Alexander: Lancaster’s chance of staying in Cal League may depend on … Fresno

In the Antelope Valley right now, the waiting is the hardest part.

Lancaster has known for a little over a year that its tenure as a professional baseball town was tenuous. When the reports of Major League Baseball’s initiative to chop the minor leagues down to 120 teams was first disclosed last October, it was one of the spots considered most vulnerable. Even then, the talk was that MLB was contemplating bumping Fresno back down to the Class A California League and squeezing Lancaster out.

Then, at least, we assumed the JetHawks would have at least one more season, but the novel coronavirus wrecked any chance of that. So they face the prospect of being shoved out the door without being able to even say goodbye.

As of Tuesday afternoon the axe hadn’t fallen yet. MLB deputy commissioner Dan Halem issued an ultimatum to Fresno city officials and the owners of the Grizzlies Triple-A franchise last week, with a deadline of Monday, to accept a demotion to the Cal League or go without affiliated baseball. Fresno City Attorney Doug Sloan told the Fresno Bee after a city council meeting Monday that the city had been given additional time to determine whether low A ball – which is what the Cal League is to be reclassified in 2021 – is preferable to no baseball at all once you’ve been a Triple-A city.

The Grizzlies owners are said to be adamant about staying in Triple-A, and the city – which owns the 10,650-seat downtown stadium and has, presumably, lease terms based on Triple-A baseball – seems to be supporting that fight, but it might not matter. The solution might ultimately be some sort of compensation package for accepting the demotion.

If Fresno were to do so, after 22 seasons in the Pacific Coast League, it would become the Colorado Rockies’ Cal League affiliate. The Rockies had been the JetHawks’ parent team. Feel free to connect the dots.

As we noted last year when MLB’s plan to reduce minor league teams – and players, salaries and expenses – was first publicized, none of this is about attendance or success or other forms of civic support for a given franchise. In this particular case, geography is the issue.

Fresno had a working agreement with the Giants for 17 seasons, but since then has had affiliations with Houston and, for the last two seasons, Washington. The goal seems to be for Triple-A teams, at least most of them, to be closer to their major league affiliates, and there are eight major league teams and eight Triple-A teams in the Pacific and Mountain time zones.

The reason for the imbalance? Blame the Dodgers. Their Triple-A team is in Oklahoma City, owned by Mandalay Entertainment – whose chairman and CEO, Peter Guber, also is part of Dodgers’ ownership. So there are eight Triple-A teams for seven Western big league clubs, which is why a team from the East had an affiliate in the West … and why, now, Fresno is being asked to stand down.

Why do these machinations matter? If Fresno is in the Cal League, Lancaster is effectively out. And so is any geographical balance in the Cal League, with three franchises in the South (Rancho Cucamonga, Lake Elsinore, Inland Empire) and five in the North (Visalia, Modesto, Stockton, Fresno, San Jose).

RELATED: Why Lancaster locals would miss the JetHawks

MLB has tried to make these changes palatable by dangling compensation franchises to the affected areas – an independent minor league team, say, or a wood bat collegiate summer league team. Neither holds much appeal in the Antelope Valley because none of the “partner leagues” MLB is touting have a presence anywhere close to this part of the country.

Also: Beyond the prestige of being a minor league affiliate, and being able to boast of your alumni that eventually make major league rosters, the affiliate franchise doesn’t bear responsibility for player salaries and workers comp costs, among other things. The difference has been estimated at as much as $400,000 a year that an independent franchise would have to cover, at a level where the margins are much thinner to begin with.

Andy Dunn, the JetHawks president, did not return phone messages Tuesday afternoon, and general manager Tom Backemeyer indicated in an email that the team would not have any comment until things were finalized. But when Dunn and I had talked last November, he indicated such a replacement franchise was a non-starter.

“Where we’re located, there is no opportunity to join another league,” he said. “And we’re not interested in joining another league.”

This is also a good time for a reminder: In their 24 seasons of existence, the JetHawks have provided nightly summer entertainment for a region of more than 475,000, with paid attendance of nearly 1.6 million from 2010 through ’19. They’ve been good members of their community, among other things sponsoring a Little League involving 250 kids and working with more than 150 area non-profits on fundraising and community activities.

At one point last fall 106 members of the House of Representatives, from both sides of the aisle and representing many of the potentially affected cities and towns, signed a letter to MLB asking it to rethink its whacking of the minors. That raised the possibility of using the sport’s antitrust exemption as leverage, but either those members of Congress lost interest  – not surprising in an election year – or MLB’s lobbyists skillfully worked the room.

Whatever the reason, barring a miracle there are going to be a lot of quiet summer nights in the Antelope Valley’s future.

jalexander@scng.com

@Jim_Alexander on Twitter