Cleveland Sports Forum

I'm assuming we switch leagues from the Carolina League to the Southern League.

Well! Maybe not! Mudcats were a double A affiliate. Kinston was a class A Advanced. Either we go double A or the Southern League ends up a team short in the Southern Division. Strange?!?

Mudcats will become Cleveland affiliate

ZEBULON -

Changes are coming, but there will still be baseball in Zebulon.

After the upcoming season, the Double-A franchise affiliated with the Cincinnati Reds will be replaced by the High-A franchise affiliated with the Cleveland Indians, currently operating in Kinston.

"To say that the Mudcats are leaving is not true," Carolina Mudcats owner Steve Bryant said. "We feel strongly about our brand. While the Double-A team will relocate, the Mudcats are going to be here."

Bryant is selling the rights to his Double-A franchise, which move to Pensacola, Fla., and buying the rights to the High-A team in Kinston, where Historic Grainger Stadium was recently featured in Durham-based Baseball America magazine's Great Parks calendar.

Bryant said the sale of the Double-A team is a preemptive measure to avoid having to charter a plane on road trips farther than 500 miles away.

Only three of the other nine teams in the Southern League are within 500 miles of Zebulon, and Bryant.

For five years, Major League Baseball has begun enforcing a rule requiring teams to either fly the team to road destinations that are 500 miles or longer or to schedule a day off for the team after the travel day. The only way around that is to get a waiver from the Major League affiliate.

Bryant said Major League teams have been handing out fewer and fewer waivers. Bryant said there had been talk of realignment in the Southern League, but he didn't want to take any chances.

"I didn't want to be at the whim of what Major League Baseball thought was best for their travel," he said, adding that the cost of flying the team would be "prohibitive."

Even so, Bryant said he wasn't out looking for potential suitors.

"I've had many offers to sell [the team] and I would not be a part of anything that would take baseball out of Five County Stadium," he said.

But he was approached by a buyer, and for the last month, he and other parties have been working towards an agreement.

"When you orchestrate three different cities and two different teams, there's a lot of things that have to fall into place," he said.

Bryant declined to share the terms of the deal, but Southern League Commissioner Don Mincher told the Pensacola News Journal in 2009 that the average cost for a Double-A franchise was between $12 million and $15 million.

Bryant said the Southern League and the Carolina League have both approved the deal, but Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball haven't yet.

"We feel like we'll get their approval," Bryant said.

Under the terms of the deal, the deal would go down late this year or early in 2011, but he would continue to operate the Double-A franchise in Zebulon for one year, reaping the profits or absorbing the losses, and the Kinston owners would do the same with the Indians. The franchises would move for the 2012 seasons.

The Carolina League has history in the Triangle.

The Bulls were once members, as recently as 1997, and four Raleigh teams have been members, as well as three Raleigh-Durham teams, over the years.

There are four teams within 193 miles of Zebulon, including Winston-Salem, Lynchburg, Va., and Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Bryant said he's already had conversations with the managers of Wake County, Zebulon and the mayor of Zebulon. The $20 million stadium was paid for in large part with the local tax, and Bryant is currently bound to keep a baseball team of at least Class-A level here through the 2022 season.

"I think they obviously have a concern when they have an investment like they have, that baseball is going to be here," Bryant said. "I think they like the fact that the Carolina League is close and that our fans would have an opportunity to go on the road and also bring more fans from areas such as the Winston-Salem market."

The Town of Zebulon and Wake County own the stadium, 15 and 85 percent, respectively.

Zebulon mayor Bob Matheny, reached by phone today, declined to talk about the deal until he knew more about it.

"[News] sort of came in through the grapevine," Matheny said. "We were made aware of some possible happenings out there, but beyond that, I don't have any more details."

I guess that explains it.

http://www.ballparkreviews.com/zebulon/zebulon.htm#

Right: our Zebulon team remains in the Carolina League

I can understand the logistics problems and why the moves were made. Nothing like an 800 mile road trip on a bus.

