiper
What happens to the clubs that get jilted? Do they dissolve or just become indys? I think there's a Washington County team that's like that (the Wild Things).

The way it works is that minor league teams don't actually own a team, they own a AAA franchise. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre for example is guaranteed a AAA team. So there are 30 AAA affiliations to match 30 MLB teams. If teams do not reach agreements, baseball assigns minor league teams to those franchises. For this reason, the Mets wound up in New Orleans (otherwise they might have located their AAA club in Brooklyn, NY). Independent teams usually saw their minor league affiliations sold and relocated if they originally had one. For other clubs, an independent team is a way to get in the door, so to speak. It's worth mentioning that most independent leagues are better than the lower organized minors.

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