nowheresville

Trade a playoff caliber starter for a backup center fielder. JFC. Thanks for the reminder of why I so rarely visit Twins Daily anymore. Just garbage takes and click bait. That it's coming from a more senior writer like Trueblood makes it extra embarrassing.

Sorry but this doesn't pass the smell test. Shoe was DFA'd, he was effectively a free agent, and he made the decision to stay with the Twins rather than go sign a minor league deal elsewhere. If you think your team and its coaching is a significant factor for your poor performance, then why on earth would you accept an option assignment to the minors with that same team?

The other interesting thing with Pujols is that he's all but admitted he's actually 2 years older than his official listed age, and last year he was probably his age 42 season. Not that it really changes the comparison with Cruz, as even by Pujols "age 38" season, he'd fallen off significantly, just another wrinkle in the challenge of trying to make age based comparisons.

Yes, this has been expected, and I've noted it a few times in other threads. The question really seems to be will it be 3 leagues, or will it be a 20 teams IL and a 10 team PCL. Sounds like a 20 Team IL is more likely, so there probably will be some interdivision games, where we could see, for example, St. Paul play Rochester. BTW, Gwinnett really isn't even really an outlier. It's only 4 hours by bus to Nashville. Easy to forget that Atlanta is actually West of Detroit Wichita in the Texas League makes perfect sense - they were a Texas League city until their team moved to Northwest Arkansas a decade ago. I'm sure they'll be in a division with Springfield MO, NW Ark, and Little Rock, so there's no huge bus rides there. Obviously, getting to Corpus or Midland is a haul, but that's always been an issue in Texas. The team that looks like it is in store for some nightmare travel is Bowling Green. It looks like they're going to get booted from the Midwest League (where they were a bit of an outlier) and could get stuck in the new Mid-Atlantic League where their closest division rival will be in Maryland, more than 700 miles away!

I don't think there is any doubt that Wichita will be in the TX league - the southern league is 1,000 miles away, in fact I think Double-A is the only place where the leagues are pretty much set. AAA will be interesting to see if they do split off the Central teams into the IL, into their own League, or keep places like Nashville, Des Moines, and probably St. Paul in the Pacific Coast League. High-A has its own geography problem. The Midwest League now has an odd number, with Clinton, Burlington, and Kane County eliminated. Meanwhile the new Midatlantic League has 5 teams all close to each other between Maryland and NYC, but no 6th team nearby. Presumably, Bowling Green or Lake County will be spun off from the Midwest into one of the eastern leagues, but that doesn't really fit well either. Low-A is pretty much set, except for Fresno, who is still having a tantrum about being demoted from AAA and hasn't said if they'll take the spot in the California League. I get not being happy about the demotion, but when 20 cities have completely lost baseball, bitching about having to be in the same league as places like San Jose, Stockton, and Modesto just rings hollow to me.

I'm not! (shameless self congratulatory plug)

Wichita is close to confirmed per a A Wichita sports reporter.

Out of curiosity, which ones do make the top 10? You clearly love Dodger Stadium, and mentioned KC and Pittsburgh as ones you like but most of your comments seems to be about why you didn't like certain parks. I've been to about 25 MLB parks, and another 35 or 40 Minor League, Spring Training, and Winter ball parks. Target Field would probably sit in the bottom of the top 10 for MLB for me. I put it in a similar tier as Petco in San Diego and TMobile in Seattle. I actually like both St Louis and Cincinnati as being underrated parks. I liked Fenway and used to love Wrigley - sitting in the front of the upper deck was really a perfect experience - but video boards are so big and completely take away from the beauty of the park. For the minors, I'd have to put Fort Wayne at the top of my list. I love how it fits right into the middle of the city. Not sure where that's coming from, but Nashville is probably the frontrunner for any city - other than perhaps Montreal - to be the next MLB city. There actually is an effort to get an MLB team and build a new ballpark - possibly next to the Titans stadium - in Nashville, although that's still a long way from being reality. I've never seen even any serious talk for anything like that for Indianapolis.

