Monthly Archives: November 2019

11.17.19
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Contraction Comes To The Minors

Change is a-coming. Maybe.

The above map shows the 42 cities MLB is considering to wipe off the face of the earth. That is, if the face of the earth constituted of affliated minor league baseball teams. (Go ahead, take a few minutes to expand the map and study it.) Some people call this a restructuring of the minors. Others call it contraction. I come from the tech world. We call this downsizing.

Read about what’s being proposed:

I’ve been thinking about this for much of the weekend. My initial reaction is to try to preserve professional baseball in all cities and towns that have it regardless of size or affiliation. I do recognize that, historically, baseball has undergone numerous transformations regarding its relationship with its farm system(s) for decades. If you look at the map, you’ll see that California is mostly safe from this downsizing, with the exception of the high-A Lancaster JetHawks, whose current stadium opened in 1996. But if you scratch the surface, you’ll see that the California League has itself undergone a great deal of restructuring, losing teams and changing affiliations at a rapid rate recently. (Remember how the A’s used to have two Cal League affiliates?) The new trends of vertical ownership (MLB teams owning choice affiliates) and minimizing lower level team affiliations is foreboding for cities in the Pioneer and Appalachian Leagues, where the cities are literally several hours from the nearest MLB stadium and long bus rides from each other. Dropping teams is a surefire way to kill baseball fandom in those places, by making it much less accessible to the average fan or family.

The thing is, I see the point of the ruthless efficiency at work here. I live in Scottsdale, within walking distance of the Giants’ Cactus League stadium and training facility. I’m 15 minutes from the A’s in Mesa. I’m practically down the road from Phoenix Muni, where the A’s used to play and ASU’s baseball program now plays its home games after the A’s left for Mesa. I can see baseball for cheap or free nine months a year, without having to pay escalating MLB prices. That is a tremendous gift to me, and an enormous convenience for the 15 teams that have Cactus League facilities. They can do regular spring training, extended spring training, summer league, fall league, and rehab all in one place. Bus rides are mercifully short. Living costs are manageable. That doesn’t mean that minor league ball is obsolete. In fact, MiLB drew over 41 million fans last season, and there continue to be new venues popping up all over the country. Prospects still need to prove themselves at different levels. Yet there is an argument for some sort of consolidation.

That said, looming over all of this is potential backlash. If MLB chooses to cut ties with dozens of cities, good luck trying to get the next smallish municipality to buy into the baseball-as-boon concept. There’s talk of lawsuits. Surely there would be many of those, though MLB’s antitrust protection only extends to major league games and the cities that host MLB teams. It’s not surprising that the idea may have originated with the already-on-the-hot-seat Houston Astros organization. Whether this is merely a trial balloon or the start of a major reform effort, minor league baseball has major issues to address, such as paying a living wage.

As much as I am a fan of an analytically driven approach to baseball, there are limits. Baseball is still a game played by human beings, in communities, not entirely on spreadsheets. Not everything about the sport should be boiled down to being a revenue or cost center, or an investment with an ROI. As we saw during the World Series, there has to be room for drama and feeling. That’s what loving baseball – or any spectator sport – is about. If you suffocate the communities, you kill the game. I hope that the Lodge, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t forget how important that is.

11.13.19
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*BLINK*

 

It figures that right before a hearing, hours after I mention the latest lawsuit in a post, that one of the parties chooses to drop the lawsuit.

That’s what happened tonight, as the Oakland City Council ordered the City Attorney to drop the lawsuit over the Coliseum land. Per the Chronicle’s Sarah Ravani:

That was followed by the A’s own release:

Okay, now what? Well, don’t break out the shovels just yet. Why? Because the key sentence in the City’s statement is this:

Additionally, the Council directed the issuance of a surplus land notice on the Coliseum site, a legally required precursor to selling public land.

According to the checklist (PDF) put together by nonprofit law firm Public Advocates, that’s gonna add at least 60 days to the land sale process. I expect the City to continue to negotiate concessions from the A’s in the interim. As affordable housing is not a huge moneymaker without some sort of subsidization effort, I wouldn’t expect a ton of better offers than what the A’s can provide. The important thing, though, is that the process is being followed properly, and codified in the Surplus Land Act is a desire to approve bidders that can provide 25% of the constructed units as affordable or below market-rate.

