How the Fresno Grizzlies turned from an ailing PCL franchise into a champion

When Phoenix was awarded an MLB franchisein 1998, the local PCL team the Phoenix Firebirds had to move. The San Francisco Giants affliliate moved to Tucson and became the Tucson Sidewinders. Next to moving to Tucson, the team changed affiliations and became the Arizona Diamondbacks’ AAA affiliate. The team that was located in Tucson, the Toros, then moved to Fresno to become the Giants AAA affiliate, named the Grizzlies. It was the first PCL franchise in Fresno since 1906.

Before moving into their current home Chukchansi Park, the Grizzlies played at Pete Biden Field, home of the California State University Fresno.

In the relatively short history of the club, it had several owners, but since 2005 the club has the same owner: Fresno Baseball LLC, based in Delaware (!). Since 1998, the team won their division in their inaugural season but they lost in five games to the Calgary Cannons, who advanced to the PCL championship series but fell to the New Orleans Zephyrs 3-2. But in the rest of their seasons, the never made the play offs and finished with losing records in twelve seasons, with an absolute low in 2004 when they finished the season with a  55-88 record (.385). Of course minor league baseball isn’t about winning; it is about teaching players how to play and how to get better. But twelve losing seasons in eighteen years of existence is rather bad.

When the San Francisco Giants moved their AAA team to Sacramento, the fans in Fresno kinda panicked. The Giants were all they’d ever known as their parent club. Besides that, there is a rather big San Francisco Giants fan base in Fresno. So when the Astros turned to the Grizzlies to become their parent club, many fans weren’t happy at all. Weren’t the Astros a happless team? If the team never could win a championship with the Giants, how would they ever with the Astros?

Well, the new affiliation with the Astros would bring the club some new élan. The club was involved in a social media fight with the Sacramento River Cats. Both teams came up with a promotion around a Californian flag based jersey. In the case of the Fresno Grizzlies it was a marketing concept to keep the fans after the Giants left for Sacramento.
     

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Eventually the Grizzlies would take revenge during the 2015 campaign as they finished the season with the second best record of the PCL, winning their division with a 13.5 game lead over their division rival Sacramento.

In the play offs, the Grizzlies would take on the El Paso Chihuahuas in the first round. The Grizzlies would beat El Paso 3-1 (9-1; 5-4; 4-6; 7-4). In the PCL championship series the opponent was the Round Rock Express. After losing game one (twelve innings) and game three, the Grizzlies won game two and game four, so it all came down to the rubber game last night.

In the final game the Grizzlies were far more effective than the Express in scoring runs. They collected eleven hits and Round Rock collected nine; not really a matter of being outscored. But Fresno scored seven runs and Round Rock three. Of course the two errors that the Express committed helped a lot but it only led to one unearned run.

But could it turned out any different? The Astros have a great farm system. Players like Pacific Coast League MPV Matt Duffy (.294) who was called up shortly before the PCL championship series, Mark Appel (4.48 era), Tony Kemp (.273) and Tyler White (.325) are all in the top twenty of Astros prospects. They were the foundation of this championship team.

Finally the long wait for the Grizzlies fans is over as the team won its first PCL championship ever. Too bad that only 5,275 fans experienced it in a stadium that can house 12,000 fans.