MLB released a statement today announcing their plans to transplant the minor league offices to MLB’s headquarters in New York City, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times (via Twitter). Shaikin also notes that MLB is now referring to minor league clubs as “licensed affiliates.” J.J. Cooper of Baseball America provides MLB’s full statement here.
By joining the offices to MLB headquarters, the minors are now a branch of MLB, notes Maury Brown of Forbes (via Twitter). Part of this process is the hiring of Peter Freund and Trinity Sports Consultants to help MLB and their new “licensed affiliates” transition. Freund owns minor league clubs at three levels, and he is a partner with the Yankees. His broader responsibilities will be in spearheading MLB’s efforts to build a cohesive minor league system and “implementing a modern approach to player development,” per MLB’s statement.
Source: TC Zencka, MLB Trade Rumors
I’d have a lot more confidence in this being a good thing if the people running MLB were, um, not slaves to the immediate bottom line.
Maybe the independence of the minor leagues was doomed to end. In some ways this end of the minors as we’ve known it feels like the death of the independent manager. From a corporate structure POV, it makes sense. And it will be an improvement in the bottom rung of things. But it feels like lifting the floor and dropping the ceiling. We’re eliminating Billy Martin and Earl Weaver so everyone can be Terry Collins.
I’m not sure this really changes anything? It’s not like MLB didn’t already have a large say in how the minors were to be run anyways so it’s not a significant change in the power structure. They’ll just be physically closer to each other and they created a new PR position.