November 30, 2020

By Jay Blue

Blue Jays from Away

According to Susan Slusser, a prominent beat writer for the Oakland A's, the A's appear "likely" to affiliate with the Lansing Lugnuts as the majors realign and shuffle the minor league deck.

The whole shakeup of the minor leagues has the Midwest League moving up to class-A Advanced along with the Northwest League. The Carolina League will stay in class-A Advanced and will be joined by a new Mid-Atlantic League. Moving to class-A are the California League and the Florida State League while the South Atlantic League (also called the Sally League) stays in class-A.

Oakland has traditionally had a California League team as their class-A Advanced affiliate but since the whole league is moving down to "low-A," they've needed to find a new affiliate at the higher level. According to Slusser, that new affiliate is the Lansing Lugnuts.

While it was thought that the Blue Jays could just flip the Lugnuts and Dunedin Blue Jays (who will now be a low-A affiliate and are owned by the major league club), it appears that the Blue Jays want to hang on to their Vancouver affiliation and the Canadians will become their class-A Advanced affiliate.

It is presumed that the Blue Jays will hang on to their affiliation with Buffalo (especially after playing their MLB home games there in 2020) and New Hampshire may remain the Jays' double-A affiliate.

Apparently, major league teams are encouraged to announce their minor league affiliates for 2021 in early December so we should get official confirmation soon.

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