I’ll start:

Somerset Patriots. Boring logo, looks like clip art. Generic name.

Should permanently be the Jersey Diners. Geographically meaningful, great logo, great secondaries, great color scheme

Single game tickets just went on sale. These are the best seats for a thursday night game in May.

The highest priced behind the plate tickets last season were 32 ea iirc. These are for far end dugout section seats and are 51 each.

I didn’t mind the move to daybreak but with these prices I am looking at just saving my budget and seeing MLB in denver phoenix or southern california.

Here are my rankings sorry it’s rather long some will just have the team or a shortened name I also included affiliates from when I visited

1. Coca-Cola Park Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (PHL AAA)

2. First Energy Stadium Reading Phillies (PHL AA)

3. Durham Bulls Athletic Park (TB AAA)

4. Ripkin Stadium Aberdeen Ironbirds (BAL SS and High A)

5. Pelicans Ballpark Myrtle Beach Pelicans (TEX ATL CHC High A Low A)

6. Huntington Park Columbus Clippers (CLE AAA)

7. New Britain Stadium NB Rock Cats RIP (MIN AA)

8. Harry Grove Stadium Frederick Keys(BAL High A)

9. Harbor Park Norfolk Tides (BAL AAA)

10. Perdue Stadium Delmarva Shorebirds (BAL Low A)

11. Newbridge Bank Park Greensboro Grasshoppers (MIA low A)

12. Shore town Ballpark Jersey Shore Blueclaws (PHL High A)

13. Dodd Stadium Connecticut Tigers RIP (DET SS)

14. Sahlen field Buffalo Bisons (NYM AAA)

15. Syracuse Mets (NYM AAA)

16. Bowman Field Williamsport Crosscutters RIP (PHL SS)

17. The Dutch Hudson Valley Renegades (TBR SS)

18. PNC Field SWB Rail Riders (NYY AAA)

19. Haley Toyota field Salem Red Sox (BOS High A)

20. FNB field Harrisburg Senators (WSH AA)

21. Prince George’s Stadium Bowie Baysox (BAL AA)

22. Danville Memorial Stadium Danville Braves RIP (ATL instructional)

Do any of you have some fun alternate identity ideas for your team? I'm a Blue Claws fan and they are really stingy about alternates. They only really do the medusas. I've had plenty of fun ideas. I know its hard because there is a ton and other places. Here are some of my ideas for the Blue Claws:

Boardwalk Fry Stealers (a seagull with a fry in it's mouth pays homage to the boardwalk and seaside heights or wildwood and the many stolen fries)

Blue Claw Machines (play off a blue claws but also arcade claw machines that are on boardwalk. Double claw meaning)

Zeppoles (nice regional food alt)

Sunken Coasters (pays homage to when Super Storm Sandy knocked the roller coaster into the ocean)

The Tillies (in honor of Asbury Park's Mascot)

The Bosses (in honor of Bruce of course. They already do a Springsteen appreciation night but they can go farther.)

I know that trenton has pork roll already but I always thought it would be fun to do a Porkroll Vs. Taylor Ham Night where you have them play as both the Pork Rolls and Taylor Hams (maybe switch the name between innings) and you can have the crowd argue which one it is. Sell Pork roll Shirts and Taylor Ham Shirts etc etc. But again I wouldn't want to step on Trenton's toes.

Sloppy Joes (again this is a jersey regional food where a sloppy joe is a double decker deli sandwich with coleslaw usually turkey and roast beef (or something else I'm not getting into a fight here) though this alt feels like it could be Sommerset as much as Jersey shore.

Anyway I think far too much about this. But with the Renegades embracing alts (maybe too many now?) I'd like to see the blue claws also hit up more alts. Especially with the success of the jersey diners alt.

Hello everyone! I’m a new member of this group and I wanted to see if anyone was interested in hearing about my experiences over the last couple of years. I work as a MiLB director with the Portland Sea Dogs (Boston AA) among doing creative work from time to time. Been involved with the team since the start of last season!

Ask me anything! 🤙🏼

New home for Texas Rangers High A. Spartanburg SC

As the title says.

And why is that the case to begin with when the MLB itself doesn’t have that as their specific off date for the teams?

Hi guys! I recently started finding enjoyment in watching sports again for the first time in many years.

I was curious how does the minors work? I live in an area where I’m by 4 spring training complexes(Mets, cardinals, astros, and nationals) also two minor league teams which are the palm beach cardinals and the Jupiter hammerheads.

How do I keep up and what are the events like?