There’s also a provision to approve park uses for surplus land, which may require a small zoning change if it’s what the A’s have on the drawing board – converting the Coliseum into a park/amphitheater.

Throughout all of the legal and political wrangling during the fall, both City and County had rather different takes on who was following the right procedures with the Surplus Land Act. Both the park and affordable housing are in the A’s plans, which has me wondering why the City and County couldn’t get on the same page in September when this mess started. Similarly, why would the A’s go along with a plan so likely to face political friction? Perhaps they wanted to take the procedural express lane to Howard Terminal. So much for that. Over at Beyond the Box Score, Sheryl Ring provided greater insight into the specifics of the law.

For this whole concept – ballpark at Howard Terminal, redevelopment of the Coliseum – there’s a great deal of work to flesh out the details. If the A’s end up putting no affordable housing at Howard Terminal and try to place all of the affordable units at the Coliseum, that’s likely to go over like a lead balloon. Then again, it’s unclear if Howard Terminal itself is subject to the Surplus Land Act, which would really throw a wrench into the A’s projections.

I was surprised when Rob Manfred used the move threat card at what I considered a very early juncture. Then I remembered that the commissioner can use it whenever he likes without fear of reprisal. Antitrust exemption, you know. Exhale, everyone.

11.13.19
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A’s and Cubs to host 2020 Cactus League weekends in Vegas

Yesterday the Las Vegas Aviators announced two Big League weekends during spring training next year. The first, on February 29 & March 1, will feature the A’s hosting the Cleveland Indians. The following weekend, March 7-8, will have the Chicago Cubs hosting the Cincinnati Reds. The games will be played at Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin (see gallery below).

The newly scheduled games are in addition to the existing Cactus League slate, which makes the new games all split-squad affairs. That’s good to know for those planning to attend while expecting to see certain stars. Your chances are 50/50 on that count.

Last May I visited Las Vegas Ballpark, which is located in the suburb of Summerlin, at the west edge of the valley. It’s 10 miles from the Strip, located down the street from Red Rock, one of the many locals casinos in the area. It is by far the best, swankiest AAA ballpark I’ve ever attended, though that compliment comes with one major caveat. If you remember the history of Raley Field, when it was developed there was discussion about how it could be built for easy future expansion to a MLB-sized facility. A huge rainstorm during the winter of construction nixed those plans and delayed the eventual opening of the ballpark. Raley Field is still nice, yet decidedly a AAA ballpark. The same goes for Las Vegas Ballpark and First Tennessee Park in Nashville.

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Maybe events like these are ways to showcase Vegas or Nashville for future expansion or relocation. Problem is that the venues’ relative size (10,000 seats) makes that showcase extremely limited. It’s a long way from 10,000 seats (the game I attended was sold out) to a 30,000+ domed stadium that will have to be placed much closer to downtown as opposed to a suburb in order to better capture the market’s population. Not to mention the financing part, which thanks to the Raiders’ stadium, shuts off a major public funding source. Beyond that, some compensation is due to the Aviators, who would themselves need relocation and whose ownership group owns the Summerlin ballpark. That’s the case whether a new Vegas ballpark is built near the Strip, in Summerlin, or in Henderson as was discussed a few months ago with the D-backs.

Allegiant Stadium, which is approaching $2 billion in construction cost, is clearly on the minds of East Bay fans who feel spurned by the Raiders. Despite that very recent pain, that’s no reason for Oakland to give up its bargaining position when it comes to the A’s. Last month I was rooting for the lawsuit to come to fruition as it could put the Coliseum land sale issue to rest. That reckoning begins tomorrow. Regardless of the outcome, MLB isn’t in the position to decide to open up Vegas to any team overnight. For Vegas to happen for the Raiders required some serious moving of mountains. For the A’s and A’s fans, this is gonna be a bumpy ride. The time for pearl-clutching is not here yet, not even close.