Looking at Frederick's immediate baseball future, while Aberdeen moves up

So yesterday, as it turned out, was the day.

We finally got some clarity on the Orioles minor leagues for 2021. We hope that we get to see a full season of baseball as the country recovers from the pandemic. What we do know now is the likely makeup of the O's farm moving forward.

Four teams were invited to be O's full-season affiliates. They are Triple-A Norfolk, Double-A Bowie, high Single-A Aberdeen and low Single-A Delmarva. Major League Baseball is asking the clubs to sign Professional Development Licenses and it seems like it should be a formality that most clubs do just that.

We've expected and speculated for many months that Aberdeen was likely headed for full-season ball, which meant one current O's farm team would not continue on. That team is the Frederick Keys, an O's affiliate since 1989 and a Carolina League champion in 1990, 2005, 2007 and 2011 when their double play combination was Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop.

Frederick has been a success at the gate and in its community, but this summer will not host pro players. The Keys have agreed to join the currently six-team MLB Draft League. The league will be a summer amateur wood-bat league expected to attract college draft-eligible juniors and seniors. The teams will play 68 games, 34 home and away, from late May until mid-August.

While the Keys could potentially return to affiliated baseball at some point, when I interviewed Frederick general manager Dave Ziedelis yesterday, he was quite upbeat about the Draft League. He believes it will be an economic success for the Keys, and he's excited that when the music stopped, the Keys still had a chair.

"Honestly, we are very excited to be a part of the MLB Draft League," Ziedelis said during a phone interview. "We think it's an excellent league and opportunity. Interesting that the six of us all have ownership groups that own multiple teams and they're all very strong, sophisticated ownership groups.

"We are just happy to be part of that and offer the same great prospects we always have. Our players will just be a little younger. They're still going to be future major leaguers, they'll just be younger than they were. And there is the opportunity that we will have players from multiple future MLB organizations. We are also thankful of the Orioles continued support. After 14 months, when the whole contraction proposal was first introduced, we're very excited to have closure and know what we're doing. And that we're continuing the Frederick Keys."

Ziedelis said of the options they looked at, this was the best.

"This is certainly the strongest option that was presented to us," he said. "Again, it comes down to support from Major League Baseball. All the teams involved are former affiliated teams with great staffs and pros in place. We'll still see top prospects, just when they are younger. We are all entering into this for stability and longevity so this becomes viable long-term. We are entering this with that in mind."

The Keys have been first or second in the Carolina League in attendance for eight straight seasons and Ziedelis believes his local baseball community will support this product. He said his team usually draws 70 percent of its total season attendance in the calander span of the Draft League, and with promotions they could move from earlier in previous seasons, they can even raise that percentage.

"During the month of April and first two or three weeks in May, it's cold and rainy and school is still in session," he said. "No one draws that well during that time period. So for us, it's taking the meat of our schedule when most fans can attend. We believe economically this will be very similar to what we had in the past."

In the press release announcing yesterday's invitations on the O's farm, the Orioles pledged to continue to collaborate with the Frederick community as the Keys head for the Draft League.

"In Frederick County, the Orioles have worked with the Office of the Commissioner and owner Ken Young to bring amateur baseball to the city through the groundbreaking MLB Draft League," the Orioles said. "The Orioles will maintain their strong presence in the region through baseball development and a series of entertainment and economic initiatives."

Ziedelis said the Keys and Orioles maintain strong ties.

"We've always communicated very well with the Orioles and we will continue to do so," he said. "We'll continue our partnership with the Orioles in building baseball in the state of Maryland and economic impact via baseball. We are still going to be continuing that partnership and our communication and partnership with the Orioles."

In its reporting, Baseball America speculated that if an East Coast MLB club had one of its minor league invitations turned down, that MLB could turn to Frederick or Trenton to become an affiliate as soon as this year. That might be a real longshot, but at least it is a possibility.

There is also certainly the chance the Keys could look to become an affiliate again in 2022 or beyond.

"You know, Frederick is a wonderful market and it's a wonderful city," Ziedelis said. "There certainly is tremendous value to that market. I don't think it's out of the question that, as we get down the line, that it could be reconsidered. I think it's always a possibility. We've seen that in minor league baseball across the country. Where there have been markets that effectively lost and have lost affiliated baseball and then gotten it back. It certainly has happened and Frederick is a wonderful market with so much going for it. So, there is always that possibility."

When you look at Frederick's history as a solid franchise, it might be very possible.

Aberdeen moves up: The new full-season O's affiliate is Aberdeen, which was previously in short-season Single-A ball in the New York-Penn League. In effect, the IronBirds replace Frederick as the Orioles high Single-A club. We don't know which league they will play in, but it could be a proposed mid-Atlantic league where the IronBirds could compete against teams such as Hudson Valley, Brooklyn and Wilmington.

Jack Graham, the IronBirds' second-year GM and a former Aberdeen catcher, sees plenty of benefits with the club moving up in classification.

"We're going to play a lot more baseball games, which is exciting," said Graham. "And it gives us an opportunity to expand the employment and entertainment opportunities we have for our community. We hire hundreds of local part-time people and workers to come and serve the concessions and show people to their seats and take tickets, and keep our ballpark clean and safe. Do all the things that a small business should be doing in its community. This gives us an opportunity to work with more partners, tell their stories and promote local businesses to our fans. And to have more nonprofits and community organizations at Ripken Stadium to use our venue as a vehicle. And having IronBirds fans be able to enjoy higher-caliber baseball more often is the whole point. We wouldn't be here without the fans."

One goal of MLB in this restructuring was to reduce travel for teams and make the leagues more geographically sound.

It would appear that Norfolk would continue in the International League and Bowie in the Eastern League. Aberdeen could join that mid-Atlantic league and Delmarva could play in a new-look South Atlantic League that could form or retool under a different name. But eliminating the 10- and 12-hour bus rides, or most of them, is a big reason for some of these restructuring moves.

The Orioles are likely to have about 180 domestic players on the farm in 2021, not counting players in their Dominican program. They will likely field two teams in the Rookie-level Gulf Coast League and two in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League.

Draft day today: Today is the day for the Rule 5 draft. The Orioles have made a selection in the major league phase for 14 consecutive years. Amid his exceptional reporting on the minor league story, I spent a few minutes earlier this week with Baseball America's J.J. Cooper discussing the Rule 5 draft and how it relates to the Orioles. We also shot a Zoom video and it's all included here.