Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball are meeting Thursday in Dallas to begin face-to-face negotiations of the Professional Baseball Agreement (PBA) that ties the two systems together.

A spokesperson for MiLB said the goal is to make sure it keeps all 160 teams it currently has in its system – including New York organizations like the Auburn Doubledays, Batavia Muckdogs, Binghamton Rumble Ponies, and Staten Island Yankees. He also acknowledged those teams could be threatened by a proposal from the major leagues, but said negotiations are still in the early stages.

Minor League spokesperson Jeff Lantz confirmed leaked reports of an MLB proposal which would contract the minors is true.

“The good news is we’ve got plenty of time to negotiate a deal and this was just the very first proposal that will be, it will be one of several that goes back and forth on both sides, I’m sure,” Lantz said.

The current deal runs through the 2020 season but in 2021 MLB proposed de-affiliating 42 minor league teams from big league clubs. Those downgraded teams included the Doubledays, Muckdogs, Rumble Ponies, and Staten Island Yankees.

“We don’t want to envision losing any of our ball clubs,” Lantz said. “They all have value in their communities. They mean a lot to the people in each of those cities and we’re going to do everything we can to keep baseball in all those markets.”
Lantz said the teams appear to be targeted because they are in “short season leagues.” MLB is looking at holding its draft earlier in the year which under the current schedule would make it difficult for teams in those leagues to sign players before season’s end.

The proposed compromise would be a “Dream League” where the de-affiliated teams would be able to sign undrafted players to compete and potentially be signed by big league teams later. However, the minor league teams would be responsible for costs currently covered by their affiliates.

“I don’t know how that model could possibly work in places like Batavia, Auburn,” Lantz said. “It’s just, with the worker’s comp, the insurance, the salaries, I mean it’s…  a lot of those teams are scratching by. They’re not making tens of millions of dollars a year up there.”

He said the minor league system’s negotiations have received a boost from lawmakers who voiced concern about early reports. They include U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, New York Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul and more than 100 members of Congress.

“To have over 100 representatives sign onto something that quick is probably fairly unprecedented and it’s been funny because the ones that  didn’t sign it, I think are wishing they probably did now,” Lantz said.

He said after Dallas, negotiations will continue in San Diego in a few weeks during baseball winter meetings but he doesn’t expect any final decisions to happen soon.