What's a Blue Wahoo? Might Want to Find Out

[Steven Buhr]

Hearing from multiple sources that the Twins have had discussions with Pensacola about a possible AA agreement, though Pensacola (of which I believe Bubba Watson is a minority owner) is also considering re-upping with the Reds.

 

Pensacola has a relatively new, modern facility. It would be a great fit for the Twins.

[Heezy1323]

I did a year of my medical training in Pensacola and was an assistant team physician for the Wahoos during the end of the first and the beginning of the second year the stadium was open. It won, if I recall correctly, an award for the best new stadium in all of baseball (and it was the same year the new Mets stadium opened). It is a fantastic venue. Would be very cool to have the Twins affiliate there (just another reason to visit such a beautiful place). 

 Also, a blue wahoo is a type of fish that is common in local waters. Didn't catch any wahoo while I was there, but caught a lot of red drum and red snapper. Also caught a big grouper- maybe 25 lbs. 

[Guest]

 

I did a year of my medical training in Pensacola and was an assistant team physician for the Wahoos during the end of the first and the beginning of the second year the stadium was open. It won, if I recall correctly, an award for the best new stadium in all of baseball (and it was the same year the new Mets stadium opened). It is a fantastic venue. Would be very cool to have the Twins affiliate there (just another reason to visit such a beautiful place). 

 Also, a blue wahoo is a type of fish that is common in local waters. Didn't catch any wahoo while I was there, but caught a lot of red drum and red snapper. Also caught a big grouper- maybe 25 lbs. 

I kind of figured it had to be a fish of some sort. Have to say, I prefer "Blue Wahoos" as a team nickname over the "Red Drums"!

[diehardtwinsfan]

My first thought is that was a play on the Cleveland Indians... probably good that it wasn't. 

[Steve Lein]

Isn't Chattanooga building a new stadium? Or at least there is a proposal for one?

[SF Twins Fan]

It's interesting how often the minor league teams change affiliations. It would be a great move for the Twins if the facilities are as nice as advertised, however I do really like the logo of the Lookouts.

 

Also, you wonder if proximity to Fort Myers plays into this at all since it would be easier for the Twins to move players back and forth between High A and AA.

[Heezy1323]

 

It's interesting how often the minor league teams change affiliations. It would be a great move for the Twins if the facilities are as nice as advertised, however I do really like the logo of the Lookouts.

 

Also, you wonder if proximity to Fort Myers plays into this at all since it would be easier for the Twins to move players back and forth between High A and AA.

FWIW, Chattanooga is about 200 miles closer to Pensacola than Fort Myers. Florida is a big state.

[SF Twins Fan]

 

FWIW, Chattanooga is about 200 miles closer to Pensacola than Fort Myers. Florida is a big state.

 

Understood, but they would be moving their AA team from Chattanooga to Pensacola meaning their High A and AA would then be closer together.

[Heezy1323]

 

Understood, but they would be moving their AA team from Chattanooga to Pensacola meaning their High A and AA would then be closer together.

You are correct- apologies. Had this backward in my head for some reason.

[Seth Stohs]

I would think we would hear something soon. 

[nowheresville]

I'd be very surprised if we don't know by the end of the week.

 

All the shuffling has already been decided on both the AAA and High-A levels. Even in the levels that are left, it seems like once one domino falls, everything else should shape up pretty quickly. 

 

From the little I've been able to gather, Pensacola's franchise seems like they are the side more interested in splitting from the Reds, and their facilities are a fair bit nicer than Chattanooga, so it could be a chance for the Twins to upgrade. 

 

As far as what is a Blue Wahoo, whatever that is, it's better than the name for the new Huntsville team: The Rocket City Trash Pandas.

[lamiwe21]

https://www.pnj.com/story/sports/2018/09/20/pensacola-blue-wahoos-mulling-whether-stay-cincinnati-reds/1367958002/

 

This broke out among some of us Wahoos fans in early August. I welcome the change and hope it happens. I was told several times this year across the Southern League that teams and players were not happy with playing surface in Chattanooga. The Wahoos stadium plays big and favors pitchers, Its going to be easy getting players to Pensacola and Fort Myers. 

 

Crossing fingers this haappens. 