In theory, I love the idea. I do like having the minor league team a little farther removed than St. Paul, almost as a level of community outreach beyond the MSP Metro. If nothing else, I'd end up getting to Junkyard far more often! But as others have already pointed out, it doesn't really work from a logistics standpoint. Fargo as a city would be the smallest city in AAA and A 4,500 seat ballpark just isn't big enough for AAA. 10,000 seats is the minimum recommended size for AAA, and other than Tacoma which was grandfathered in with 6800 seats, there's no park at AAA with less than 9,000 seats. St. Paul is getting around those rules because they have an average attendance of 8,000 people. Fargo only has an average attendance of 3,500 people, and while being an affiliated team might give them a slight bump, we're talking a few hundred fans a game not a few thousand. With those kinds of numbers, it's just not realistic to think that anyone in Fargo is going to put up the $20M needed for a AAA franchise. And has been mentioned, neither Fargo, nor Duluth, nor Rochester, nor any other city around Minnesota will ever be a Double-A city, because there are no Double-A Leagues in the upper midwest. The closest AA city is Springfield Missouri - and I don't think many MLB teams want to put their prospects on a 12 hour bus ride for their shortest roadtrip.

Ahh, that "AA" - makes more sense. It will be interesting to see how indy ball shakes out with all of this, on one hand 40 fewer milb cities with existing facilities and 1,000 fewer roster milb roster spots puts the potential there for growth, but the financials are always shaky. I'm also curious how the college wood-bat leagues are going to get through all of this. Obviously the Northwoods league has been growing like crazy, and you've got midwest league teams like Clinton and Burlington likely to be contracted that will be looking for a home. But if the Appy league also does become another college summer league, and you've got the NY-Penn league looking at it too, at what point does the pool of available amateur players become unsustainable.

BTW, It is official, per the @RocRedWings twitter announcement, Rochester will become the National's new AAA affiliate.

Wichita already has an MILB franchise and a brand new stadium. It's also larger than any city you've listed except Austin, which already has a AAA Team, the Round Rock Express. Would any of those places fit into the Texas League footprint, sure, but fitting into the footprint isn't the only factor. I really have no idea what you mean by "AA begins to have issues of collapsing." but Lincoln is not in the footprint of the Texas League and doesn't really work from the perspective of geography. Wichita was previously a Texas League city and would be in a division with Tulsa, Springfield MO, Springdale AR, and Little Rock. That's a range from 180 miles to 450 miles for its longest trip. Lincoln on the other hand would be almost 400 miles to its closest division rival and more than 600 miles for its longest trip, and that's just in the division. I suppose it's not impossible, but it's a major strike against it.

The Yankees have already announced they are staying in Scranton/WB. I think the Yankees own a piece of that team, and they did a major rebuild of the ballpark a couple years ago. The Mets own the AAA team in Syracuse outright - they bought it after having their team stuck out in Vegas for a number of years. I'd put my money on the Nationals ending up in Rochester. They're the one east coast team that doesn't have a fairly natural fit already in place at AAA. Otherwise, maybe I could see Pittsburgh, and some kind of swap where the Nationals end up in Nashville, and the Brewers end up in Indianapolis, but that seems like more of a long shot.

Here's what you have to remember though, Geography is relative. Atlanta is the closest city for almost every city in the Southern League, and obviously not every team can be a Braves affiliate. With the 3 AA Leagues being the Eastern, Southern, and Texas League, there's no close team for a lot of teams - including almost any team on the west coast. Pensacola probably is the closest or at least just about the closest AA team to Miami. But there's also reducing geography between levels. For both the Twins and Marlins, they previously had low A in Iowa, High A and Double A back down in Florida, and then AAA hundreds of miles away (In Rochester and Wichita respectively). The Marlins will probably now have teams going from Jupiter, to somewhere in the Carolinas, to Pensacola, to Jacksonville. Teams like the White Sox and Dodgers had already been doing that. The White Sox have all their Minor League teams in the Southeast, it's not close to Chicago, but its not expected to change. The Dodgers have had their AA and AAA teams both in Oklahoma, it's not close to California but also not expected to change.

Wichita's joining the Texas League would be alongside San Antonio also being demoted from AAA, growing the Texas League by 2 teams. The two AA teams being eliminated would both seem to come from the Southern League - with Jacksonville being promoted to AAA and then another team being contracted. Chattanooga was on the original contraction list, so that would be my guess. Wichita used to be in the Texas League, prior to it's franchise moving to NW Arkansas, so it's a pretty comfortable fit. Lincoln is a non-starter from a Geography perspective, but it has nothing to do with Omaha having a team. It's just too much of an outlier to be anything other than a AAA team, because AA and below travel by bus. It's the same problem that keeps Duluth, Rochester (MN), Fargo or any other Minnesota city from joining affiliated minor league ball.

Sugarland had reached a deal to become the AAA team of the Astros (Sugarland Cheaters has already been suggested as their updated nickname). Houston will have part ownership, so that might be a blueprint for what could happen with the Saints, and it's more likely that Wichita is heading to AA.