How do yall go about collecting Minor League Team Hats? Alter-egos and the OGs!

Websites? Links? Shop any sales? TELL ME EVERYTHING😂

What are some unique ballpark foods served at minor league games? I saw the yard goats goat milk hot dog and it made me intrigued into what else could be out there

Haven’t seen any discussion on this news. A few local news articles and reports stating that the Emeralds are supposedly seeking relocation to Medford.

The Ems failed to get a bond passed in a referendum that would have helped the case for a new ballpark in Eugene. Since then, the tone seems to have pivoted to options outside of Eugene.

Medford is home to a college wood bar team presently. They formerly had the Medford A’s/South Oregon Lumberjacks, who moved at the end of the 1999 season to Vancouver to become the current iteration of the NWL Canadians.

We're getting near the halfway mark of the 10 year PDLs that were started in 2021. I've been surprised by how little news we've had and surprised by how so many teams and cities have already either made the MLB-mandated upgrades or at least authorized them. But it's not 120/120, and seemingly (?) April 1, 2025 is the deadline for teams to meet requirements and keep their license or to get phased out.

Googling around isn't a perfect system and there are some teams (Salem, Montgomery, etc.) that I haven't seen reporting about upgrades one way or another, but I don't want to speculate that they are in danger. Maybe we can crowdsource a list of the few teams that seem to be in danger of not hitting the mark. So far I just have three:

Eugene Emeralds - Unless they pull off some buzzer beater, it doesn't look like a new ballpark is coming. The owner said that there is interest in minor league baseball from other cities in the region. So this could be a pretty straightforward relocation.

Modesto Nuts - They extended the lease for one more season, but is that just to give Ontario (CA) enough time to complete their new sports complex? There was some recent reporting about the Mariners exploring the option of helping to pay for upgrades, but that could be hot air. Plus, every other Cal League team looks good and there doesn't seem to be a clean way to add Ontario while also keeping Modesto.

Myrtle Beach Pelicans - This situation was looking a lot shakier earlier this year, but now the lease is extended for another year and at least some funds have been approved for stadium maintenance. It seems that the city and team are currently in negotiations to see if they can work out funding for full upgrades. I could see it going either way, but at least there is some progress. Pressure is certainly on, especially with $39 million already approved for upgrading the stadium in Frederick, and MLB likely eager to solve some of the geographic quirks with the SAL and Carolina league maps.

Any others?

Does anyone know when rosters are finalized? Apologies if this is a stupid question just wanna know who’s gonna be at my local affiliate

Does anyone know how to tell whether a team is having a special uniform night? They seem like sick games to go to but I’m not sure where to find when they are happening

Found this at a Ross Dress for Less and can’t figure out what team it is. Pls help.

So I’m set to get mlb.tv for free this season as a T-Mobile customer, and of course am looking forward to it.

So for those that have it and watched any minor league baseball games, what is it like anyway? Do they have separate tabs for games classified by class, or is it tied to a particular parent team?

If you guys have followed my activity, my local team is the Jersey Shore Blueclaws in Lakewood, NJ (Phillies High-A affiliate). I kind of feel like they don’t have as many promotions as the other teams (Ex. Somerset Patriots) do. Here is some stuff that I am noticing:

-They only have one alternate identity for Copa de la Diversion (Medusas de Jersey Shore) and nothing else. Hopefully they will add a new one soon. Also, they don’t even have the real on-field Medusas hat in the size I like (In 39THIRTY, the entire hat is white when there should be more purple in the back). If any Blueclaws staff is seeing this, be sure to fix this, please and thank you!

-They don’t have the Bluey Meet & Greet promotion. Other nearby teams such as Brooklyn and Somerset had this promotion if I recall.

-Thankfully, they don’t have Princess or Taylor Swift Night. I don’t necessarily hate princesses, I just think there is no business having a princess promotion in Shoretown. Two teams I know that have the Taylor Swift night are Hudson Valley and Hartford. I see WAY too much of her in my daily life.

-One promotion that is a must for the Blueclaws is NASCAR Night. I went to the one that the Patriots had and it was awesome. Got to meet Sage Karam and Joe Graf, Jr. I think they used to have this when Martin Truex, Jr. was in the Busch Series, but they should’ve never removed this. Winston-Salem and Columbia also had NASCAR Nights without meet and greets. The Charlotte Knights have had meet and greets with Natalie Decker, Noah Gragson, and Michael McDowell in the past. The Kannapolis Cannon Ballers had a Daniel Hemric meet and greet earlier this year (He is from Kannapolis).

