After a season that didn’t happen and an endless stream of rumors, the California League has finally gotten some official news regarding 2021 and beyond. MLB, having completed its process of evaluating all things minor league, sent out invites to 119 clubs today for major league affiliation. Here’s the bottom line:
Seven of the existing eight Cal League cities will keep their major league affiliation well into the future. The eighth club was ultimately revealed to be the Fresno Grizzlies, who will replace Lancaster as the Rockies’ affiliate.
And the entire bunch will move from advanced-A ball to lo-A.
There’s a lot to digest here. Looking at last year’s North division, Modesto (Mariners), San Jose (Giants), Stockton (A’s) and Visalia (Diamondbacks) are all intact. The South division, Lake Elsinore (Padres), Inland Empire (Angels) and Rancho Cucamonga (Dodgers) return with Lancaster no longer in the league.
With Fresno becoming the Rockies’ lo-A affiliate, there is a question of divisional alignment as Fresno clearly fits in the North but the South only has three remaining teams. With the seismic shifting that has gone on between MLB and MiLB this past year, today’s outcome makes the alignment issue rather insignificant.
The California League itself survived this shakeup quite well, aside from the devastating loss in Lancaster. Dropping from advanced-A to lo-A isn’t ideal, but it’s not the type of demotion Fresno is coping with.
The Grizzlies, for that matter, didn’t take the demotion lying down. But with their affiliation with the Nationals over with and amidst MLB’s heavy-handed move to remake the MLB-MiLB relationship, they came out of this ok. Not what they were hoping for, but ok.
On the plus side for Fresno is the immediate regional rivalries, specifically with Visalia. The Rawhide are the closest team, about a 45-minute drive away, and the Grizzlies share Highway 99 with the Modesto Nuts and the Stockton Ports. A ton of people in the greater Fresno area make these drives from time to time already and they now have one more reason to make a reasonable road trip.
The travel for the team itself will no longer send them to the far-flung cities and states of the Pacific Coast League. I would expect that to be easier on the players and definitely easier on the team employee who has to plan all that travel. The games are all in the same time zone now so it’s easier for fans to hear road games online or on the radio.
The drop down multiple rungs of the ladder? Fresno is justified to be unhappy about that. But if it was a choice between lo-A ball and unaffiliated or no baseball at all (it was), lo-A is going to work just fine. Is the team rooted in the community? Did the locals show up at the park regularly, and not just when an MLBer or top-ranked prospect was playing here? If the answers are yes, then the team will do well in the California League.
And the top-ranked prospects are still coming. Anyone who follows the draft will be happy to see the Nolan Arenado’s of the Rockies’ minor league world come through Fresno just as Arenado himself went through Modesto when they were a Rockies affiliate. Not all of them make every stop on the way up but there will be plenty.
All in all, today was a day to exhale. Not for Lancaster, of course. Here’s hoping they find another team such as one in the wooden bat league that MLB is launching. But the eight-team California League marches on, largely intact. No more wondering, hoping or dreading. We’ve still got all MLB West division teams as parent clubs, we still have the Dodgers-Giants rivalry with Rancho and San Jose and now we have Visalia-Fresno. Collectively, for everyone who loves the California League, it could have been a whole lot worse. Roll with us Grizzlies, you’re gonna like it here.
