Hartford Yard Goats GM Mike Abramson: Baseball America's 2024 MiLB Executive Of The Year (original) (raw)

Image credit: Yard Goats GM Mike Abramson (Photo Courtesy of Hartford Yard Goats)

As Hartford Yard Goats general manager Mike Abramson admits, he and his club’s staff have a problem.

Success is wonderful. But it’s hard for them to ever stop and enjoy what they’ve accomplished, because what has made Hartford successful is a group of like-minded individuals who aren’t ever happy to rest on their success.

The ballpark can always be improved. The on-field entertainment can be better. Something can be new and better every single night, even if that means jettisoning something that’s already pretty good.

“Probably 10 times a year, I say to the guys I work most closely with in the office, ‘Can we all just enjoy this for 10 minutes?’ Because we never do,” Abramson said. “We bemoan every little thing. We’re always asking, ‘How can we make this better?’ ”

That approach is working for Hartford and Abramson. He is Baseball America’s 2024 Minor League Executive of the Year as he leads a team that has made the Yard Goats a consistently successful operation that figures out ways to grow each year.

“We have a large group of people here who have been here since we opened the ballpark, and everybody shares in sort of that relentless pursuit of something new. That’s definitely why we’re successful,” Abramson said.

“It’s a bunch of people who have the same mindset. Nobody’s ever irritated with somebody else when they’re like, ‘Hey, what if we blow up this thing?’ ”

It hasn’t always been easy. The Yard Goats spent the entire 2016 season as a road team when the club’s new ballpark missed its completion date by months.

Hartford moved into Dunkin’ Donuts Park in 2017. And like most minor league teams moving into new facilities, they had immediate success.

As the New Britain Rock Cats, the team had averaged 4,000 fans per game in 2015. In 2017, they drew 5,800 in announced attendance at their new park. But where most teams see a drop off in year two, the Yard Goats drew another 200 fans per game in 2018. They then drew an additional 200 fans per game in 2019.

“There are examples of organizations that open ballparks and go from last to first (in attendance) and then end up back around the middle of the pack before long. And then lower in the pack after a few years,” Abramson said.

“It is easy to feel like you are the king of the world when you’re in a new ballpark and everybody loves you, but that the attrition comes for you so quickly.”

Like every team, Hartford took an attendance hit during the first post-pandemic season in 2021. But by 2022, the club was back up to 6,000 fans per game. In 2023, they averaged nearly 6,300. And in 2024, they averaged 6,150.

Attrition has not come for the Yard Goats. They draw more fans per game now than they did in year one or two of the new park.

“It’s not even so much about, you know, chasing success or chasing money. It’s just about finding ways to stay interested in the work, you know, so you don’t get tired of just doing the same thing year over year,” Abramson said.

In 2024, that mentality paid off in an improved on-field entertainment experience. The Yard Goats have always done that well, but this year they figured out how to piece the whole experience together.

From the on-field host introduction in the first inning to a sing-along in the late innings, the approach is designed so that fans may show up separately, but by the time they leave, they’ve shared a common experience.

“I look at our games like a concert,” Abramson said. “When people come out, I want them to be on a journey. I want them to feel like they went through something with the whole crowd. And then everybody left, and they were like, ‘Wow, that was amazing. We all experienced it together.’ ”

When Abramson looked at smiling fans singing together every night, he knew they’d found something that had been lacking before.

“Just like a concert, there’s a reason why the hits come at the end of a concert,” Abramson said. “It’s so the whole experience crescendos, and everybody sort of crescendos at the same time.”

The Yard Goats are currently looking at tweaking some sections for 2025. The current setup works, but there are ways it could be reconfigured to make it just that much better.

“I could never have guessed at the level of success, and one of these days I’m going to kick back and enjoy it,” Abramson said.