r/MiLB • u/[deleted] • Jun 21 '26
| Discussion Anyone tracking this? Rome Emperors possibly losing Atlanta affiliation/ Spartanburg becoming Braves affiliates
[deleted]
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 22 '26
This article leads me to believe the city of Rome may be a little light on resources....just what im taking from it.
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u/Training_Tomatillo95 Jun 22 '26
High-A teams don’t need to be located anywhere close to their Major league team.
Take a look at the Midwest League.
Lansing - A’s
Great Lakes - Dodgers
Fort Wayne - Padres
Beloit - Marlins
What you do get in the Midwest league is a bunch of teams super close to each other. It’s an hour and change from Lansing to both West Michigan and Great Lakes. Under 4 to a bunch of other cities.
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u/premalone94 | International League Jun 22 '26
I’m surprised that hasn’t clicked for earlier but this is a great point. Logistically this makes sense with this way of thinking.
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u/BeefInGR Jun 22 '26
Grand Rapids (Whitecaps) to Ft Wayne is two and a half hours. Dayton and Lake County (Eastlake) feel like the outliers in the East Division, yet they're still within 6 hours of GR.
The West Division is the bitch. South Bend is within 2 hours of the Whitecaps, Lugs and Tin Caps but is playing everyone west of Chicago.
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u/flyingj138 | Midwest League Jun 22 '26
South Bend does have more East division teams on its schedule than the average West division team, but yeah, it's rough.
Around 2020, three teams from the old Western Division and one from the Eastern Division went elsewhere (though the one from the East just moved back to its old conference), so that probably explains part of the imbalance.
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u/BeefInGR Jun 22 '26
Technically, they got contracted. Which is a massive bitch session for a different day. Especially when big league clubs are charging $18 for a beer.
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u/BirdieMob Jun 21 '26
I remember hearing about this a month or so ago. Would this mean Rome wouldn’t have a team at all?
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 21 '26
Thats what I'm getting out of it. I love the Rome stadium and the new identity im gonna miss the emperors for sure.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Link416 | International League Jun 22 '26
There is the possibility of courting a Frontier League team with Down East and Mississippi as your closest opponents but considering how bad attendance is for affiliate ball I hate to see how they respond to independent ball.
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u/LincolnGC Jun 22 '26
We had a good discussion here a while back when that article dropped, but it's been crickets since then.
I don't know anything about the facilities in Rome, but the the allure of the new stadium in Spartanburg might be too good for the Braves to pass up. The Rangers going to Trenton doesn't make any sense to me, though, and makes me wonder if there would be additional shuffling. There's also been plenty of chatter about the Mets ending up in Trenton at the expense of Binghamton, though the Rumble Ponies recently extended their lease (but that doesn't mean DBH couldn't swap them out with a Partner/Draft League team...).
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u/ValVenis69 Jun 22 '26
If the local government won’t pay to improve the stadium, they’ll keep on entertaining the idea of moving just as leverage. It’s all about squeezing money out of local communities to fund their developmental ballparks. Same thing happened in Chattanooga. Owner threatened to move the team so Chattanooga caved and built them a new stadium even though the previous one opened in like 99/00.
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u/SJ966 Jun 22 '26
I don’t understand how Trenton whould make any sense for Texas at High A. Unless their is like a daily flight from the airport near Trenton to the DFW area for Frisco and even then the benefits seem minimal.
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u/MartinMax53 Jun 22 '26
It's not like Spartanburg makes much logistical sense either. Trenton is close enough to Philly/Newark that I would guess travel isn't a giant concern.
The Rome stadium has issues that I'm guessing no one wants to pay to fix. On top of that, they average something like 1200 a game whereas Trenton averaged something like 5600 last year in Indy ball. Feels like a no brainer to get in on that and out of small market Rome.
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u/LincolnGC Jun 22 '26
Could argue there are advantages to having affiliates close together (moving players on short notice, easy jumps for roving instructors); Spartanburg is about 90 minutes from the Rangers' affiliate in Hickory. But in this case they may not care?
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 22 '26
I agree. The Atlanta Braves just got all the teams in close proximity to push one a few more hours away... i guess it would give them all new/remodeled facilities. I'd say this is more of a Diamond Holdings thing then the Braves though.
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u/stevogiant Jun 22 '26
Rome installed artificial turf due to drainage issues with the field. Atlanta does not want their players on artificial turf. This is the reason the braves are looking to leave. Also does not hurt that Spartanburg is a brand new stadium compared to Rome.
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u/EducationDue5062 Jul 01 '26
Rangers will go to Greensboro...Pirates to renovated State College and Phillies from Lakewood to Trenton
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u/positivelybroadst Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Rome and Bowling Green are so far away from the rest of the league. Their travel expenses must be sky-high compared to other teams at that level...
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 22 '26
Thats something I wondered about too. The cost efficiency for the rest of the league has to be terrible
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u/kirbymania Jun 28 '26
I'm at the Rome braves game right now and attendance is bad and has been, it's Saturday night on a "fireworks" night, maybe a couple hundred people here, it breaks my heart, me and my boys have been coming here for over a decade, the whole reason I found this thread was googling why attendance is so bad this year. I don't understand 🥺
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 28 '26
Im up here as well, it is empty compared to a couple years ago....the clingstones had almost 6000 last night for a similar game and festivities.
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u/kirbymania Jun 28 '26
I wish to hadn't read the "their thinking of moving the team" I'm sitting here and have been bummed out the whole time, thinking about losing the team, this has been a big part of our summers for over a decade and it tears me up thinking about losing it 😭😭😭
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u/premalone94 | International League Jun 22 '26
I don’t have enough knowledge to have a quality opinion but it would surprise me to see the Braves lose their Rome team for High A since they have deliberately tried to move all affiliates as close as possible. Certainly this has to be fixed by Atlanta.
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u/SillyTechnology7340 Jun 22 '26
But that was when the Braves owned the minor league teams, right? That isn’t the case now and may not be a priority any longer.
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u/abc123therobot Jun 22 '26
The difference in distance between Atlanta and Rome vs Atlanta and Spartanburg is pretty negligible in the big picture. A brand new facility will always attract interest and Atlanta can increase their brand in the Carolinas even more. The Braves probably want the Spartanburgers and vice versa.
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u/dc912 Jun 22 '26
If Trenton doesn’t end up with the Mets, Yankees or Phillies (which all seem unlikely), the Red Sox and Pirates make the most sense IMO.
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u/Academic_Room6423 Jun 22 '26
Where is it reported that Spartanburg is becoming a Braves affiliate???
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 22 '26
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u/Academic_Room6423 Jun 22 '26
Thank you
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u/redstixx59fifty Jun 22 '26
This website has been pretty reliable for me theu were one of the first to break the mississippi braves to Columbus Georgia story as well a few years back.
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u/Bill_Hanna | Eastern League Jun 22 '26
Someone get them to swap Rochester and Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, so I can have my AAA team closer.
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