Nashville is staying AAA. It could be an option if the Saints fall through, but there hasn't been really any rumors of that happening. Not that it matter much, but NW Arkansas (Springdale/Fayetteville/Bentonville) is actually about 100 miles closer than Nashville.

The one wrinkle I didn't think about is the Royals - If Wichita gets demoted to AA, I could see Kansas City trying to take the spot, and certainly Wichita would gladly welcome them. KC even was in Wichita for AA years ago, until the Franchise itself moved to Northwest Arkansas and the Royals followed where they remain still today. NW Arkansas could then be an option for the Twins, and the geography would fit, but that would be a pretty disappointing outcome that would be a significant step down from the facilities in Pensacola.

Minor League Baseball is going to see massive changes in 2021, and the Twins have already signaled that they will be among the teams seeing the biggest shakeups. There has been plenty of speculation that St. Paul will become their new AAA home, but it's my belief that whether or not that happens, the Twins will end up with a Minor League Team in Wichita, Kansas one way or another. As a quick recap, Minor League Baseball is expected to undergo a massive reorganization starting next season as it is taken over by Major League Baseball. At least 40 teams will be contracted, the short season and rookie leagues are being eliminated, and other levels are expected to see significant changes and realignment. New deals between Major Leagues and affiliates are also expected to go from 2-4 year deals, like they had been previously and saw the Twins shift from New Britain to Chattanooga to Pensacola for AA just within the past decade, to 10 year deals, to create more stability between MLB and MILB teams. For the Twins, that means the Elizabethton Twins are no longer a Twins farm team, Fort Myers and the Florida State League will shift to Low-A, while Cedar Rapids and the Midwest League will move up to High-A. The Twins have also already announced that they are cutting ties with Rochester (NY) and will be looking for a new AAA home. For many Twins fans, the AAA changes have been getting the most attention, as the St. Paul Saints are one of two 2 independent teams being invited to join AAA, the other being the Sugarland Skeeters in suburban Houston. The possibility of having Twins Prospects playing just 12 miles away from Target Field is certainly an exciting development for Twins fans, especially those who closely follow the Twins Minor League Prospects. The sticking point appears to be around money, specifically if the Saints ownership is willing to pay the $20M franchise fee to join affiliated minor league ball. But while St. Paul seems clear as plan A, there have been several reports listing Wichita as plan B, and that could be an excellent option as well. The Wichita Wind Surge is a brand new team with a brand new ballpark. They were supposed to make their debut last season as the AAA team of the Miami Marlins, until COVID cancelled the Minor League Season. In addition to having brand new facilities, Wichita would also be a very good geographic fit as well. Wichita is a little over 600 miles away from the Twin Cities, and while that can't compete with the Saints in terms of distance, it's still significantly shorter than the trip to Rochester and is actually one of the closest existing AAA cities to Minnesota. Only Des Moines and Omaha, whose longtime ties to the Cubs and Royals aren't likely to change, are significantly closer. Additionally, as part of the reorganization, the Pacific Coast League is likely to be adjusted so it is only West Coast Teams, instead of the previous setup which had teams stretching from Tacoma to Nashville. The extreme travel of the PCL is one of the main reason the Twins worked to stay in Rochester and the IL, but that seems to be unlikely an issue moving forward if the Twins end up in Wichita for AAA. Even if St. Paul does become a reality and becomes the Twins new AAA team, there's still a very good chance that the Twins end up in Wichita anyway! Mixed into other reports about this year's Minor League affiliation dance is that the Marlins will be moving their AAA team to Jacksonville - which had been the home of their AA team - and then their AA team will shift to Pensacola. Pensacola, of course, has been the Twins AA home for the past 2 years, and if those reports are accurate, the Twins will need a new AA location. There are 3 AA leagues, the Eastern, Southern, and Texas Leagues, none of which have teams that are particularly close to Minnesota, so there's no natural fit, and because of travel, there's no chance of any city in or near Minnesota becoming a AA city. Wichita, on the other hand, could be available as a AA location. If both the Saints and the Sugarland (TX) Skeeters - the other independent team under consideration for AAA affiliation - decide to join up, then there are reports that Wichita and San Antonio (Brewers current AAA) would both be moved down to the AA Texas League. In that case, Wichita would still be one of the closest available AA option for the Twins, and with brand new facilities would be a very appealing location. As a side note - if San Antonio does get moved to AA, that creates a really interesting situation for the Brewers. Presumably, Houston would take Sugarland as it's new AAA home, and the Rangers would move their AAA team from Nashville back to Round Rock. Nashville would be an excellent fit for Milwaukee, except a few years ago, Nashville effectively kicked out the Brewers right as they opened a new ballpark - and the Brewers were quite public about how unhappy they were with how that situation unfolded. Obviously, there are still a lot of moving parts in regards to Minor League Baseball's major overhaul, and we won't have any true answers until MLB makes its long awaited official reorganization announcement, likely sometime soon. But since whatever changes are decided this month are likely to be in place for at least the next 10 years, it's important that the Twins settle in a good situation. With a brand new park, that's relatively close to Minnesota, Wichita looks like it could be a very nice place for Twins prospects to settle in, no matter if it's Double or Triple A. Update 11/30/20: According to a sports reporter in Wichita, the Twins/Wichita partnership will be made official this week.