10 runs for our 5 teams last night. Equaled 2 wins, by Lake County 4-3, Kinston 2-1. Losers were Mahoning Valley 4-2, Akron 7-1 and Columbus 2-1. Some statistical notes:

Trevor Crowe 1st game at Columbus, goes 1-4 and a steal. Huffman doubles.
John Drennen 3 hits at Akron. Chun Chen his 15th homer produces 65th rbi. Also walks
Jesus Aguillar singles and walks for Kinston
RonnieRodriguez 2 hits, Carlos Moncrief 2 hits, 2 walks and 20th steal at LC; Levon Wasnington 0-5 with 3 K, avg dips to 205, he's a $1M investment looking really bad.
Myles single, walk, steal, 3k; Lindor 0-3; Lowery league leading 23rd double at Mahoning V

Pitching;

Chen Lee 1 inning 1 walk.
Rob Bryson 1 inning, 1 hit, 1 Kk
Giovanni Soto 2 innings, 1 hit, 3 walks
Trey Haley 1 inning, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 run
Felix Sterling 1 inning, 1 K, 1 hbp (ejected?), 1 run
Kyle Blair 2 innings, 1 walk, 2k




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Arizona Fall League getting ready. BA lists the top prospects and "sleeper" picks for each team. Our Austin Adams, who was BA's Indians' minor sleeper pick for 2011 now is also the BA sleeper pick for the Phoenix Desert Dogs:


Sleeper Prospect: Indians righthander Austin Adams hasn't gotten a lot of publicity, but his stuff will get him noticed eventually. Adams' 93-96 mph fastball will probably be enough to get him to the big leagues on its own, but his changeup and curveball have potential as well.

Besides the sleeping 24-year-old Mr. Adams, other picks from the weak Indians farm system for Arizona are:

LHP Matt Packer, 24 year old starter at Akron, had a breakout 2010, a rotten start but a solid finish in 2011
LHP T. J. McFarland 22 year old at Akron. He was a 3rd round (or so) draft pick out of high school. Has moved up steadily while never doing anything overwhelming and has never been rated one of our best 30 prospects.
RHP Tyler Sturdevant 25 year old reliever recently promoted to Akron. Always registers more than a K per IP and other good numbers, but never been rated among our prospects either.

We also apparently are entitled to send a catcher, an infielder and an OF, but none of them has been chosen. Lots of catcher possibilities, most likely Chun Chen. Best IF in Akron is Juan Diaz but maybe he'll head south, which leaves disappointing 3rd baseman Kyle Bellows. There's no in Kinston who is worthy of a leap up for the winter. As for OF, Jordan Henry had an unimpressive season, John Drennen has played himself out of prospect status, I suppose if Nick Weglarz is healthy for a couple days he could use the time in Arizona to make up for a wasted season.

Columbus manges 16 hits and 12 runs led by Mills with 4 hits including a double and homer; 3 by Reyes; 2 Goedert and Buck; Crowe's 2nd game another single and another steal. Putnam, Hagadone and Judy each with shutout relief

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb ... x&did=milb

Aeros go 13 for a 6-5 win. Grady S rehabs 0-3 with a strikeout. Kyle Bellows aiming for a trip to Arizona Fall League 3 hits, one a double. Chun Chen HR #16. John Drennen single and double. Karexon S HR #9. Shutout relief here too by Slocum, 1 inning, delaCruz 2. Burns 2, Bryson 1

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And another win: Kinston 1-0. Mike Rayl 7 shutout innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 4 K. Bounces back after 2 terrible games, totaled 9-17-12-12-5-6 and 4 homers; the rest of his work at Kinston is: 29-28-8-7-7-28 and 2 homers. Shutout innings by Sarianides and Guilmet. Bo Greenwell returns to Kinston with a double in 4 tries. Jesus Aguillar two hits

http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb ... a_kinafa_1

But Captains lose 7-3 despite a good 3 inning start by Danny Salazar, 1 run on 4hits, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts. Levon Washington stays over 200 with a single, triple, and caught stealing

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HECTOR RONDON WITH SEASON DEBUT and I suppose his season finale too. 1 inning for the Scrappers, 1 run allowed. Will Roberts follows with 4 2/3, 4 runs on 6 hits.

Jake Lowery with 3 walks to pad his league-leading total. Hankins homers and singles. Tony Wolters singles, walks twice and steals his 18th.

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Arizona League is done. We didn't make the playoffs, but had some players worthy of followup interest. Catcher Danny Valerio; 1b Luis Castillo; ss Jorge Martinez; 3b Robel Garcia. of Juan Romero? if Jorge Ramirez.