Major League Baseball and Hawaii Winter Baseball have severed their ties for a second time, this time after three MLB-affiliated seasons of winterball in the Aloha State. HWB fielded four teams in 2008, with the Waikiki BeachBoys winning the pennant by defeating the Oahu CaneFires, 5-1, in the title game last month. San Francisco’s first round draft pick, catcher Buster Posey, whacked a three-run homer for Waikiki that afternoon.
MLB is expected to create a similar four-team league in Arizona, where expenses would be much lower than in Hawaii. Like HWB, a new league in Arizona would feature players with less professional experience than those in the Arizona Fall League, which just concluded its 17th season. Both leagues would use the same training camp complexes.
Winterball has had two runs in Hawaii, the first spanning from 1993 through 1997 with young players from Japanese and Korean teams as well as MLB organizations, including future stars Ichiro Suzuki, Jason Giambi, Todd Helton and Mark Kotsay.
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