Baseball in the United States the Atlanta Braves' affiliates except the Carolina Mudcats. Minor League teams that are owned directly by the major league Club do not have PDCs with each other and are not part of the reaffiliation shuffles that occur every other year. A special minor league is the Arizona Fall League. It operates outside the Minor League Baseball hierarchy and is owned by MLB as a whole; teams generally assign prospects from the AAA and AA classes to the league's six teams. Today, 19 affiliated minor baseball leagues operate with 246 member clubs in large, medium, and small towns, as well as
Baseball in the Tampa Bay Area home to several teams in the Florida State League (which is now a Class-A Advanced circuit), including the Tampa Tarpons, the Clearwater Threshers, the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Bradenton Marauders, and the Lakeland Flying Tigers. Several major league organizations also field squads in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League and the Florida Instructional League. Besides hosting actual baseball games, the corporate offices of Minor League Baseball have been located in St. Petersburg since 1973. St. Petersburg was the home of the St. Petersburg Pelicans in the short-lived Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989–1990. The league featured former major league players who