[ashbury]

 

https://www.pnj.com/story/sports/2018/09/20/pensacola-blue-wahoos-mulling-whether-stay-cincinnati-reds/1367958002/

 

This broke out among some of us Wahoos fans in early August. I welcome the change and hope it happens. I was told several times this year across the Southern League that teams and players were not happy with playing surface in Chattanooga. The Wahoos stadium plays big and favors pitchers, Its going to be easy getting players to Pensacola and Fort Myers. 

 

Crossing fingers this haappens. 

I see it's your first post. Welcome.

[Thrylos]

Pensacola is practically a Mobile, AL suburb.

 

Selfishly, I'd love it if the Twins return to the Eastern League.

[nowheresville]

There are no openings in the Eastern League, so no chance of that happening. I'd say the worst case would be the Twins getting stuck in Midland.

 

That's a really interesting article though. I would not have expected the Padres to be in the mix for Pensacola. With the Padres having their High-A team in California, and their AAA team in El Paso, I would have assumed they'd welcome staying in the Texas League, especially with Amarillo getting a new team and facility.

 

The article also didn't mention the Cubs at all, who haven't officially renewed with Tennessee, although it seemed like that was likely to happen in earlier articles I had read. 

[Guest]

Looks like Pensacola is considering the Padres, in addition to the Twins and Reds.

 

https://www.pnj.com/story/sports/2018/09/20/pensacola-blue-wahoos-mulling-whether-stay-cincinnati-reds/1367958002/

[IndianaTwin]

Hope they decide soon, because I’ve got a Lookouts cap on my Christmas list, and there’s only 94 more shopping days. I might need to update that.

[nowheresville]

 

https://www.pnj.com/story/sports/2018/09/20/pensacola-blue-wahoos-mulling-whether-stay-cincinnati-reds/1367958002/

 

This broke out among some of us Wahoos fans in early August. I welcome the change and hope it happens. I was told several times this year across the Southern League that teams and players were not happy with playing surface in Chattanooga. The Wahoos stadium plays big and favors pitchers, Its going to be easy getting players to Pensacola and Fort Myers. 

 

 

The other part of this article I really enjoyed at makes me excited about the possibility of a Pensacola partnership is how the team there is looking for a Major League team that they can really do a lot of cross promotions, a lot like we see in Cedar Rapids. Despite the distance, New Britain used to do a nice job of that - I loved their nb hat that was styled to look like the Twins "m" logo, and they had a lot of Mauer, Morneau, Ortiz items in their gift shop - but I didn't get the impression that Chattanooga ever did much to promote the relationship with the Twins. 

 

A side note, we won't be seeing ex-Twin Denny Hocking in Cedar Rapids again next year. He's with Seattle and had been the manager of the Clinton Lumberkings, but Clinton will be a Marlins affiliate next year, with the Mariners moving to West Virginia in the Sally League. 

[etwinsfan]

Selfishly I hope they stay in Chattanooga. It's an easy 3 hours drive from Etown plus they play in Kodak which is a little over an hour. I love traveling to see all the ones that game through Etown.

[nowheresville]

The President of the Wahoos did a radio interview this morning about the process of picking a new MLB team. Mostly the same stuff that was in the newpaper story, but a few little tidbits, like having the Twins also being in the Central Time Zone being a positive and hoping to use the partnership to encourage people to come to Pensacola's beaches (which would seem to make San Diego an underdog).

 

http://podcast.newsradio1620.com/post/5416/Jonathan_Griffith_-_President_of_the_Pensacola_Blue_Wahoos.html

[lamiwe21]

I think all clubs are a little bit nervous about two things with Amarillo. One what do we do if its not completed in time ? Teams would like to know what happens if this is the case. Second, we were all shocked that the Angels were content with the Southern League. A rover told me the Angels liked the Southern League mainly because the travel was easier then when they with Arkansas in the Texas League. The team that occupies Amarillo will be taking on three of the longest bus rides in affiliated baseball. I bet that affiliation is changing every two years unless its a team that values being close to Arizona.

 

In regards to the Wahoos stadium, April and May is very nice to hitters with the breeze coming off the Gulf and then the air turns into a bowl of hot soup from late May to September favoring pitchers. We had a 58 percent increase in games effected by weather this year because we had a ton of rain.