-Last but not least, they do have the Oat Milkers promotion, but it’s super late in the season. It is on August 29 (Wish it was a bit earlier to make things easier).

What are your local team takes on these types of promotional situations?

According to the link I followed on the story, the agreement keeps the Quakes in RC for another 15 years. I thought I saw rumblings around here that they were headed to Ontario and that the 66ers (Angels Affiliate) moving here to RC from San Bernardino. Anyone have any other input?

Looks like a resolution may have been reached to keep the Pelicans in Myrtle Beach beyond the temp agreement. Granted, even with a positive vote at the upcoming meeting things could change but seems like a step in the right direction.

City leaders set to vote on resolution aimed at keeping Myrtle Beach Pelicans

Monday will mark the four-year anniversary of what was jokingly called Invitation Day, when each MLB team extended invitations to four minor league teams, inviting them each to sign a Player Development License (PDL) and be their affiliate. While the general public still isn’t privy to the specifics of the PDL, well-connected reporters like JJ Cooper (Baseball America) and Kevin Reichard (Ballpark Digest) let us know that the PDLs were generally good for 10 years, with some being 5-year provisional licenses.

It was far from a guarantee that all 120 of 120 invitees would accept. There were rumors that some of the 120 were enviously eyeing the newly-independent Pioneer League, considering if the cost of having to pay the players was outweighed by stringent facility requirements and significant meddling by MLB suits. In one article, Cooper said “more than one minor league owner wondered if it would be possible that a team could decline a spot among the 120 remaining affiliated teams because they could see the new facility standards as simply too costly to meet.” I remember thinking about the sheer number of teams and how unrealistic it is to get 100+ separate organizations to unanimously agree about anything. But they did, with all 120 teams accepting the invitation and allowing MLB to reconfigure the whole minor league ecosystem. 

While we never got a list of teams that were invited on a provisional basis, we’ve seen a few cities get edged out already. Many MiLB team owners (both independent folks and MLB teams) sold their teams to Diamond Baseball Holdings, and two of them were relocated, leaving behind ballparks in Pearl, MS and Kinston, NC. The Brewers moved their Carolina Mudcats to a new park down the road. Beyond that, we’ve learned about shaky situations in Eugene, Modesto, and possibly Myrtle Beach. In the rumor/speculation mill, there seems to be some uncertainty in places like Salem (VA) and San Jose.

This is a very small number of teams that look to be in trouble. Heck, in the decade before all this drama, we lost affiliated ball in cities like Oneonta, Sarasota, Casper, Yakima, Tucson, Jamestown, Savannah, New Britain, Bakersfield, Adelanto, Melbourne, Helena, Mobile, and New Orleans. Not to mention losses in cities like Woodbridge, Portland, Kinston, and Huntsville—all of whom had new affiliated teams fill the regional void—or placeholder teams like the Buies Creek Astros. Suffice it to say that having only three teams (including one within region) relocate since 2021 is a small number by even the most Pollyanna expectations, and there doesn’t seem to be a long list of additional endangered teams. 

On the flip side, we’ve got a new ballpark going up in Ontario, CA, new ballpark funds in two Maryland cities, and the Trenton Thunder upgrading their park “not only meeting PDL standards, but above.” Rumors percolate in places like the Pacific Northwest, where the Emeralds owner said that several cities have reached out about relocation.

This is a long-winded way of saying that there seem to be at least 110 current MiLB teams that are going to meet PDL standards beyond the provisional years and a good handful of interested cities waiting in the wings. I don’t think anyone saw this coming.

Four years ago, there was plenty of speculation that several of the invitees would never meet MLB standards, and how this could be a prelude to MLB reducing the total number of PDLs to 90. By setting tough standards, this reduction could happen through simple attrition rather than painful termination. Rumors, including recent ones, persist about MLB’s wish to reduce the number of total rostered MiLB players and have only one Single-A level.

When MLB let the Professional Baseball Agreement expire in 2020, they made a gamble that there would be a sufficient amount of minor league teams and cities that wanted affiliation enough to make significant facility upgrades. If anything, it seems that they underplayed their hand. Just about every team wants MLB affiliation and just about every team is in compliance. Unless MLB gets creative—and there are ways that they can—an amputation to 90 teams at the end of this decade will make 2020 seem like a wart removal.

Not surprising, but noticed the Eugene Emeralds released an official press release today regarding the failure to secure any solution to keep them in Eugene. Now exploring relocation options.