Bickering escalates over MLB plan to cut 42 teams in minors

NEW YORK (AP) — Bickering over Major League Baseball's proposal to cut 42 farm teams escalated Wednesday with the exchange of acrimonious letters by the commissioner's office and the governing body of the minor leagues.

MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem wrote some minor league owners view their affiliation with a big league franchise "as a commodity with a fixed value that is bought and sold for a profit similar to a taxi medallion."

The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, the governing body of the minors, said in a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred that the motivation for MLB's proposals was "related to the staggering difference in payrolls among MLB teams."

In negotiations to replace the Professional Baseball Agreement that expires after the 2020 season, MLB proposed cutting the minimum guaranteed affiliation agreements from 160 to 120 and said it would drop Double-A teams in Binghamton, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania, along with Chattanooga and Jackson, Tennessee. The plan would eliminate the 28 teams from four Class A Short Season and Rookie Advanced leagues that do not play at spring training complexes and would replace them with teams in a "Dream League" of unaffiliated players that would operate under the auspices of MLB. The amateur draft would be pushed back from June until later in the summer.

Talks are set to resume on Feb. 20. Many members of Congress have come to the defense of their minor league teams.

Halem said minor league resistance was due to owner economic interest and not preserving baseball in communities, and he cited moves during the last two years of teams from Helena, Montana; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans; and Pawtucket, Rhode Island. He said minor league teams made unilateral decisions to move 77 times since 1990 and claimed MLB recently learned the Class A New...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Bickering-escalates-over-MLB-plan-to-cut-42-teams-15015108.php