Rumored and winked at by Astros fans across Texas for months, the long-awaited return of the Round Rock Express to the Houston fold is now official.

The Express made the announcement September 20 at Dell Diamond. The franchise confirmed a new four-year player development contract between the Triple-A Pacific Coast League affiliate and the Astros after eight seasons with the Rangers.

As expected, the Fresno Grizzlies and Houston Astros cut affiliate ties following the Pacific Coast League season, which ended September 15, following Fresno’s loss in the PCL championship with a 5-0 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals’ top farm club, Memphis Redbirds.

The Express and the Astros were in affiliation from 2000-10, after Houston’s current team president of business relations, Reid Ryan, led by a group of founders, brought baseball to the greater Austin area in 2000 (Round Rock is considered a “bedroom community” of the Texas capitol, about 20 miles up I-35 from downtown Austin).

What began as the Astros’ Double-A affiliate from 2000-2004, turned into the parent club’s Triple-A affiliate from 2005 through 2010.

While Reid’s father, Nolan, sat behind a desk in Arlington in 2011, he initiated the signing of the Player Development Contract (PDC) that married the Express to the Rangers in 2011, while the Astros’ Triple-A affiliation was split between Oklahoma City and, since 2015, Fresno, California, all while a part of the Pacific Coast League.

More or Less New Threads

While not a huge leap forward (or different than when the Rangers enjoyed the Express as their top farm club), Round Rock also unveiled new uniforms at the announcement of the Astros’ deal. Houston fans might lament the lack of Astro orange in the color scheme, and too much of a similarity in Texas Rangers colors.

The team, as a press release explained, has returned to its original, early 2000s navy and a new shade of deep red along with silver.

But, Wait….

This may help appease the otherwise lack of Astro colors in the new Express palette. This 20th anniversary logo will serve as a shoulder sleeve patch. For non-Round Rock residents, the curious blob in the center of Texas is the actual table-shaped rock emerging in a stream that once marked a low-water spot for wagon, horse and cattle crossing along the Chisholm Trail near downtown Round Rock.

Mutual Appreciation

“We really appreciate what [the Fresno Grizzlies], their ownership, management, city leaders and fans have done for the Houston Astros,” Reid Ryan told reporters September 16, after the team made it official there would be no new deal made with Fresno.

“They have just treated us great the last four years,” Ryan continued, “but we want to look around because we think there are opportunities to put our Triple-A affiliate closer to Houston, Texas.”

In a characteristically classy move, the Astros placed a full-page, color ad in the September 17 Fresno Bee, thanking the Fresno fans, community and management for “being a part of the Astros championship family for the past four seasons!”

“Affiliation shifts are more the rule than the exception; it’s often inevitable,” Grizzlies president Derek Franks told the Fresno Bee recently. “As MLB organizations evaluate their minor league operations over the length of any PDC, often their needs for Triple-A change.

“We respect their decision and understood when we first signed with them it was likely the relationship would last only four seasons. We are indebted to the Astros for the great quality of teams we’ve had the last four years.”

Proximity

Moving their Triple-A affiliate from Fresno to Round Rock now puts Minute Maid Park just 170 miles from Houston’s top MiLB affiliate, making it a quick car or limo swing or flight to get a player from one place to another.

That will allow players to move more easily, more economically, and conveniently between Triple-A Round Rock and Houston during the season than Fresno, which required a long, costly flight. The Astros’ Double-A affiliate, the Corpus Christi Hooks, also enjoys a convenient Texas presence.

“It makes it easier on all of our [Minor League] rovers, our coaches, our player development people,” Reid Ryan said at the Thursday night official announcement presser. “It also makes it easier for us in Houston when we need a player. The Hooks and Express are going to be close if we need one of them to get to the Astros quickly. There’s a ton of development reasons this works for us, and also a ton of marketing reasons in continuing to grow our fan base.”

The Ironic Championship

“It was a successful relationship on the field for the Grizzlies, getting to field players from a well-stocked Astros farm system,” reports Fresno Bee scribe Bryant-Jon Anteola.

In fact, in the first year of Houston’s relationship with Fresno (2015), the Grizzlies took the AAA National Championship from the Texas Rangers’ AAA Round Rock Express. Current Astros Tony Kemp and Tyler White were key in the Grizzlies’ playoff run that year, with Kemp copping the PCL playoffs MVP.

Related: Tony Kemp and Tyler White Have Earned Astros Playoff Roster Spots

Manager Tony DeFrancesco, who guided the Grizzlies to three straight winning seasons, including that championship run in 2015, has elected not to return to the parent club organization for an eighth season.

Curiously, the Astros announced, on September 18, the firing of four minor league coaches, including the Fresno manager, Rodney Linares, who led the Grizzlies to a division title in this, his first season managing at Triple-A. The Astros will have to select a new skipper to guide the Express in the coming weeks.

The ’15 Crown… How Many Astros?

In the video below, see how many current Astros you can spot spraying champagne at each other during the 2015 Fresno Grizzlies’ locker room celebration:

Where Might the Rangers Land? Tennessee!

Meanwhile, the Astros’ new PDC with Round Rock left the Texas Rangers’ Triple-A players wandering the desert, so to speak, looking for a new home, but just for a couple days.

While San Antonio was up for grabs (and would have been a prime consolation prize for the Rangers, having lost Round Rock), the Milwaukee Brewers swooped in on September 18 to claim the Missions for their new Triple-A affiliate. The Missions, thematically appropriate, had been the San Diego Padres’ top farm club for a dozen years, through 2018.

That same day, the Rangers announced their new four-year AAA affiliation deal with the Nashville Sounds, Pacific Coast League entry of the Oakland A’s for the four years beginning in 2015.

Completing the circle of life, Fresno found a taker in the Washington Nationals. Now, the Nats will have to impose upon their Triple-A call-ups a thrombosis-inducing cross-country ordeal.

From the Air

Austin-area Astros fans, enjoy this unique drone tour of Dell Diamond: