The Oakland Ballers didn’t spend the offseason admiring their Pioneer League championship rings.
The third-year franchise, which on Tuesday night plays the Single-A San Jose Giants in an exhibition game dubbed Battle of the Bay 2.1 at San Jose’s Excite Ballpark, spent it asking a harder question: What comes next when winning is no longer a surprise?
After capturing the Pioneer League title in their second season of existence, the Ballers entered the spring with a different posture and a louder reputation. The underdog edge that fueled their rise has been replaced by expectations – a reality the Oakland independent league team has embraced rather than resisted.
The Ballers boasted a league-best 72-23 record last season after finishing with the second-best mark (58-38) in 2024.
The front office said the focus is now about sustaining success. That includes building smarter in the offseason, raising internal standards and handling a surge of interest from players and coaches eager to join a team that has proven it has every resource needed to win.
Artist Ken Mitchroney draws a picture of Scrappy, the Oakland Baller mascot, on a fan’s ball before the team’s home opener against the Ogden Raptors on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at Raimondi Park in Oakland, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
At Raimondi Park this season, the goal isn’t to defend a title but chase the next one.
“There will be a different expectation,” Ballers co-founder Paul Freedman said. “The Pioneer League season is 96 games. That’s a lot of games. Often, teams take mental breaks, but we don’t have that luxury this year. Every game, people are going to be coming at us.”
After losing in the first round of the playoffs in 2024, the Ballers added 14 games to their regular-season win total last year. Then they added five more wins in the playoffs. The upstart team had a dominant regular season, but looked down for the count in the championship series as Oakland fell behind two games to none in a best-of-five series against the Idaho Falls Chukars.
The Ballers rallied to win three straight games, including the championship clincher in West Oakland, to capture the crown.
In their first two seasons, the Ballers had to prove to the rest of the league – and potential players – that they were more than a movement or a fad. That meant delivering on promises made, such as higher pay while fielding a team that brought in fans and became competitive.
Teams in the Pioneer League are not affiliated with Major League organizations, so there is no feeder pool of players to build out the rosters.
Oakland Ballers manager Aaron Miles announces the selected players after participating in the open tryouts at Raimondi Park in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday, March 8, 2025. (Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group)
“We hadn’t even announced a team yet, and agents were telling their players not to call us back. They thought we were a phishing scam,” Freedman said. “Now we have a really good reputation, and players and coaches are much easier to find.
“More than anything else, players are telling their friends how much fun it is to play in Oakland.”
The Ballers also hope to build a reputation as a franchise that can help players get noticed and signed by MLB-affiliated minor league teams.
To sustain a winning culture, Oakland manager Aaron Miles said the recipe for success will be to help the organization’s best players move up the baseball pipelines while replacing those players with a new crop of standouts.
“We’re always looking for players,” Miles said. “We’re fortunate with the Oakland Ballers to have a staff that’s always looking for the next good player. … It’s about helping baseball players with their career succeed, go to a higher level and try to get back to affiliated baseball.”
In terms of the fan experience, Freedman and co-founder Bryan Carmel are looking to elevate their game in that space, too.
Last year, the team added a playground for children in right field and included prominent Oakland figures in many of its themed nights. Carmel said many of the team’s ideas were created out of chaos, but with two years of experience under their belts, the Ballers expect this season to top the first two. Last season, the Ballers averaged 2,303 fans per game, fourth-best in the league, after averaging 1,918 in 2024.
“I think we’re back to focusing on the key moments and what the fan rituals are,” Carmel said. “What are the outside-the-box elements that we can bring into the game-day experience that will make it a magical, unforgettable experience for every fan, so that they’re dying to come back. That’s what it’s really all about, and that’s how we’re going to build lifelong fans.”
An Oakland Baller signs autographs for young fans at their home opener, Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at Raimondi Park in Oakland, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
Followers of the Pioneer League will notice some significant changes this season.
There are still 12 teams, and the regular season consists of 96 games, but the league, which before the 2024 season was based exclusively in Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Utah, is continuing to expand West.
Long Beach and Modesto will begin their operations two years after Oakland and Yuba-Sutter (Davis) became the first California-based teams in the league.
Both expansion teams are managed by former big leaguers – former Angels closer Troy Percival with the Long Beach Coast (who also have an alternate identity as the Regulators) and former Giants first baseman J.T. Snow with the Roadsters in Modesto.
The league is also adding a to-be-named travel team that will compete exclusively on the road.
The regular season will begin on Tuesday, May 19, 2026, and conclude on Sunday, September 6, 2026. The Pioneer League playoffs will follow the conclusion of the regular season.
”I’m so excited to get the 2026 season underway,” said PBL president Mike Shapiro. “As with each season, the schedule is the first tangible step toward Opening Day, and this year, with new teams in Modesto and Long Beach, the PBL will have a more profound presence in California along with the Mountain States.”
OAKLAND BALLERS 2026 SCHEDULE
