Lansing Lugnuts
- Location: Lansing, MI
- League: Midwest League 1996-2019; High-A Central 2021; Midwest League 2022-
- Affiliation: Kansas City Royals 1996-1998; Chicago Cubs 1999-2004; Toronto Blue Jays 2005-2019; Oakland A's 2021-present
- Ballpark: Jackson Field
- Famous Alumni: Carlos Beltran, Corey Patterson, Jason Simontacchi, Carlos Zambrano
Team History[edit]
The Lansing Lugnuts, of the Midwest League and briefly in High-A Central, have their current parent club because of a wrong guess. The Oakland Athletics farmhands play their home games at Jackson Field in Lansing, MI.
MLB's 2021 Minor League Reorganization threw two Toronto Blue Jays farm clubs into the same level by elevating both the MwL and the Northwest League into High-A. On October 20th, 2020, the San Francisco Chronicle's Susan Slusser reported the Jays would drop the Vancouver Canadians in favor of the Lugnuts. Although Canadians President Andrew Dunn said that day: "As of today we have not been notified of any changes regarding our affiliation," tweets from the A's farm editor and the C's play-by-play announcer backed up the story. However, on November 30th, Slusser tweeted "Vancouver appears to be staying a Toronto affiliate" followed by "Sounds as if potential border/COVID restrictions might have contributed." Given that MLB clubs had first-rights on their existing clubs, the A's must have dropped the Beloit Snappers in between; when the invitations by MLB clubs to their chosen four farm teams were announced on December 9th, the Miami Marlins took the Snappers, the Jays kept the C's, and the A's moved over to Lansing.
Shortly before the 2023 season opened, Diamond Baseball Holdings - the entity created by entertainment giant Endeavor Group Holdings but later sold to Silver Lake Partners - bought the Lugnuts.
The franchise joined the MwL as the Springfield Cardinals in 1982, replacing the Triple-A Springfield Redbirds who had moved to Louisville, KY. They became the Springfield Sultans when they switched affiliations in 1994, then moved to Michigan's capital two years later. They arrived as a Kansas City Royals affiliate, moving over to the Jays in 2005.
The Loons play Copa de la Diversión Hispanic engagement campaign games as Locos de Lansing (Lansing Nuts, in the "crazy" sense of the word), a play on team battle cry "Let's Go Nuts".
Year-by-Year Record[edit]
External Link[edit]
| |||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||
We're Social...for Statheads
Every Sports Reference Social Media Account
Site Last Updated:
Question, Comment, Feedback, or Correction?
Subscribe to our Free Email Newsletter
Subscribe to Stathead Baseball: Get your first month FREE
Your All-Access Ticket to the Baseball Reference Database
Do you have a sports website? Or write about sports? We have tools and resources that can help you use sports data. Find out more.