July 13 Standings and Attendance Update

It's been another really rough week for the Fireflies, getting swept by Augusta again and after last night have lost 5 straight. Here is a look at the standings now:

* = first half winner
** = leads second half

Team	Affiliate	W	L	PCT	GB
Northern Division
Hagerstown*	Nationals	53	36	0.596	--
Greensboro**	Marlins	51	38	0.573	2
Delmarva	Orioles	50	38	0.568	2.5
Hickory	Rangers	47	42	0.528	6
West Virginia	Pirates	44	44	0.500	8.5
Lakewood	Phillies	39	49	0.443	13.5
Kannapolis	White Sox	35	54	0.393	18
Southern Division
Charleston*	Yankees	50	37	0.575	--
Augusta**	Giants	48	41	0.539	3
Greenville	Red Sox	46	41	0.529	4
Asheville	Rockies	44	43	0.506	6
Columbia	Mets	41	48	0.461	10
Rome	Braves	36	52	0.409	14.5
Lexington	Royals	33	54	0.379	17

Now for the latest attendance in the South Atlantic League:

1. Greensboro        5,195
2. Lakewood          5,076
3. Greenville          4,845
4. Charleston          4,382
5. Lexington           4,028
6. Columbia          3,867
7. Delmarva           3,221
8. Asheville            2,594
9. Rome                  2,571
10. Augusta            2,562
11. West Virginia    2,258
12. Hickory             2,214
13. Kannapolis        1,596
14. Hagerstown       1,191

The Fireflies have been doing pretty bad on the field lately, going 5-14 since Conlon and Siena were promoted at the start of the second half. So what's wrong? I think a lot of it lies in that the Mets in 2015 had no first round picks. Further more, the Mets' second, third, and fifth round picks are all high school players who still haven't gotten out of Rookie League yet. The only Mets draft pick out of a 4 year college in the first 6 rounds last year was David Thompson, who was promoted out of here a week ago. The good news is that the Mets were heavy in drafting college guys this June, which means we should see better and more experienced talent in Columbia very soon. Hopefully they won't do what they did with last year's 7th round pick in Corey Taylor in promoting them from Brooklyn to St, Lucie with no stop in Columbia.

So is this hurting our attendance right now? I think part of the reason that MiLB teams do stupid "stuff" (another s word might be more appropriate there) is that they have no control of how good there teams will be. The Fireflies have no power to get a better baseball team, only the Mets do and the Mets are going to do what is best for the Mets. I suppose the Fireflies could see if another SAL or Midwest League team would like to exchange affiliations, but that's a bit unlikely and probably wouldn't accomplish much. Usually affiliation changes are mostly driven by marketing on the part of the MLB team. Getting Brooklyn outfielder Gene Cone who played HS ball less than 10 miles from Spirit Communications Park and college ball for a very popular team less than 5 miles away should be a boost for getting community support. Now if the Mets decide to send Cone to St. Lucie instead, maybe the Fireflies would have a grievance for changing affiliations.

At some point, I am going to need to do a correlation study on what drives attendance rankings. What is most important? Winning? How new the stadium is? Market size? My feeling is that in the majors, winning is most important but it might be winning from the previous year rather than right now due to season ticket sales.My feeling is that stadium newness is probably the driving factor in the high minors while market size drives attendance in the low minors. But what defines market size? And can some markets be too big if they have competing entertainment options? I will have to look at that with either a future attendance report or a Sunday feature.