Rocket City Trash Pandas are back! Southern League of Baseball season starts April 4th and it goes on until the first week of September. After what this team has achieved in the last years, we are ready to see them back on the field for their fifth season in the competition.
The Rocket City Trash Pandas, the Double-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, performed great last season. Although they ended up placing 7th in the SL, the team got a 61-75 record which is compared with the previous year, 2023, which is a higher number of victories. The team still did not beat their best numbers, 81-57 in 2022, which made them leaders of the league and also allowed them to qualify for the playoffs by winning the first-half North Division Title. They weren’t able to make it past the first game of the playoffs since they lost against the Tennessee Smokies 2-1.
As in the Southern League of Baseball, there are not many notable changes for the upcoming season, but there are some things that are not going to remain the same. For starters, the Mississippi Braves, a Double-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves, will relocate from Pearl, South Mississippi to Columbus, Georgia, therefore the team’s name is changing to Columbus Clingstones. There are also two major changes in the rules of all the affiliated minor leagues, including the SL, starting this season. There will be defensive shift restrictions which have been established to promote more traditional defensive alignments. Baserunning Enhancements are also going to take place aiming to have a higher number of stolen base attempts.
The eight teams currently enrolled in the Southern League are The Rocket City Trash Pandas, Tennessee Smokies, Chattanooga Lookouts, and Birmingham Barons, all of them from the north division. Meanwhile, included in the South division we have the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, Montgomery Biscuits, Biloxi Shuckers, and the Columbus Clingstones. That adds up to a total of eight teams in the SL who are going to face each other multiple times. Every team will have 138 league games during the season, 69 home games, and 69 away games.
All of these teams are affiliated to a Major League Baseball League team such as the Chicago Cubs, Miami Marlins or the Tampa Bay Rays. It works in a way that turns the Minor Baseball League teams into a way of development or training station for players who have great potential but are not totally ready to play in the MLB.
Rocket City Trash Pandas hold some prospects of the major leagues who are getting their experience and training such as Christian Moore who was the 8th overall pick in 2024 or the outfielder Nelson Rada, who currently is under The Angeles Angels’s sight. They have expressed their excitement for him and some other players of the team. Other top prospects of major league teams are Caden Dana, George Klassen and Sam Aldegheri.
The Toyota Field stadium will welcome 7,500 people so they can enjoy baseball with the Trash Pandas. Let’s go Pandas!
