It seems that our prospect and minor league discussion is a little all over the place. Prospect ranking talk can go in the prospect thread. Signings and releases can be discussed in the transaction threads.
This is a place to discuss general and Phillies minor league news over the course of the season. Here is where we can also start talking now about minor league placements, like a potential AAA outfield of Moniak, Stephen, and Randolph supplemented by a AAAA player or two. We previously had separate threads for that.
Once the season starts we will have daily game threads (hopefully!!!). But for now this is a good place to talk minors, minor league spring training, and player assignments.
I will start with the official minor league alignment announced today. One interesting wrinkle in High A is that the Phillies are in a 12-team league combining parts of the SAL and the Carolina League mainly. New twist is that the northern division is only 5 teams and the southern division is 7.
Other things noted for this year is that the AAA season is supposed to be 144 games. The AA season 1 week shorter at 138. And the A leagues 2 weeks shorter at 132. I assume this is permanent so the attempt might be to stagger spring arrivals a bit more in the future with AAA and AA candidates coming in earlier and lower level candidates maybe not coming to camp until major league cuts start in mid to late March.
There is also a chance there will be no GCL league this year, just extended Spring all year. That is more of a COVID driven development. Those leagues should return and I think there is a fair chance they will start earlier since the intent is not to have new draftees play too much with the draft around the All Star break. Plus players that might have gone to the NY-Penn league might as well play GCL games in May.
https://twitter.com/ctrent/status/1360258687483469829/photo/1
