The Ottawa Citizen has more to the story of the Nation’s Capital’s quest for Double-A baseball today, reporting that “minor-league sources have earmarked the Binghamton Mets as the franchise being bought and moved to Ottawa.”
Adam Rubin of ESPN New York is following the report, and the non-denial denials of Binghamton’s ownership, on Twitter– where he says “someone in the know” emailed him a shuffle scenario that would see the Jays in Ottawa, the Mets in New Britain and the Minnesota Twins in New Hampshire– and in a report where he too had sources that hinted Binghamton was on the move.
John Lott of the National Post gets in on the action, quoting Alex Anthopoulos saying that he “absolutely” intends to seek another renewal of the club’s affiliation with New Hampshire, praising the club’s relationship with the Fisher Cats and claiming that all of these reports are news to him.
Maybe so. But I don’t expect that Alex would be quite yet inclined to torch his relationship with the Eastern League club, nor do I believe the Jays– whose agreement with the Fisher Cats expires after this season– would let a good relationship with a minor league affiliate stand in the way of pushing forward their national marketing strategy in a big way. An affiliate in Ottawa makes far too much sense for me to not believe this is really happening. Which, of course, is a pretty terrible reason to believe something, but for the moment, I’m sticking by it.
Given how attendance became too low after the Phillies became the affiliate for the Ottawa Lynx previously, I believe only affiliation with the Jays would allow for a successful MiLB team in Ottawa.
I’m probably totally wrong, but it does make too much sense.
Why not move the 51′s to Ottawa? Gets rid of the cross-country flight, doesn’t let go of NH, and avoids Boston’s AAA regional restrictions.
I don’t know about that. I was talking to a guy who followed the fortunes of the Lynx and Rapidz closely, and according to him both teams drew well when they were well-run, and even when they weren’t, they still drew better than you’d expect. Plus, the current tenants of the Ottawa stadium are the Fat Cats of the Intercounty League, and in the two years they’ve been here, they’ve set league attendance records. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Ottawa could support a double-A team regardless of affiliation.
Because they’re in the Pacific Coast League.
The Blue Jays can’t move the 51s anywhere. The Blue Jays only have a Player Development Contract with the 51s; they don’t own the club.
I like it from a fanbase development point of view but are we sure we want our prospect arms pitching in Ottawa’s April? Might the climate scare potential draft picks or international FAs from signing with the Jays?
I think I’d rather keep New Hampshire and steal Buffalo from the Mets.
Could you just do that? My guess is you’d have to get LV owners to sell (to local Ottawa owners at a price higher than AA I’d guess), or start an Ottawa AAA franchise from scratch, both of which I doubt would be simple.
If I’m the Jays, I want all the affiliates (with the exception of the Dunedin team and the Gulf Coast League/Dominican League clubs) in Canada. Total hunch with no inside info on my part, but if I was running them I would be looking at having Montreal as the AAA club in a stadium that would have room for expansion should MLB somehow reappear — much like Buffalo’s park was built. Then Ottawa goes to AA, pop a Midwest League team in London for single-A, keep Vancouver as your short A, and try and get a Pioneer League rookie team in Calgary. Suddenly you have affiliates across almost every part of the country, spreading your brand, and only one or two of your affiliates remain in the USA. It would be the perfect storm for expanding your brand cross-country. That’s just what I would try and do though.
Draft picks have 2 choices: either sign with the team that drafted them, or wait another year for what will probably be a lower pick and less money anyway (James Paxton). International players and their advisors just want to get paid, they don’t give a shit where the AA team for an organization is located, or if they do, it won’t be a determining factor in which org to sign with.
You can’t start a new AAA franchise from scratch because the major leagues aren’t expanding. The Lynx started because MLB expanded in 1993, so two new AAA clubs were needed.
Having worked for the Lynx I think a Jays affiliate would be the only one that would work, is the Double A season shorter than Triple A? April games in Ottawa outdoors=not fun
I’m not sure it’s a helluva lot warmer in New Hampshire in April than it is in Ottawa.
The jays dream scenario would definitely be having the AA team in Ottawa and the AAA team in Buffalo
They had a chance at Buffalo but the Mets got there first. Buffalo is Yankees/Mets territory for the most part anyways
Same length. The only ones that are shorter are short-season A and rookie, which start in June
Travel is going to be a pain in the butt for players, both figuratively and literally. If Binghamton is the team that gets relocated, Manchester will be the closest Eastern League city to Ottawa at 333 miles (according to Google Maps). Portland and New Britain are the next-closest at around 400 miles. Except in the rare instances when they’ll be forced to fly (if the opponent is 500 miles away and there isn’t an off-day for travel), every road trip will begin and end with a long bus ride.
