Rochester Red Wings General Manager Dan Mason calls the
rival Buffalo Bisons “the Yankees of the
International League.”

Whether that’s a compliment or a slam is open to
interpretation, depending on your feelings about the Bronx Bombers and their
absurdly humongous payroll. But as a statement of fact, Mason’s evaluation of
the Bisons is pretty much dead-on. The Bisons have been able to dominate the International
League’s North Division in recent years because their parent team, the
Cleveland Indians, has poured money into its Triple-A
affiliate in the form of salaries for a slew of high-priced free agents.

“They always have a high payroll,” Mason says of the Bisons. “Cleveland
always spends a lot of money on that team. It’s a very expensive insurance
policy.”

Mason contrasts Buffalo’s approach to the game with that of
the Red Wings, who finished the 2005 season seven games behind Buffalo in the
division (the Wings tied for second withPawtucket),
by asserting that Rochester’s
parent club, the Minnesota Twins, opts for a more developmental, home-grown
approach to their farm system.

“The Twins have a very different philosophy” than the
Indians, he says. “Because it’s a small market, they believe their strength is
in developing players from within the organization.”

What that means, he says, is that the Wings are perennial
runners-up to the Bisons, simply because Rochester
can’t put the same top-quality lineup on the field game in and game out. “Free
agency,” he says, “makes it tougher for us to win.”

And by extension, tougher to make the
playoffs, which the Wings haven’t done for nine years.

So will the 2006 season be any different? The Bisons, oddly enough, think so. Brad Bisbing,
Buffalo’s PR coordinator, says that
his team will take on a new look this year, one that might seem familiar to
Wings fans.

“This year, I think you’ll notice that the Bisons and the Red Wings will be mirror images of each
other,” he says. “We have an extremely young team this year.”

The Indians only signed “a handful, maybe three or four”
free agents for Buffalo this year
because, Bisbing says, that’s all they needed. “The
Indians have done so well drafting and developing young players that there
wasn’t a need to go out and sign many free agents,” he says.

That, Mason notes, is what the Twins have done with Rochester
in recent years, with moderate success. “We’re usually younger than most teams
in the league,” he says, “but we’ve proven in the last two or three years that
we can be competitive with the rich talent that lies in the system” and the
signing of a few key free agents.

So,
fine. Rochester and Buffalo will
look strangely alike this year. Does that mean the Red Wings might actually
have a shot at overtaking their Thruway rivals in 2006 and make the playoffs?

Probably not. True, Rochester
enters the season with a handful of promising prospects in the roster,
including catcher Chris Heintz, first baseman Garrett
Jones, second baseman Luis Maza, outfielder Jason
Tyner, fireballing starter BoofBonser and closer Pat Neshek.

But the Wings also enter the season with several glaring
weaknesses — a lack of power at the plate, a weak back half of the rotation,
a black hole at shortstop, suspect middle relief — that’ll be hard to
overcome.

The Wings were holding out hope that the Twins wouldn’t keep
two studs — 2004 IL batting champ and Rookie of the Year Jason Kubel, and 2005 strikeout king and IL Rookie of the Year
Francisco Liriano — on their roster and send them
down to Rochester to start the
season.

However, when the parent club on Sunday announced its
opening day roster, both Liriano and Kubel were on it. And with a slew of injuries plaguing the
Twins, there’s a good chance Rochester’s
roster will be occasionally plundered at the start of the season. That would be
bad news for Rochester — and,
presumably, good news for Buffalo, Pawtucket,and the rest of the division.

But Wings fans should take heart: even if the team itself
may leave something to be desired, the whole Frontier Field experience will
receive an upgrade that includes the installation of a brand new,
state-of-the-art video scoreboard and, after the end of this season, a new
playing field and other needed maintenance moves.

Of course, that fan experience would be considerably more
fun if the team wins. That should happen fairly often this season in Rochester,
but not enough to end the Wings’ playoff drought — and probably not enough to
surpass Buffalo, no matter what
size payroll the Bisons have.

The Rochester Red
Wings start their 2006 season Thursday, April 6, in Syracuse
and then take on the SkyChiefs at the first home game
Saturday, April 8, 1:35 p.m. at
Frontier Field, 1 Morrie
Silver Way, 423-9464.
$6-$10. www.redwingsbaseball.com

This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.