Names don't matter, but AAA is an airplane league, where AA is a bus league so geographic proximity matters below AAA. FWIW, It sounds like Memphis, Nashville, Des Moines, (St. Paul?) will no longer be in the PCL starting next year. Either a 3rd league will be created for central teams, or they'll move to the IL and leave only 8 teams who are actually in the west in the PCL. It's certainly possible that Rochester could get demoted, but it would seem at least somewhat less likely. With Buffalo and Syracuse both still AAA. There hasn't been any large scale announcement of who is going where - especially in regards to realignment - and general announcements of league changes, like Midwest going HIgh-A while Florida State becomes Low A. The only team specific announcements/rumors I've seen are: Yankees leaving Trenton and Charleston for Somerset (previous indie now AA) and Hudson Valley (previously SS-A, now High-A). Oakland leaving Beloit for Vancouver (previous SS, now High-A). Miami leaving Wichita for Jacksonville (previous AA, now AAA) and moving AA to Pensacola. Minnesota leaving Rochester for St. Paul or Wichita. MLB was apparently not happy with how those were being made public and has told teams to keep quiet until they make a larger official announcement that is supposed to come any day now.

To me, this is the interesting question that I haven't seen any sort of even rumors about. AAA seems to be pretty much locked in - it will almost certainly be either St. Paul or Wichita. AA is the oddball, because it's not like there's really a way to improve the geography. Between the 3 leagues, Eastern, Southern, and Texas, even the closest teams to MN are only marginally closer than Pensacola and usually already have a "local" team, like the Cardinals in Springfield MO or Cleveland in Akron. There's likely to be some other changes coming - the whole reason Miami is thought to be moving into Pensacola is because their current AA team, jacksonville is rumored to be moving up to AAA. Chattanooga had also been on the contraction list, so presumably there will be another couple cities (probably from the Sally or Carolina Leagues) that will be promoted from A ball to AA but there's no obvious fit for the Twins .

The good news for you is that even if the Saints affiliation doesn't work out, the Twins AAA team is almost certainly going to end up in the central US that will be in the same league as Des Moines. Wichita has been the other rumored landing spot.

St. Paul would clearly slot into the current PCL, right along with Des Moines and Omaha. Rochester isn't going away away as a AAA club, they'll just be getting a different franchise, my guess being the Nationals. In this case, St. Paul would basically be replacing Fresno (Washington's current team) who will be demoted to the California league. That said, from the sounds of it, AAA's structure is also likely to change, either with 3 leagues (east, west, central) or just making the 2 leagues unbalanced, with all of the eastern PCL teams joining the IL, leaving only actual western teams - say El Paso and west - in the Pacific Coast League.

An A ball team 50 miles away, in a different media market, and a AAA team 12 miles away are a bit of a different story. The better comparisons would be Seattle/Tacoma or Atlanta/Gwinette which are about 35 miles between MLB and AAA. Of course they make it work - and frankly, the Saints already have shown it can work. While someone who reads a Twins blog is going to care about watching prospects, the average MILB fan is going for the corporate outing, going for cheap beer, and the wacky antics that aren't going to go away (most minor league teams today are mimicing what the Saints have been doing for years). The advantage for the Saints would primarily be stability, that indy ball just can't provide as noted by the number of times the Saints have changed leagues over the years.

It would seem like the obvious solution is just to pro-rate any suspensions to the length of the season. If the season is cut in half and play 81 games, then the suspension is also cut in half, so instead of 39 games, Pineda could come back after 20 games. Of course something that simple would probably never be considered by mlb.