I have a feeling that something approximately like this is part of their ‘master plan’.
I think it would be cool to have several minor league Jays affiliates in Canada, and it makes sense from a fan building point of view. Also – I would love to catch the odd Jays AA or AAA game on TV … I could see Sportsnet picking up a few if the affiliates were in Canada.
Yeah it sounds good in theory. In reality, I dont think its that simple.
While it would be nice to stick a team in Calgary, I doubt the Blue Jays will be going back to the Pioneer League any time soon. I believe the Jays now own the Bluefield affiliate in the Appalachian League, which is also Rookie-Advanced.
The Appy League is very travel-friendly as the teams are clustered very closely together. The furthest team from Bluefield is only about 3 hours away. If it were me, I’d stick with Bluefield.
As good as New Hampshire has been as an affiliate, if you go to the stadium there you’d have no clue they were a Jays affiliate apart from a small corner in the outfield restaurant with a picture of the 93 Jays and a couple other pictures, and one rack of jerseys/hats in the team store. As a comparison Red Sox stuff is everywhere there.
It’s a great place to watch a game though.
My guess is for a team like Ottawa, they’d ensure that the travel was minimized by longer road trips/home stands. The long home stands could be a disaster for attendance though.
It also looks like Las Vegas is similarly as isolated as Ottawa is from the other clubs in the PCL (mind you most teams are pretty isolated).
So when teams change affiliates do they just move the players from one squad to another?
Yes. Yes they do.
That’s one of the reasons why Toronto lost Syracuse. Toronto didn’t have enough talent to allow Syracuse to compete in AAA.
With the amount of minor league talent coming up, Toronto would be an attractive team to be affiliated with. Nevertheless you still need to go court these teams to become your affiliate. That’s why Toronto lost Syracuse to Washington and when Toronto turned to Buffalo, the Mets got in ahead of Toronto.
I think the Lynx were an expos affiliate in the 1990′s . The Jays could put a AAA affiliate in Buffalo to attract fans from western NY. Jays fans could go to Buffalo to see the AAA prospects . It is a nice stadium too.
Is a relocation and switch to the International League for the 51′s not feasible?
Ok. Any idea how long the contract goes?
This would make a road trip to Ottawa very appealing.
Yeah. We know the Jays are trying to actively build their brand across Canada, and having a bunch of the affiliates in this country chimes with that.
get a cheap porter flight, see night, then afternoon game, (insert appropriate shenanagins), not a bad little get away.
I believe I heard it’s up after this year
That’s right, the Lynx were affiliated with the Expos until 2002. Then they were with the Orioles until 2006. In 2007 they were with the Phillies before being shipped down to Allentown, PA the following year (according to their wikipedia page).
Buffalo would be a very convenient location for a Jays affiliate for sure. I’d make several road trips per season if they were there. Likewise with Ottawa or Montreal.
I heard that too. So that’s both the 51′s and Fisher Cats that could change affiliation after this season finishes.
because i’m convinced that the blue jays “media relation blog division” scours the comments section of this site for market research i’m going to say that the minor league affiliate in ottawa is a great idea because it hopefully gives me an opportuinity to see profession baseball played on real grass which would be more likely to have me become a more frequent customer.
in fact, i would spend as much of my disposable income as my time permits on professional baseball entertainment played on natural grass. i would economically invest as a long term, repeat, loyal and generational customer if i could see professional baseball played on natural grass and be more likely to “bundle” all of of my media services with a professional baseball enterprise that understands that professional baseball in the 21st century should be played on natural grass.
eh! see what i did there!
DON’T SELL THEM MY IP ADRESS STOETEN!!! although, if you had an ounce of market economy in you, and a lot less portlandia, you would have already.
soo, it looks like Cecil’s wife has the famous excerpt of Jack Layton’s farewell letter as a tattoo. Pretty fucking impressive for a Florida WAG. Is she now #1??
https://twitter.com/#!/jcecil2…
Shouldn’t Ottawa concentrate on getting an NHL team first? You know, one that would actually play within city limits and all?
I see 2 options here. First, the Jays may have serious problems with a Fisher Cat owner who went into the team clubhouse last year and pulled a Steinbrenner, drilling new ones in (later to be) championship players signed, owned, and paid by the Jays and on loan to said butthead owner.
