2026 Rochester Red Wings Had ‘Incredible’ Year

BY DAN GLICKMAN

By some measures, the Rochester Red Wings and the associated franchises that preceded them (the current franchise technically was formed in 1899, but professional baseball in Rochester itself goes back to 1877) form the most successful team lineage in all of Minor League Baseball.

Now possessing 20 league championships (almost double the 11 held by the Columbus Clippers) and with 26 Baseball Hall of Famers with ties to the franchise, the squad has been a mainstay. The team’s influence even extends beyond the field: the Durham Bulls – arguably the most famous minor league team in sports – owe much of their fame to a movie written and directed by Ron Shelton, a member of the 1971 Red Wings who based the film on his own experiences as well as stories he’d heard from his manager that year, Joe Altobelli – Rochester’s beloved “Mr. Baseball” whose number 26 still stands retired on the left field wall.

It’s no wonder, then, that Rochester Community Baseball President and CEO Naomi Silver means it when she talks about the team and its city, where her father Morrie Silver helped rescue baseball as we know it by leading a stock drive in the 1950s.

“Rochester is an iconic place to play, one of those historic cities with a baseball history like none other in the world of minor league baseball,” she says.

VIEW MORE PHOTOS FROM JOE TERRITO.

And yet, it’d been a relatively quiet few decades in Rochester when it came to on-field success. To be sure, there were good years, including a few playoff appearances, and plenty of good prospects had come through. But the right field wall of ESL Ballpark (formerly known as Innovative Field, and, before that, Frontier Field) remained unchanged, its last championship listed as 1997. For 29 years, the Red Wings failed to claim a new title, by far the longest in franchise history for a squad that won at least one championship in every decade of the 20^th century.

Until this year, until 2026, when the Rochester Red Wings returned to the top of the International League with a team that ranks with some of the best in its history. A fitting year, said Silver, given Altobelli’s number 26.

It was a 90-53 team that overcame a crushing mid-season disappointment, the usual call-ups and injuries that hit every minor league team, a second-half pennant race that went down to the final day, and a late deficit in the final game of the International League Championship Series. At the end of it all, there was an International League title won in Memphis over the Redbirds in a three-game series.

“Winning in Memphis was something that was 29 years of emotion that caught up with us, and it was so important to us, as it means we can put another year on that outfield wall,” said Silver. “Missing the first half because of one game, you don’t think you’re going to come back that strong in the second half, but we did, and it was just so wonderful and so exciting. What the Nationals put into the organization and the minor league system is really incredible.”

“It was pretty incredible,” said longtime Red Wings general manager Dan Mason on Monday, just days after the Red Wings lost to the Pacific Coast League’s Oklahoma City Comets in a game that many regarded as a secondary prize due to its arbitrary one-off nature.

The success started with the team itself, the first to win 90 games since 1953 and which saw two players (utilityman Trey Lipscomb and third baseman Yohandy Morales) earn post-season All-Star status, not to mention a Manager of the Year honor for Matt LeCroy.

“This was a very special group, reminiscent of that 1997 team,” said Mason. “They really played for each other, they kept each other accountable, and they never quit. I don’t think people realize how hard it is, right? And the travel, with not many days off, but they kept grinding together, and they were a really tight-knight group and a special group, and it all paid off. All their hard work paid off.”

The year was full of special moments that immediately came to mind for Mason: Abimelec Ortiz‘s walk-off home run on Memorial Day, Brady House hitting for the cycle, Lipscomb becoming the first Red Wing to hit both 30 home runs and 30 doubles, as well as plenty of on-field promotions.

And, of course, the pennant-winning hit by Cortland Lawson – who wasn’t even supposed to be playing – who doubled in the eighth inning to score Andrew Pinckney to give the Wings a 3-2 lead in game three of the ILCS.

“He will forever be etched in as one of the great names in Red Wings history,” said Mason during a fan celebration of the IL title on Monday. “Just like PJ Forbes and The Catch, just like Finnegan’s Rainbow, we’ll always remember in 2026, Cortland Lawson’s bullet up the middle to score Andrew Pinckney from second base to give a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning.”

