Greater Nevada Field, Reno (AAA #10 - Watching the "farm" team)

 

Tonight was the first time we saw the Reno Aces, the top farm team of our hometown team, the Arizona Diamondbacks.

But why is it called a “farm team?” The short answer is that each of the 30 major league teams has one team affiliated with it at each at four minor league levels (AAA, like Reno, is the highest level), as well as at least one “Rookie League” team (the Diamondbacks have four, two each in the U.S. and the Dominican Republic). The contracts of the players on those teams are all controlled by the parent major league team for several years at the start of their careers.

The baseball minor league system is the largest “farm system” in U.S. professional sports. Ice hockey has two tiers below the NHL, although only 27 of the 32 NHL teams have a team in the lower of the two. The National Basketball Association has one minor league affiliated with it, and the National Football League none.

To a large degree, collegiate football and basketball are the minor leagues for their respective sports, but with some significant differences. The collegiate “revenue sports” are never “owned by” or “affiliated with” any NBA or NFL team. They bring in far more money than professional minor leagues. Finally, historically they have paid the players less. Minor league players are not well-paid, unless they received a large bonus for signing with the parent team, but collegiate players have been officially amateurs, forbidden from being paid by the college they played for, although they could receive a scholarship and room and board (in some cases, the room and board can be pretty posh), and in the last few years, they’ve been able to be paid for the use of their name and likeness. They have not been able to be paid directly, although a pending legal agreement could change that.

Most European sports leagues handle things differently, “relegating” the lowest finishers from the top league, and “promoting” the top finishers from the tier below. It’s a concept Ted Lasso fans have at least been exposed to.

But how did the “farm system” come to be?

Branch Rickey, best known for signing Jackie Robinson in the 1940s, started baseball’s first farm system in 1919, while with the St. Louis Cardinals, who had never even won a league championship. Rickey’s Cardinals bought controlling interest in two minor league teams, so that they would own the rights to those players, and wouldn’t have to bid against other major league teams to buy the contracts of the top minor league players. The system worked.  By 1926, the Cardinals had won that first National League championship, and they won almost half of the pennants from then through 1946. By the late 1930s, they had 32 farm teams and 650 players in the minor leagues, but other teams had caught on, and soon, most minor league teams were affiliated with a major league team. And then, with the advent of television and the rise of other professional leagues like the NFL and NBA, the minor leagues began to shrink.

From a fan’s perspective, the network of farm teams means that you can follow a handful of minor league teams to understand who are likely to be the players you’ll be watching in a year or two.

The venue:

This may be the closest we’ve stayed to a stadium – the front door of our hotel is across the street from the stadium entrance closest to where we sat. It’s a nice AAA field, and the “in-game host” was one of the better that we’ve seen.

The game:

Reno beat Salt Lake, the Angels’ top farm team, 6-3. Reno’s starting pitcher was Tommy Henry – we’ve seen him start for the Diamondbacks several times over the last couple of years. He has occasionally been good in the majors, occasionally not so good. I thought he pitched well tonight, although his defense didn’t help him much – the Aces committed three errors in the five innings Henry pitched, so he was often in more trouble than he deserved.

One of the better performances for Reno was from Sergio Alcántara, who had three hits (but also committed an error). He seems to be the kind of player who is just good enough that major league teams want him in case something happens to someone, but not good enough for them to keep him for long. He’s played for four different major league teams since 2020, and has played in AAA for another. And he keeps ending up with the Diamondbacks.

They signed him as a 16-year-old in 2012, and he spent five seasons in the minors with them before being traded to the Tigers. By the time got to the majors with the Tigers in 2020, he’d been a pro long enough that the rules restricted how often a team could send him back to the minors, so they’d have to “waive” him (allowing some other team to buy his contract if they wanted him) if they wanted to send him to the minors, or if they didn’t think they needed him any more, they could try to trade him to a team, or sell his contract, but might end up just releasing him.

In March of 2022, the Dbacks purchased his contract from the Cubs.

In May of 2022, the Padres claimed him on waivers from the Dbacks (which probably means that he was expendable for the Dbacks when someone else came off the injury list, or something like that).

In July of 2022, the Dbacks claimed him on waivers from the Padres.

At the end of the 2022 season, his contract expired and he became a free agent.

He was signed by the Cubs, but they released him in the middle of the 2023 season, and the Dbacks signed him a few days later.

At the end of the 2023 season, his contract expired and he became a free agent again.

This time, the Pirates signed him, but the Dbacks purchased his contract from the Pirates about a month ago.

In all this time, he’s played a total of 71 games in the majors for the Diamondbacks.