With plenty of close votes, we’ve moved on to the Final Four round of the 2021 MiLB Best of the Ballparks, Low-A fan vote, with a playing field from around the country.
The last round saw some close votes, including a bracket where Publix Field at Joker Marchant Stadium (Lakeland Flying Tigers) defeated Segra Stadium (Fayetteville Woodpeckers) by just 10 votes. The ballparks receiving the most votes in the Elite Eight round: Atrium Health Ballpark (Kannapolis Cannon Ballers), Segra Park (Columbia Fireflies, a victim of the brackets), LECOM Park (Bradenton Marauders) and The Diamond (Lake Elsinore Storm). This leaves a Final Four representing Florida, North Carolina and California. We could, interestingly enough, see an all-Florida final.
As with the High-A competition, the Low-A Best of the Ballparks fan vote features an almost totally new set of competitors after MLB’s reorganization of Minor League Baseball. This new Low-A lineup contains most of the former High-A Florida State League and California League, a former Triple-A Pacific Coast League ballpark, former Low-A Sally League teams, and some former High-A Carolina League teams. Of this new lineup, only the former Sally League teams competed at the Low-A level in prior years.
We know from marketing stats that a third of our readers work in the baseball industry, so we’re tapping into that collective expertise. And we know from our research that a third of our readers sell to the baseball industry, so that expertise will be valuable as well. The remaining third–fans, media, government–will certainly have a different view on things as well. We can’t wait to see what our readers–whom we consider to be the smartest folks in baseball–say about the best of the ballparks.
This was a challenge to seed: ballparks formerly in three levels of play, including Triple-A, were hard to compare. There is no uniformity at this level yet–there are ballparks here that are the pride of MiLB, there are some basic facilities, and there are some spring-training homes as well. And while we expect plenty of facility upgrades in coming years, they’re not all planned out or implemented. We will be eager to see what our readers think of the new Low-A lineup. These seeds are based on previous rankings and performances in prior Best of the Ballparks fan votes.
Some things to note. First, you are allowed to vote multiple times, but you can only vote once per day. Second, you don’t need to fill out a full slate: partially filled lineups will count. A running tally of the vote will be presented at the bottom of this page in the form of brackets. Vote below:
