Medford Rogues pitcher Andrew Overland connects with a young fan between innings at Harry & David Field this past season.

With an eye toward a more competitive but still home-friendly future, the Medford Rogues have agreed to join five other collegiate wood-bat baseball franchises in the formation of the Pacific Empire League.

The official announcement on a collaboration between the Rogues, Healdsburg Prune Packers, Humboldt Crabs, Lincoln Potters, Solano Mudcats and West Coast Kings came Friday morning.

The summer league promises quality competition along with high-tech partnerships aimed at providing greater data-driven feedback for players and coaches through Trackman Baseball and Synergy Sports.

Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of the Rogues hiring current Oregon State undergraduate assistant Nate Esposito as their manager for 2024.

After previous stints in the West Coast League, Great West League and Golden State Collegiate Baseball League, Medford has played an independent schedule in recent years but Rogues president and co-owner Dave May said the opportunities afforded by the launching of the Pacific Empire League were too good to pass up.

“I think, for us, it’s a little bit of stability and credibility,” May said of what comes with the PEL partnership. “It allows us a little bit better recruiting and also creates a schedule where we’re putting the best product on the field in Medford, and the same goes for the visiting teams that are coming in as well. So it’s going to be a little bit better competition across the board for our players and our fans.”

“The main selling point and factor, for me, was the schedule,” he added. “It’s only a 25-game league schedule, so it allows us to keep the relationships we’ve enjoyed like the Fresno A’s, who have come to town now for three or four years in a row, in our schedule. It allows us to kind of do both at the same time, and gives the fans something to look forward to with league standings and a playoff structure.”

May said last summer’s schedule featured 40 home games for the Rogues at Harry & David Field and eight on the road, and the 2024 schedule is shaping up to have 36 home dates and 11 road games.

Those road dates will coincide with times when the Rogues already would be vacating the Rogue Valley, such as when the Medford Mustangs host the Coach K Memorial Classic and during the Jackson County Fair.

Filling a summer schedule has become increasingly more challenging as the Rogues have maintained their independent status.

“It’s gotten more difficult over the last few years to get teams to come here, so now we have guaranteed games and that will help,” said May. “In the last couple of years, we’ve had to pay teams to come play us here in Medford, and that’s obviously not ideal. Now we get to add 14 home league games and that just makes scheduling easier, and with better competition.”

The PEL unites the Prune Packers, Potters and Mudcats from the California Collegiate League with the Bay Area’s West Coast Kings and the independent Crabs and Rogues. The summer schedule will conclude with a three-game championship series.

Healdsburg dominated the CCL for six seasons, finishing atop the Northern Division each year while claiming the last three league championships. Lincoln and Humboldt have been familiar top-tier foes for the Rogues over the years, while Solano and the West Coast Kings have featured numerous Division I players to help drive their summer success.

“If we go .500 in this league in the first year, I’m going to be a pretty happy man because that means we competed with some of the best teams on the West Coast,” said May. “The Healdsburg Prune Packers are pulling guys from Arizona State in their starting rotation, we traditionally don’t get that. But now when we go talk to a school like an Oregon, Oregon State, Washington or Washington State, we can not only say here’s what we’re providing from a package standpoint for the kids, but here’s also the level of competition that they’re going to be seeing.”

“And then in Years 2, 3, 4 and 5 of this league,” he added, “these college coaches are going to start sending us guys to compete at the level we’re trying to get to.”

In the earlier days of the Medford franchise, the Rogues were a prime option for Northwest and California-based recruits at the Division I level. The team, which will be in its 12th season in 2024, has continued to bring in high-level talent over the years with quality coaching, but maybe not at the depth or elite tiers of some of its predecessors.

It’s also not a stretch to say that the competition brought to town has been watered down since first exiting the WCL due to financial constraints and later seeing the GWL cease operations in 2018.

Medford went 34-13 last year but has won two games in the last three years against Lincoln — a former GWL rival — and saw Humboldt take three of the four games played against it last summer. The Rogues split with the West Coast Kings in a two-game series two years ago, and have never faced Healdsburg or Solano.

With the PEL, May said, also comes an advancement in data-driven technology in the form of Trackman Baseball and Synergy Sports.

“The cool part behind this partnering with Trackman is that it gives data for college coaches on exit velocities, spin rate of pitches, pitch speed and all these things from an analytical side,” he said. “We’re working with the City of Medford right now to get that installed at Harry & David Field, which allows these college coaches to track their players even more. Synergy Sports sends six cameras that link with Trackman so now college coaches can pull up that this kid hit a ball 105 miles per hour and have that data of what they did plus video behind it, too.”

For more information on the Rogues, including season ticket sales for a season that opens May 30, go to medfordrogues.com or call 541-973-2883.