Twenty Percent of Syracuse Fans Are Excited To See Wang In 2010

Just about every team that uses the standard MiLB.com web template has a poll up in the lower right corner of the page.  The questions generally ask something like, “What 2010 promotion are you most excited about?” or “Which player are you most excited to see in _____ in 2010?”

This isn’t amusing on its own.  Look at the home page for the Syracuse Chiefs, however, and you’ll get a good laugh:

I’m pretty sure that 20% for Wang is mine – I threw him a courtesy vote so I could see what the actual tally was – because as cool as it would be to see a guy who won 46 games from 2006-08, including 19 each in the first two years, I can’t imagine anyone would be more excited to see him than Strasburg.

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Waiting – Waiting – Waiting On The Affiliates To Change

Most of these are several days old, but here are a few more changes in major-minor league affiliations:

Toronto Blue Jays: Syracuse is out, Las Vegas is in.

The story announcing this change contains one of the most awesome paragraphs the world will ever see:

The Syracuse Chiefs had made it known that they weren’t willing to extend their relationship with the Blue Jays after this season. Syracuse hasn’t made the International League playoffs since 1998 and was hoping to reel in a more competitive farm club. In the end, Syracuse found a new parent club in the Washington Nationals.

I think “hoping” is the key word there.

New York Yankees: extend PDC with Trenton through 2014.

More than 200 players and coaches have played for the Thunder and in the Major Leagues, including Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain, Robinson Cano, Dioner Navarro, Nomar Garciaparra and David Eckstein.

The fact that the last two guys played in Trenton when it was a Red Sox affiliate makes me chuckle.

Cincinnati Reds: Carolina is in.

You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello

I’ve learned a lot about minor league baseball this season, but the most interesting might be something I just discovered about ten minutes ago: major league teams and their minor league affiliates are like the characters on Friends* – sooner or later, they all end up dating one another.

*Yeah, Friends.  My pop culture references are so timely.  The backup example was Beverly Hills 90210.

Almost immediately after the season ended, what I’m assuming is a yearly affiliate shift began to occur.  And the more I read, the more I began to understand the tectonic nature of these relationships.  For example…

• Last Thursday, the Cleveland Indians announced that they had signed a four-year player development agreement with the International League’s Columbus Clippers .  The Clippers were Washington’s AAA affiliate for the past two seasons.
• Two days later, the Nationals signed a two-year deal the Syracuse Chiefs, also of the International League.  (Washington also extended existing deals with Class A Hagerstown and Class A Short-Season Vermont; both extensions are for two years.)
• Two days after THAT, the New York Mets signed on with Buffalo, the International League team that had been cut loose as Cleveland’s affiliate.
• In order to make the move to Buffalo, the Mets pulled out of New Orleans, clearing the way for division rival Florida to slide in for a two-year deal with the Zephyrs.
• Florida’s shift to New Orleans meant that the organization pulled out of Albuquerque, where nearly 600,000 fans passed through the gates last season.  Taking their place?  The Los Angeles Dodgers organization, which returns its AAA affiliate to the place it called home for nearly three decades.
• At the AA level, Los Angeles is returning the favor, moving from Jacksonville to Chattanooga, which allows Florida to take over the Suns franchise.  The Dodgers’ shift displaces the Reds, who were the previous tenants in Chattanooga.

Those are the major crazy, circular moves that have been announced over the past week or so.  MiLB.com has also reported on a number of other affiliate changes:

• The Carolina League’s Salem Avalanche left the Houston Astros to sign a two-year deal with the Boston Red Sox.  Boston will pull its Class A affiliate out of Lancaster, CA.  The Red Sox will be replaced, coincidentally, by the Astros, which signed a two-year deal with Lancaster.  Apparently, the circle never ends.
• The Milwaukee Brewers lost their Midwest League entry in West Virginia to the Pirates, but replaced the Power with the Class A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.  They also extended existing PDCs with AA Huntsville and Rookie League Helena.
• The Timber Rattlers were previously affiliated with the Seattle Mariners.  Seattle will stay in the Midwest League, moving to Clinton.  Clinton was affilatied with Texas last season and became available after the Rangers moved on to North Carolina.

This is making my head hurt, and these aren’t even all the changes that were made.  I’m not sure if anyone noticed, but I just sort of stopped caring about decent sentence structure there after awhile; there are only so many ways you can say “shift” or “move”.  One thing is clear to me, however: we gots some work to do on our “MiLB Teams” page.

Travis Snider is Inching Toward Ontario

Kudos to OMDQ for making it out to see Travis Snider win the AA Home Run Derby. Because the slugger is back, back, back, GONE!

Reports from the Fisher Cats, who gave Snider a home for 98 games this season, indicate that Snider is on his way to the AAA Syracuse Chiefs. I took the liberty of making a google map of Snider’s summer, and it gives a pretty good graphic representation of the leaps and bounds the DH has made this season.

View Larger Map

He started in the swampy heat of Florida, with the Dunedin Bluejays. After just 17 games, Snider got the call to AA with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. That got him as far north as he needed to go, but this westward jaunt to Syracuse, NY puts him about 200 miles away from his most-hoped-for destination: the Toronto Bluejays.

Good luck to Mr. Snider. We feel like we’ve traveled a long way with you this season, if only in spirit.