By Wassel Sounds

1. Four Years of Moneyball. On Tuesday, September 23, the Nashville Sounds signed a four-year Player Development Contract with the Oakland Athletics. The agreement makes Nashville the A’s Triple-A affiliate. Every minor league team reports to a parent big league club and previous Sounds affiliates have been the Reds (’78–79, ’87–92), Yankees (’80–84), Tigers (’85–86), White Sox (’93–97), Pirates (’98–04), and Brewers (’05–14).

2. New players and coaches. The Sounds of First Tennessee Park will have an entirely different roster from the season before, as Nashville welcomes those players assigned to Triple-A by the Athletics. For an idea of some of the players coming our way, we can look to Sacramento’s final roster from this season, which featured Postseason All-Star OF Shane Peterson and 2013 All-Star Nick Buss. In addition, this MLB.com Top 20 A’s Prospects List provides a good idea of the A’s and Sounds’ upcoming talent.

3. Triple-A Baseball in the Pacific Coast League. While names and faces may be changing, one thing remaining the same is league structure. The Sounds will still play in the Pacific Coast League’s American Conference Southern Division and see each of their seven conference opponents a total of 16 times, including the St. Louis Cardinals affiliate and cross-state rival Memphis Redbirds. As usual, Nashville will face out-of-conferences foes only four times each season. However, the Sounds were one of six PCL clubs to change affiliations this off-season (see item #5 below for details).

4. Rule 6.10. A product of switching from a National League affiliate to a American League affiliate, the Sounds will use a designated hitter for all 144 games. Love it or hate, Sounds pitchers will stay 60 feet, 6 inches from the plate next season, which is sure to lengthen Kyle Heckathorn’s reign as the last Sounds pitcher to go yard (June 12, 2014 at Greer).

5. Minor League Mix-Up. Including Nashville’s switch to Oakland, six of the PCL’s 16 teams have new major league affiliates for the 2015 season: The Giants move their Triple-A talent from Fresno to Sacramento; the Dodgers from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City; the Astros from Oklahoma City to Fresno; the Rockies from Colorado Springs to Albuquerque; and the Brewers from Nashville to Colorado Springs. Thus, per item #3, the Sounds will host the Dodgers Triple-A team more frequent than in 2014 and the Rockies only four times a season.