The Beloit Snappers have a new potential Major League Baseball affiliate to go with their brand new downtown stadium.
The local minor league team received an invitation from the Miami Marlins to become their Advanced-A affiliate, a step above the Class-A level where the Snappers previously operated for 39 years.
Owner Quint Studer said in a statement that partnership will ensure the Snappers are one of the 120 licensed minor league teams as the leagues work to reduce the total number of teams.
“When Major League Baseball reached out and said that Marlins CEO Derek Jeter would be inviting Beloit, I was thrilled,” Studer said. “The credit goes to the never-give-up group of owners in Beloit led by Dennis Conerton. None of this would have happened without the commitment of so many people in the Beloit community to build a new stadium.”
The affiliation will align Beloit in the same system as the other minor league team that Studer owns, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, which was invited to be the Marlins’ Double-A team.
The Snappers spent the previous eight seasons as the Class-A affiliate of the Oakland Athletics and previously worked as part of the Minnesota Twins and Milwaukee Brewers organizations.
The Beloit minor league baseball team is also expected to announce its new team name and mascot sometime in early 2021, and the new stadium is expected to open next summer.
