Staten Island Yankees ceasing operations, filing lawsuits against big-league club and MLB

The Staten Island Yankees announced on Thursday that the club is ceasing operations and has filed lawsuits against the New York Yankees and Major League Baseball.

The news comes about one month after the big-league club announced that they were cutting ties with the SI team as one of their affiliates as part of a broader restructuring of their minor-league system. 

The SI Yankees claimed then that they had only heard about that decision through a Yankees social media post and had not heard directly from the team.

On Thursday, the SI Yankees released a statement saying the team had still not heard anything directly from the big-league club, but losing their affiliation to the team made the overall expenses of operation too much to swallow.

“The best thing we can do for the community is step aside and let others try to save baseball in Staten Island,” the club statement reads. “While we have invested considerable resources into the development of the North Shore, and hoped to remain a piece of that renewal, we have not been offered support to create a sustainable business entity.”

The lawsuits filed by the SI Yankees against the Yankees and MLB were done so “to hold those entities accountable for false promises,” per the release.

The press release ended with a message of gratitude for their fans.

“To the fans and community of Staten Island we offer our sincere thanks for supporting our team and all of its employees over the years.”

The Staten Island Yankees were formed in 1999 as a short-season Single A affiliate of the Yankees playing in the New York-Penn League. Notable SI Yanks who have went on to the big leagues include Robinson Cano, Brett Gardner, and Melky Cabrera, among others.