The next few months are going to be a massacre for minor league baseball teams around the country. MLB is reducing the number of affiliated minor league teams from 160 to 120 as part of an overhaul of the sport’s player development system (that, conveniently, will also save money). That means that at least 40 teams (potentially more, depending on how many teams in independent leagues are offered MLB affiliation) will be left out in the cold, their future uncertain.
The bloodletting began on Saturday with a brazen news dump by the Yankees. About an hour after the presidential election was called, the Yankees announced that they were ditching their affiliates in Staten Island and Trenton, N.