On Saturday, the New York Yankees announced changes with their Minor League affiliations in 2021 and beyond. The changes resulted in two teams, the Trenton Thunder and the Staten Island Yankees, being eliminated from Yankees affiliation.
Unsurprisingly, both organizations were not thrilled with the decisions. The Thunder released a statement on Saturday expressing their displeasure, while the SI Yankees put out a statement on Monday.
They stated that they “were unaware of the final decision and learned about it by reading the statement on Yankees social media”.
The full statement from the Staten Island Yankees is below:
https://twitter.com/SIYanks/status/1325840959456874499
After 22 years of Yankees affiliation, Staten Island will be looking to host a new team. Over that span, the team won nine division titles and six league titles. Their ballpark, Richmond County Bank Ballpark, overlooks the Upper New York Bay and the city is a fan-favorite, and it gains Staten Island an advantage in terms of landing new affilaition.
The Yankees Class “A” Advanced affiliate will now be the Hudson Valley Renegades, located in Fishkill, New York. Fishkill is an hour north of New York City, just south of Poughkeepsie. The Yankees made these changes to keep their three top affiliates within a few hours of New York City.
Scranton will remain the team’s AAA affiliate, while the new AA affiliate will be the Somerset Patriots in urban Bridgewater Township, New Jersey.
The Tampa Tarpons, the current Yankees Class “A” Advanced team, will now drop to Class “A” full-season. Them doing so hints that the entirety of the Florida State League will also be dropping a level of affiliation.
As Minor League Baseball downsizes to 120 teams from 160, expect more Major League teams to be cutting ties with their affiliations.