Royals’ farm system is likely to see some changes. Which affiliates could be in flux?
Widespread changes to the professional baseball landscape that have been on the horizon for more than a year could arrive as early as this week. Minor League Baseball’s contraction and reorganization is expected to become official in the coming days.
Major League Baseball will take control of the minor leagues. Affiliations and leagues will undergo sweeping changes, and some minor-league franchises will lose their affiliation with Major League Baseball clubs.
By all indications, the Kansas City Royals will not be exempt from the changes.
It seems likely that the Royals’ upper level affiliates will remain intact, but there will almost certainly be shifting among the lower-level minor-league teams.
While MLB admonished teams several weeks ago and discouraged them from discussing pending changes to the minor leagues, the New York Yankees and New York Mets have already announced their affiliate plans for 2021.
Those announcements indicate what had been suspected: that each MLB parent club will reduce the number of minor-league farm teams to four — one Triple-A, one Double-A and two Single-A (one High-A, one Low-A).
Those four minor-league teams do not include teams operated out of clubs’ Arizona or Florida training complexes, nor will they include teams operated out of foreign academies.
The Royals’ system included six domestic affiliates in 2019, not including teams based out of their Arizona spring training complex or in the Dominican Republic.
MLB and the Appalachian League announced a partnership with USA Baseball that will convert the league from a Rookie level minor-league to a collegiate summer league as part of MLB’s Prospect Development Pipeline. Burlington, North Carolina had been a Royals affiliate in the Appalachian League since 2007, but the franchise has already announced it will drop the “Royals” team name.
Several of the franchises that were part of the short-season New York-Penn League will transition to the new MLB Draft League, which the league announced Monday. This league will aim to feature top prospects who are eligible to be drafted by MLB clubs later that same summer. MLB previously announced it will push the 2021 draft from June to July as part of the All-Star Game events.
Baseball America also reported that MLB plans to have two Triple-A Leagues: one with teams located in the Eastern part of the country and another in the West. The Double-A plan calls for leagues in the Central, South and Northeast. The Single-A configuration reportedly will feature three High-A leagues — one in the Mid-Atlantic, one in the Midwest and one in the Northwest — plus Low-A leagues in California and Florida and another in the Southeast.
When asked by The Kansas City Star about affiliations and the fact that the Royals already have an exhibition scheduled with Double-A affiliate Northwest Arkansas this spring, Royals general manager Dayton Moore indicated he did not anticipate changes to the organization’s Triple-A affiliation with the Omaha Storm Chasers or Double-A Northwest Arkansas Naturals, though he said no decisions had been finalized.
Most recently, the Royals High-A affiliate has been the Wilmington Blue Rocks in Delaware, in the Carolina League. Their Low-A affiliate has been the Lexington Legends in Kentucky, in the South Atlantic League.
Wilmington’s location may make it an ideal fit to switch affiliation to an MLB organization located on the East Coast, while Lexington has reportedly been one of the franchises targeted for contraction. (At least one minor-league franchise, Binghamton, New York, was previously reported to be targeted for contraction but has already been announced as a Mets affiliate.)
Wilmington has been a Royals affiliate since 2007 after having previously been an affiliate from 1993-2004. If Wilmington were to switch its affiliation, one intriguing possibility would be for the Royals to latch onto Quad Cities (Davenport, Iowa) as a High-A affiliate in the Midwest. Wilmington and Quad Cities share an ownership group, and Quad Cities is located within a 5 1/2-hour drive of Kansas City.
If Lexington does not remain an option for the Royals, there could be several teams in the Southeast without an obvious partner. Columbia, South Carolina, is one of the newer franchises in the South Atlantic League, having relocated from Savannah, Georgia, in 2016. Columbia will not be affiliated with the Mets, but the team is expected to remain an affiliated franchise. BallparkDigest.com identified the American League Central Division as the likely source of Columbia’s next parent club.
The Idaho Falls Chukars have been an affiliate of the Royals in the Pioneer League, but the Pioneer League on Monday was pushed out of the affiliated minor leagues and into one of several MLB “Partner Leagues.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