While the attendance at home was decreased due to some bad weather throughout the year (Mason says that Mother Nature, not the Buffalo Bisons or Syracuse Mets, is Rochester’s greatest rival), both he and Silver also couldn’t help but think of the fan support that extended even beyond Rochester. They each remarked on how Red Wings fans traveled to Buffalo on the final week of the season, with hundreds of Rochester fans crowding Buffalo on the final day, when the team earned the second-half pennant. Others made appearances in Memphis and even Las Vegas. The Monday after the playoffs, so many fans appeared at a celebration of the team that the ceremony had to be moved to the field, instead of the concourse.

That bond with the fans, including the continued community ownership in an era where big business increasingly runs minor league teams, is another important thing about Rochester baseball that differentiates it from so many others, just as its long history does.

“About 50 of the 120 teams now are owned by private equity, it feels like ownership has changed,” says Silver. “I think how people look at their teams in certain cities, it’s no longer the local ownership or leadership, and I think that makes us a little bit special in that way. We care so deeply about every single fan in Rochester, we care so much about how people view us and what they think of us. That’s very important to us, and you don’t get quite that same feeling when there’s a big conglomerate that owns so many teams. Places like here and Buffalo have stakeholders who don’t want to give that local pride up.”

But what will those fans, so full of local pride after a title, be seeing in the future?

The 2027 team will doubtless be different. Riley Adams, a longtime catcher for the Red Wings who has been in Rochester on-and-off ever since he was based here as a member of the 2020 Toronto Blue Jays minor league camp during their COVID-19 stint in Buffalo, has already become a free agent as the offseason begins, and posted photos from the season on Instagram as something of a farewell. Other players who only saw action in Rochester during the later part of the season, such as Lawson and flame-throwing pitching prospect Jarlin Susana, may become mainstays. Seaver King, another top Nationals prospect who was one of the main stars of the team during the second half of the season, may also return if he doesn’t make the big club. Max Romero, who appeared at Monday’s celebration, will probably be one of the team’s main catchers. The status of some of the more experienced players, such as team MVP Lipscomb and ace pitcher Chandler Champlain, could be more up in the air.

Also unknown? Who’ll be skippering the squad. LeCroy is beloved by fans, players, and the Red Wings front office, but it will likely still be a bit of time before it’s officially revealed if he’ll return to Rochester. While he has not been let go from his contract like some other members of the Washington Nationals’ farm system (including AA manager Delino DeShields), it’s still not a done deal that he’ll remain Rochester’s manager: he may still leave the organization, or be moved to a different position.

If he does leave, it definitely was on a high note. Beyond winning Manager of the Year and winning the IL pennant, LeCroy also won his 1,000^th overall game as a professional manager this season.

“He’s done an awesome job every year, but this year in particular,” said Mason. “Being a Triple-A manager is one of the hardest jobs in all of professional baseball… [and] he navigated it as well as any manager that I’ve been with here in my 37 years [with the team].”

Then there is the off-the-field work that LeCroy does: he often appears in some of Mason’s patented crazy promotional videos.

“I’ve asked him to do some things that that have put him in a pretty compromising position,” said Mason. “He never fails to to agree, because he knows how important it is to us to help promote the game of baseball and help promote the Red Wings specifically.”

There is also the question of whether there will be Major League Baseball next season, especially early on. With the Contractual Bargaining Agreement set to expire this offseason, many observers are expecting a lockout or a similar work stoppage. While it’s unlikely that a work stoppage would directly affect the minor leagues as far as games being played, it could bring more attention to them, and also may lead to some players who may have otherwise been called to the big leagues staying in Rochester longer than initially expected. In 1981, for example, it is generally agreed that Cal Ripken Jr. spent longer in Rochester than planned due to that season’s strike. Mason couldn’t comment on how the organization is approaching the possibility, but admitted he hoped for a quick resolution in the business of baseball.

Regardless, though, 2027 will be a big year for Rochester: It’ll be a year where the Red Wings are defending champions, it’ll be the 30^th anniversary of the 1997 team, the 70^th anniversary of Rochester Community Baseball’s formation, and the 150^th anniversary of professional baseball in Rochester. Mason says they are already planning some things – including a victory parade.

And, of course, he says, it’ll be at least fifty degrees – despite opening day being March 26. He guarantees it.