 

[Guest]

 

I think all clubs are a little bit nervous about two things with Amarillo. One what do we do if its not completed in time ? Teams would like to know what happens if this is the case. Second, we were all shocked that the Angels were content with the Southern League. A rover told me the Angels liked the Southern League mainly because the travel was easier then when they with Arkansas in the Texas League. The team that occupies Amarillo will be taking on three of the longest bus rides in affiliated baseball. I bet that affiliation is changing every two years unless its a team that values being close to Arizona.

 

In regards to the Wahoos stadium, April and May is very nice to hitters with the breeze coming off the Gulf and then the air turns into a bowl of hot soup from late May to September favoring pitchers. We had a 58 percent increase in games effected by weather this year because we had a ton of rain.

Yeah Amarillo is way outside even the normal footprint of the Texas League so those bus rides are going to be killers for whoever ends up there, even within their own "Southern" division. 

 

Seems like the loser, between the Padres and Twins, for the Pensacola affiliation may wind up there. I haven't seen that the A's have re-signed with Midland, though, either, so that might still be in play for the Twins/Padres, too. That would have to be every bit as unappealing as Amarillo, if not more so.

 

Bill Vilona's article in the Pensacola paper today gives the impression that the Reds have given up on their chances to stay in Pensacola and will sign with Chattanooga (maybe a preemptive move to avoid the Texas League) and the Cubs will stay in Knoxville. 

 

Vilone's article links to a reader poll for fans to vote for their preference between Padres and Twins. Sounds like Twins fans might want to do some voting!

[AZTwin]

I’d make my way down to Pensacola to watch the Twins prospects. Especially with Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff likely to make the team next year

 

 

And with the beaches, it’s a lot more appealing to vacation than Chattanooga

[nowheresville]

I'm getting the impression that the A's/Midland situation is a lot like the Cubs/Tennessee where they have a deal but it hasn't been announced. I asked an Oakland best writer about it and they thought it had already been settled but didn't remember a specific announcement.

 

If the newspaper poll has anything to do with the decision in Pensacola, it's great news for the twins, since they had more than 80% of the vote as of this morning. Also, Pensacola must broadcast all of their games online, as from reds fans, one of the biggest complaint about going back to Chattanooga is that the lookouts aren't on milb.tv

 

If the twins do get sequestered in Texas, I don't know that it will be quite as bad as some are thinking. You'd think a brand new Park should have everything the team wants and while the travel isn't great, they're really no worse off then any is the other Texas teams. The trip to corpus will be brutal, but Midland and Frisco aren't really much different than what they were doing in San Antonio, and they're closer to the northern teams in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

[lamiwe21]

Step one is complete.

 

https://www.timesfreepress.com/news/breakingnews/story/2018/sep/25/lookouts-reunite-reds/479760/

 

Reds will not be returning to Pensacola. 

[Seth Stohs]

 

[nowheresville]

We should finally get an answer very, very shortly. There are reports that Amarillo is expected to announce their affiliation early this afternoon, and it seems that Amarillo and Pensacola are the only teams still dancing in all of MiLB.

 

I thought the deadline was yesterday, so I'm shocked we hadn't heard any updates since the Reds officially paired up with the Lookouts last week.

[nowheresville]

The Padres are heading to Amarillo, so it looks like the Twins won the Blue Wahoo's competition!

 

http://www.milb.com/content/page.jsp?ymd=20181001&content_id=296787484&fext=.jsp&sid=t5368&vkey=

[MN_ExPat]

Pretty cool stuff.   I really like this move for the Twins.   Being a Southern Division team, the Wahoos come to Jacksonville a lot more during the season, so this means more chances to see our favorite prospects play in person.   Awesome news.

[ashbury]

I'm curious, from a business standpoint, which prospective partner has the most leverage when it's down to just one MLB team and one MiLB team. I'm not even sure what recourse they each have, if the relationship starts out on an unhappy note - the other 29 teams respectively all have signed contracts for the upcoming season. (Not that I'm predicting unhappiness here, just thinking out loud.) I suppose if Minnesota preferred Jacksonville over Amarillo and Chattanooga, but Jacksonville was kind of hoping for the Padres for whatever reason, then both parties know that Minnesota needs to do a little more to make their new affiliate happy. Heaven help them if they were both each other's third choice.