Minor League Affiliation

[nodakfan17]

Here's a question that I'm hoping a fellow Brewer fan can help me out with:

Why have the Brewers' minor league affiliates changed throughout the years?

 

http://minors.baseball-reference.com/affiliates.cgi?aid=MIL

 

I've only recently come around to baseball. There are parts of the game that I love now that I could never appreciate as a kid. Thanks for your help!

[bork]

Major league teams sign a contract with a minor league team, usually for 2 or 4 years. Either side can decide to not renew and look at different options. Sometimes, the minor league team wants to change. This happened with Indianapolis. They have a huge fanbase for a minor league team, and they felt the Brewers weren't doing enough to bring them winning teams. So they signed with another team. In other cases, the major league team wants a change. This happened with the High Desert. The Brewers hated the "Coors Field effect". Pitchers got destroyed and it was hard to guage hitters because of inflated numbers. So the Brewers made the change. In recent years, the Brewers changed affiliates because they wanted their teams closer together, in the southeast. (warmer weather and less travel ). Some major league teams switch because the minor league facilities are poor or older.

 

A few other notes. The Brewers were forced to change rookie teams because a rule was passed that you couldn't have 2 teams in the same league (Brewers had Ogden and Helena in the Pioneer League). Also, the Zephyrs moved from Denver to New Orleans because of the expansion Rockies.

[nodakfan17]

Thanks for the reply, bork. Here's a follow up (for anyone):

 

Do MLB clubs prefer to have long standing relationships with their minor league affiliates or do they find it advantageous to switch affiliates periodically?

[dadofandrew]

If the affiliate is really good, i suppose they'd like to keep it. That said, I'm sure most big league teams feel nothing but apathy about it.

[gregmag]

I would assume major league teams would pretty strongly prefer to have stable affiliations. You know who you're dealing with in ownership and management, you know the facilities, you know the league and park effects, and most of all, you don't have to worry about losing an affiliate-shifting game of musical chairs and ending up with a really bad situation. I can think of a lot of aspects of running a major league organization that have less potential to cause headaches and soak up resources than having to move minor league affiliates around.

 

Greg.

[nodakfan17]

Thanks for the replies- can someone tell me why the Brewers ended their relationship with the Beloit Snappers?

[uwisfan]

as someone here mentioned, they prefer warmer climates for pitching health. Also, Beloit being close to Milwaukee is probably a negative and I think the main issue on record was that they refused to get a decent stadium.