Big trade in baseball

[KamaAina]

1. The Sacramento River Cats have dropped the A's

likely in favor of the Giants.

http://blog.sfgate.com/athletics/2014/09/15/as-lose-triple-a-sacramento-affiliate-jon-lester-honored/

A source tells The Chronicle that Triple-A Sacramento has filed to end its longtime affiliation with the A’s, as I first reported was likely in May. That ends a fruitful 15-year relationship, and the River Cats could announce a new affiliation – overwhelmingly expected to be the Giants – as soon as tomorrow.

This move was entirely precipitated by the River Cats, not the A’s, who would prefer to keep their Triple-A affiliate 90 miles away. Sacramento was the entity to file to end the agreement....

Other available Pacific Coast League affiliates, based on today’s minor-league filings: Fresno, Albuquerque, Colorado Springs and Oklahoma City in descending order of likelihood for Oakland.

The River Cats won seven PCL titles while affiliated with the A’s and led the minors in attendance for eight seasons. The A’s are typically considered an attractive franchise for minor-league free agents because they give oft-overlooked players a shot in the big leagues on a more regular basis than other clubs. So Oakland’s upper-level minor-league affiliates tend to have more success than those of other franchises.

Looks like Fresno. My solution to the whole A's-to-San Jose debacle all along was for the Giants to back up their territorial claim by moving the Fresno affiliate into a smaller park built on the same downtown site the A's were eyeing. (Trust me, having lived here for five years, the Tenth-Largest City(TM) is more of an AA than a big-league town. ) Now the A's themselves could do just that.