M.L.B.’s War of Words With the Minors Hits a Boiling Point

M.L.B. insists the restructuring can be done in a way that still preserves some form of minor league baseball in those communities. It also asserted that MiLB was hypocritical because of how frequently its owners moved teams around on their own.

“Minor league owners routinely leave communities because the team is not economically viable, or the owner receives a better offer elsewhere,” Halem wrote. “And when they do leave, neither MiLB nor the owner, typically offers anything as a replacement to the community, such as the case in Pawtucket (2020), New Orleans (2019), Mobile (2019) and Helena (2018) in the last two years alone.”

Representatives of minor league baseball did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and a spokesman for M.L.B. said Halem’s letter spoke for itself.

M.L.B. has drawn widespread criticism for its proposal, including from federal lawmakers. Four members of the House of Representatives introduced a bipartisan resolution on Tuesday asking M.L.B. to abandon its restructuring proposal.

“Minor League Baseball teams have had a major impact on small communities,” Representative David McKinley, Republican of West Virginia, said in a statement. “These teams provide an enormous cultural and economic benefit to the communities they call home. Doing away with 42 teams is not a reasonable solution.”

Wednesday’s letter underscored M.L.B. officials’ belief that MiLB, instead of negotiating in good faith, had instead sought to build outside pressure to prevent any changes to the existing agreement. If a new deal is not reached by September, M.L.B. could choose to continue operating under the current P.B.A., or it could leave it to individual M.L.B. teams to act as they see fit. In that case, several major league clubs could cut their affiliations with their minor league teams on their own.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/sports/mlb-minor-league-cuts.html?emc=rss&partner=rss