St. Paul Saints Independent Team Ceases Operations
American Association Daily provides insights, features, and recaps of the action from around the American Association of Professional Baseball League, as well as player and coaching profiles and transactions. In today’s edition, Robert Pannier reports that St. Paul Saints ownership has no plans to relocate the independent team.
St. Paul Saints Confirm Transfer
Back on November 16, the Minor League Sports Report reported that the St. Paul Saints were to become the AAA-affiliate of the Minnesota Twins. That news was officially announced during a press conference today with both organizations.
While there are still some details that need to be worked out, Major League Baseball has officially invited the Saints to join minor league baseball as soon as 2021. While not all of the details were provided, one tidbit that was confirmed by Saints owner Marv Goldklang is that the reported $20 million price tag to join MiLB is not accurate. He did not elaborate on the affiliate buy-in price
Once the final details are ironed out, it will pave the way for Minnesota to have their highest-level affiliate just 13 miles from Target Field.
End of the St. Paul Saints Independent Baseball Team
As part of the news conference, Minor League Sports Report’s Robert Pannier asked Saints ownership if there were any plans to move the independent operations to another city. St. Paul co-owner Mike Veeck confirmed that not only had the organization returned their membership to the American Association, but that there were no plans to get involved with another independent team for at least a few years.
Explaining that they already had “enough on their plate” with setting up their affiliation, ownership is not in the market for continuing independent baseball operations. This refutes an earlier report by this site that the team would be moving operations for the upcoming season.
In order to present the most accurate information on readers, we wanted to provide an update on this story. This now means that the American Association is down to 10 teams. In late October, the Texas AirHogs membership with the league was terminated.
With Covid-19 concerns restricting travel between Canada and the United States, there is concern that the Winnipeg Goldeyes may not be able to play in their home park for 2021. Commissioner Joshua Schaub recently explained to Pannier and Kevin Luckow on This Week in the Association that contingency plans were already in the works on what the league will do should Winnipeg not be able to return to Canada for the upcoming season.
Additional information will be provided by the site as it becomes available.
By Robert Pannier