Second, the Jays have 4 short season, 2 A Ball, and one of each AA and AAA clubs. That’s SIX clubs below their only AA team. It would make sense to add another AA team. Look at the
pitching logjam if they don’t. It looks to be more crowded in the outfield for 2012. I say the Jays need another AA team, even after they move from Vegas to Buffalo.
AA doubled his scouting staff, I can see him adding minor league clubs.
Oh yeah, in the Bizzaro World of Riccardi, don’t count on the Mets flipping franchises as rumoured here, they prolly arecutting one, like they are this FSL affiliate. Note the TWO rookie teams they will run out of their complex in the DR, only one rookie team in the USA.
http://www.milb.com/news/artic…
i likes the idea of having a team in london again too! me and my dad used to go to london tigers games when i was little and it was great times
the stadium there is pretty crappy though, but if the jays owned the team they could maybe put some money into it. i’m pretty sure the IBL team does pretty good for attendance there too.
Anyone see this article? http://joeposnanski.si.com/201…
This article says a ton about AA’s strategy to go after young players and sign the good ones to long extensions before they hit their free agent years–most of our long contracts end right about those age 33ish seasons. It also says a lot about his strategy of avoiding old expensive free agents and long contracts. Perhaps AA was on to this.
Teams aren’t permitted to have more than one AA affiliate.
Last season the Yankees, Phillies, Pirates, Tigers and Cubs all had one American-based Rookie affiliate while having two DSL teams. The configuration the Mets are going with for 2012 isn’t uncommon.
ottawa has a terrible track record when it comes to pro/semi pro sports. 2 cfl teams. the lynx folded, they have to give away Fat Cat tickets for people to show up. not to mention the otawa rebel *Cough cough.
That’s interesting, but I have one problem with his article… he limits his data to players who have MVP-type years (6+ WAR). This excludes players who have very good to great years (say, 4.0-5.9 WAR), who would be worth signing and still be very productive at older ages as well.
I’d be interested to see what his chart looks like then.
any word on wether Casey Janssen has an arbitration date? i kinda hope they do, not because he isn’t a decent candidate for an “AA special” (team friendly multi year team option contract), rather, because i’m sick and tired of hearing/reading about Bill Risley!
pinback: So, DOTA.
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20 days til grapefruit action
Very good point. I assume there is no limit on the number of AA teams a MLB team can have.
I didn’t see this post. So if the Jays only have 1 AA team, where will the extra players play? There will be a logjam.
The farm system won’t be quite that deep. I wouldn’t worry.
Moving the club to Ottawa only makes sense if the crowds come out to the games! NH has a good history. I remember when London got the AA Tigers and started well but faded and they left. Although it was weird that the Tigers set up shop at Labatt Park the oldest ball park in Canada named after the home town owner of the Blue Jays!
It should be easier to market the team. There might be more interest by the big club to cater to it as well.
The success the Vancouver team as well may make them more optimistic.
I wonder how much scouting played a role in signing Cordero. The Jays faced him once in interleague but the advanced scout would have seen him a series earlier. In that series, Cordero was sitting 94-95 mph. I hope that’s not what the team is expecting…
http://www.baseball-reference….
Baseball ref has all the pitch f/x there, btw.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK ROB FORD. Fuck that fat fuck and his fucking cheap mean-spirited attempts to kill everything good in this city just to make us and our kids as fat as his pre-Type 2 ass.
http://www.thestar.com/news/ci…
Jays out on Manny http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/…
they were never in…just used as leverage like always.
Fat-assed fuck. I hate him.
In other news, AJ is gonna go to the Pirates. Which I find quite amusing. Let him throw his tantrums there to the 3 people who come out to watch the game. However, as fun as it would be watching him pitch in those circumstances, I cannot help but think he might be a good pick-up for us. When he throws well he throws really well. He’s decent to excellent around 50% of the time. And we’ve got a good bullpen to pick him up when he shows signs of falling apart. As well, I’m betting the Yankees will pick up most of his salary…
Not if you believe Kenny: “According to Rosenthal, the Blue Jays were in on Manny at one point, but talks failed to progress.”
BFF is going to flip tits on this one.
1) Manny is finished as a ball player, so the A’s can have him.
2) AJ would not be a good pick up for this team. The Jays turned the page on him long ago.
3) We need spring training to start!