Minor League Games - May 24th, 2025

[BaseballCat]

I don’t have any numbers to back this up, but the quality of play in the Carolina League has plummeted. I honestly feel like I am watching the old Appy League (Rookie ball). Huge number of walks, batters hit, covering the wrong bag, throwing to the wrong bag, trying to make plays they can’t make and getting super frustrated when things go wrong. I did not see this as often when we were High A. I see “prospects” pushed to higher levels before they are ready and I have talked to scouts that think players are not prepared for the upper levels.

Seeing minor league ball has lead to my love of big league ball and the Phillies. By getting rid of some many teams MLB has ruined player and fan development. There are players that get by without this development, but there are many that just need some structure to have it click. I think MLB is shooting themselves in the foot in the name of cost savings. Poor overall product on the field with less true fans.

[zambonir]

Aren't you for all intents and purpose watching rookie ball? I mean, now that it's low A rather than High A and there's no domestic league below it at all?

The whole sport is run like a hedge fund now.

[BaseballCat]

True I am watching rookie ball now, but when I was watching Low A before 2020, it was not this bad at upper levels. I know fans at the various stadiums in go to and they all say the same thing- the quality a baseball is lower at all levels. And the scouts we sit behind see it and confirm it.

[zambonir]

I reckon that's not what they tried to tell us when they did all this. Contraction and roster limits (and better stadiums/working conditions) was going to raise all boats if the boats didn't sink.

(I was a Pioneer League fan myself, they got booted from low A to Indy).

[andyb]

Contraction and roster limits (and better stadiums/working conditions) was going to raise all boats if the boats didn't sink.

Not sure that was what they told us. I think they said they wanted to make more money and development could be left to the colleges. And if everyone has the same roster limits then the player development pains are spread evenly. They really thought nobody would notice if the depth of prospects developed was not quite as good as before.

[zambonir]

Yeah but they didn't really say they wanted to "make" more money, especially not out loud. They said they needed to eliminate lesser leagues and stadiums in order to pay the players better and give them better working conditions (and housing). Either way, they basically told a bunch of leagues and markets and fans to get bent. They also essentially said the lesser players - the guys taken after Round 20, the UDFAs, - weren't worth developing, and they could go get their crumbs in the newly independent leagues, or the draft leagues. But I don't think it was supposed to make low A worse,

And all of that was before the minor league CBA, which now privileges keeping guys in Latin America as long as possible, while also needing to make as much room as possible for them once they have to be in Florida.

A bunch of nonsense here when they got rid of the Appy League

* "Fans are going to get to see top prospects right in their hometowns, communities are going to see an influx of new revenue opportunities and players are going to receive state-of-the-art training, visibility to our scouts and educational programming that's designed to prepare them for careers as professional athletes," Morgan Sword, MLB's executive vice president of baseball economics and operations, said during a news conference.

Appalachian League leads off contraction process

_

[zambonir]

I guess Law has been beating this drum for a while. This is just six months ago.

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1gyhay2/foul_territory_will_mlb_eliminate_the_minor/

I think they're going to try to cut minor league teams anyways. I keep hearing that they want to cut one and possibly two more levels of the minors. That Rob Manfred says we can just hand development over to college baseball.

[allentown]

I think they're going to try to cut minor league teams anyways. I keep hearing that they want to cut one and possibly two more levels of the minors. That Rob Manfred says we can just hand development over to college baseball.

It is the way of modern financial engineering and short-term profit driven business in America. Profits can go up in the short term, but skimp on R&D and engineering, while making manufacturing work leaner and faster and you can end up like Boeing and Intel seriously ruining the business. MLB has made a lot of moves that risk destruction of baseball. This is a big one. Also making free TV less and less available, and warping the amateur player acquisition process more and more in an attempt to strengthen small-market clubs, considering anything other than real revenue sharing..

It is fine to drool over the NFL's success in having colleges develop their talent, but this wasn't engineered by the NFL: college football was a very big deal before the NFL was. College baseball is small potatoes in comparison. It doesn't have the financial/fan resources to do the job. The population of baseball fans skews older than the other sports' fanbases. The owners seem determined to kill the golden goose.

[andyb]

Yeah but they didn't really say they wanted to "make" more money, especially not out loud.

They were saying it by their actions. Of course they do not say it literally. The job of their PR department is to make it seem as if what they are doing will help everybody.

The reality is that they just don't see their product being appreciably better by the presence of career minor leaguers who might take 5-8 years to see if they can develop into major leaguers. They think people watch the stars and don't care about anything else. Football and basketball farm lots of development to the colleges. Why can't they do it just as effectively?

[zambonir]

Football and basketball farm lots of development to the colleges. Why can't they do it just as effectively?

Well, if they really want to do that they would have to start by banning players from the draft/turning pro until they are 19, as the NBA still does. And in the NFL you have to be three years out of high school.

I don't think they are really hoping college will develop players for MLB, I think they just don't think it matters, and they might still be right about that. The best US players are still going to be a mostly privileged cohort of guys who came up on travel teams or play for major college programs. Everyone else is fringe either way, especially if the US is no longer the most important source of players. What is the actual make-up in MLB of US HS vs. US college vs. international players?

[andyb]

What is the actual make-up in MLB of US HS vs. US college vs. international players?

The basic Google answer is about 45% college/JC, 35% HS, 20% international.

I think the international number is trending a little higher than that these days towards 30%, so we are likely close to a 40% college/30% HS/30% international breakdown especially as new sources like Japan become more plentiful.

The future will probably change that college/HS ratio but maybe not that much. The best HS picks still get drafted and they probably don't get huge NIL money as a freshman. The draft used to be about 75% college/25% HS but that ratio was 80.2/19.8 in 2024 and my guess is we'll trend towards 85% college.