Astros 2nd team sued over minor-league shakeup

The Houston Astros are the 2nd franchise to face a lawsuit from a former minor league affiliate as an upstate New York club seeks at least $15 million.

There was no Minor League Baseball in 2020 and the structure of the lower levels of organized baseball will undergo a dramatic shift this season, with 43 franchises being axed. The Houston Astros now face a lawsuit from the Tri-City ValleyCats, the Astros affiliate in the Rookie-level New York-Penn League since 2002.

According to Mark Singelais of the Albany Times-Union, the ValleyCats have sued both Major League Baseball and the Astros, seeking in excess of $15 million in damages. The suit was filed Thursday night in the commercial division of the New York Supreme Court.

It is the second such suit filed since Major League Baseball issued invitations to 120 minor-league franchises to serve as affiliates in a streamlined four-level setup that will afford each MLB team with clubs at the Triple-A, Double-A, High-A and Low-A levels.

Last month, the Staten Island Yankees, also from the New York-Penn League, announced the franchise was folding and filed suit against both MLB and their former parent club, the New York Yankees. According to ny1.com, the parent Yankees had announced in November it was ending its affiliation agreement with Staten Island.

The same New York City law firms are representing both plaintiffs in the case. Those firms are Weil, Gotshal & Manges as well as Berg & Androphy.

Tri-City’s suit was written in sharp language, accusing MLB of “bullying” minor-league clubs into fighting each other to survive and made note of the ownership of the four affiliates that will continue to be Astros’ affiliates.

“It notes that the Houston team announced it was continuing its affiliations with ‘three teams owned by the Astros and one owned by a former U.S. Senator and current Governor, likely in efforts to quell the political discord that has occurred regarding MLB’s contraction efforts.'”

The team in question is likely the Asheville Tourists, a Low-A club owned by the family of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine in Asheville, N.C.

The ValleyCats’ complaint also points out they were not on a list leaked to the New York Times (subscription required) in November 2019. One team on that list was the Tri-City Dust Devils, a Washington state-based Short-Season-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres.

“To make matters worse, in 2019, Defendants had publicly released a list of the teams that would remain affiliated with MLB, which included the ValleyCats, and made other public statements that the ValleyCats would be included.“The ValleyCats materially relied on these public disclosures, which Defendants reneged on at the eleventh hour, by making substantial improvements to the Stadium, making ongoing lease payments it otherwise may not have, and continuing to fund a business which was unknowingly on the brink of decimation.”

Unlike the Staten Island Yankees, Tri-City plans to continuing operating as an independent club in the Frontier League.

In 2019, the last season the ValleyCats played, Tri-City was third in the New York-Penn League in attendance at 3,869 per game, according to The Associated Press. The two teams that finished ahead of the ValleyCats — the Brooklyn Cyclones and Hudson Valley Renegades — survived the purge will move to new leagues in 2021.

Under MLB’s new plan, the Astros’ Triple-A affiliate will change from Round Rock, Texas, to Sugar Land, Texas. Double-A Corpus Christi, Texas, remains unchanged, with the High-A affiliate changing from Fayetteville, N.C., to Asheville, N.C. Fayetteville drops down to be the Low-A affiliate.

The Astros’ former Low-A team, Quad Cities (Davenport, Iowa) moved to High-A and was assigned to the Kansas City Royals, while the ValleyCats were axed.

According to a September report from ESPN.com, the move to shrink the minors came in response to MLB’s efforts to get a bill through Congress that would exempt the organization from having to pay the federal minimum wage or overtime to minor league players.

MLB got the bill passed before cutting the minors by more than 25 percent anyway. That was after the league asked minor league owners to lobby for the bill. Dave Heller, who owns four minor-league franchises, explained how the pressure was applied.

“We were told very clearly if we didn’t get that thing passed, we would be staring down the barrel of contraction. So we were all supremely motivated to help MLB pass that legislation.”

News leaked last October that contraction was coming anyway, angering both minor-league team owners and legislators, particularly Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.).

“One of the things that kind of burns me … they really leaned and relied on minor league baseball to come to people like me and say, ‘This is going to harm our teams.’ And now here we are, ‘Guess what? You’re going to lose all four of your teams in West Virginia.’ Huh?”

Baseball America reported in November that teams will instead play games at their spring training complexes in Arizona and Florida and will be full-season developmental leagues.

One franchise that was on the original chopping block was the Chattanooga Lookouts, a Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds beginning in 2019. However, the Lookouts will remain an affiliate of the Reds at the Double-A level.

That franchise’s history dates back to 1885 and they have been affiliated with the Southern League since it launched in 1964, three years after the Southern Association — which Chattanooga had been part of continuously since 1910 — folded after the 1961 season.

The restructuring of the affiliate system comes in the wake of MLB allowing its agreement with Minor League Baseball to expire after the 2020 season.