MLB to Small Town America: Drop Dead

RIP for now Cal League baseball in Modesto.
Mariners, city fail to reach lease extension for Modesto Nuts at John Thurman Field

I hear Visalia may be on the ropes too, despite the managing of Crash Davis.

 

I guess Craig Finn was right. Modesto's Not That Sweet.

 

John Thurman Field, then known as Del Webb Field, was where the Yankees and Giants worked out while waiting for Candlestick to dry out during the 1962 World Series.

 

Would anyone like deeeez Nuts?

 

https://www.modbee.com/news/local/article289927864.html (may be paywalled).

Cliff Notes version: The Mariners, who own the team, wanted $32M in capital improvements to both clubhouse and training facilities. $32M? In low-A? Can't blame the city at all for taking a pass. P

Modesto's had a minor league team since the 40s. In addition to the workouts I mentioned uptopic, McGwire and Canseco played there in the mid-80s when it was an A's farm club.

 

Where do MLB teams think there are all of these cities willing to open their wallets for A baseball stadium upgrades? I could see them being "fine" with just doing all of their minor league operations in Arizona and Florida, but the heat will kill players and fans.

 

There will be another major contraction in 2030 when the current working agreement runs out, so pretty much all the marginal minor league cities will be left at the wayside at that time.

MLB wants to adopt the Euro sports model in which the organization has its "marquee team," a "reserve team" comprised of marginal players nearly good enough for the top level and young prospects right on the verge, and then maybe two additional "development teams" of young prospects which are affiliated with the parent organization.

Under this setup, the reserve teams will often play at the same location or facility (or an alternate venue in the same general vicinity) as the marquee team in secondary schedule slots, directly analogous to the varsity/JV arrangements ubiquitous in high schools.
The "reserve teams" of course pretty much correlate to the current AAA level.

In bottom line terms this means each organization would have probably 75 minor league players under contract, as opposed to about 120 now. Everybody else would play in independent leagues.

Presumably the "developmental teams" would mostly play at the spring training complexes.

 

Apologies if this has been addressed, but has fan support gone off a cliff across minor-league baseball, or is it just my local team?

When they arrived about 25 years ago, sellouts and crowds of 7,000-8,000 were commonplace, especially on the big giveaway nights but also on weekends and the random mid-week game/rehab appearance. Now, they don't appear to sell out more than once or twice a season, and the average crowd has plummeted to something probably in the 2,000 range.

Can't tell if this is an offshoot of Covid, when they basically shut down for a season, and fans realized that they didn't miss baseball, or if this is a widespread occurrence, or what.

Seems a waste for them to do their MLB-mandated stadium improvements that are costing well into the 7 figures, when the general public around here is basically like, "Whatever"

 

For one of my local Class A teams, I looked up their average attendance from last year and it was the high-2,000s. They used to draw 4K+ per game a decade ago.

One factor though, is that they are now a full-season team; where before, they were a short-season. I’d imagine that would have an effect. There’s more games to go to, so fans aren’t as much in a rush to go see them. Plus, they probably don’t draw much in mid-April weather.

 

I wouldn’t rule out the impact of the hotter weather we’re all experiencing; it’s too hot to sit outside at 7 o’clock in many places all season now.

 

Went to a Lancaster Barnstormers Atlantic League game in May and felt this. And it was "only" about 87 degrees that evening. I don't know how anyone is doing it when every day is in the mid-90s.