There seems to be a lot going on in the minors, this year. With the increased cash flow of minor league baseball teams, they have been able to break free of some of their affiliations for more advantagous positions with other teams.
With Allentown building a new baseball stadium, the Phillies affiliation with Scranton/Wilkes Barre is leaving town. They will still have a team there, it will just be affiliated with the Yankees rather than the Phillies. That leave Columbus open, which is where the Nationals are moving their farm team. Baltimore is kicking the Mets out of Norfolk so they can move their team out of Ottawa, which gives the Phillies somewhere to park their team until 2008 when their new stadium in Allentown is ready. The Mets are moving their AAA team to New Orleans.
This moves everybody closer to the MLB team they are affiliated with except for the Mets, who got run out of town. That’s a lot of shake up for only one level down from the majors.
(Source: Sports Biz)
Here in East Tennessee, The Smokies were the AA (I think) for the St. Louis Cardinals, but recently annouced they changed affliations to the Chicago Cubs.
Yeah, at the lower levels like A and AA you usually see a bit of a shake up every year; my local Sea Dogs were affiliated with the Mariners until a couple years ago when the Red Sox took over (which has been great for local fans).
At the AAA level though, you rarely see more than 2 teams changing at the very most. Lots of domino effect going on this year.