M.L.B. Said to Be Pushing for Overhaul of Minor Leagues Major League Baseball officia

[grampahol]

Some in MLB want to eliminate several lower level teams, mainly rookie leagues and such. Seems to me a push to take baseball out of a lot of small towns consolidating it all to big cities.. and so the destruction of small town baseball begins..
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/18/sports/baseball/minor-league-changes.html?searchResultPosition=1
more from Redsminorleagues.com from Doug Gray. https://redsminorleagues.com/

[guyofthetiger]

Personally, I think there are too many minor leagues from A ball to AAA ball. I would not be opposed to eliminating AA teams and only having A, AA minor leagues where AA replaces AAA. I feel bad for all those players who never get a callup to the majors, but might as well make the path shorter.

[Circleville Guy]

(10-20-2019, 11:14 AM)guyofthetiger Wrote: Personally, I think there are too many minor leagues from A ball to AAA ball. I would not be opposed to eliminating AA teams and only having A, AA minor leagues where AA replaces AAA. I feel bad for all those players who never get a callup to the majors, but might as well make the path shorter.

I always looked as it as the three levels were A- Begin to develop players. AA- Player that are midway developed. AAA- Players should be developed and ready to fill the MLB holes during the season.

[grampahol]

I'm not sure.. There are always going to be young players drafted out of hs and even off the streets who need instruction before cracking A ball.. You seldom hear about these guys, but they're out there and some go on to have decent ML careers, but there's also going to be tons of other jobs lost in a lot of small towns that rely on rookie leagues and such.  And it goes much deeper than just rookie ball. It'll affect international signings and leagues, college baseball and much more.. redsminorleagues.com has a 5 part series on the whole thing now up to part 3 with 4 and 5 coming in the next few days. This is going to affect all of baseball and fans at every level from hs on up.. .It's already mentioned that several big names in baseball today would have never gotten a remote opportunity under the proposed new setup. 

Quote:

Quote:The story of Altuve’s signing as a 16-year-old in 2006, for $15,000, has already taken on the quality of myth: how he attended an Astros tryout, was cut one day and told not to come back by evaluators who couldn’t see past his height. How he showed up at the next session anyway and impressed several observers,

They told Jose Altuve to not come back. Fortunately for them, he didn’t listen. But what if the rules were different and the roster spots simply didn’t exist to pick up a guy on a whim and a hope? Well, that would suck a whole lot. But that’s exactly what will happen if teams are cut out. And it will effect baseball in Latin America far more than it will in America, where there are high schools, junior colleges, 4-year colleges, and even independent leagues to continue showing off your talents for scouts.

They've got to be really good as is to get a roster spot in the current system. Once those spots are eliminated there's almost zero chance for some kid who might someday develop into a big league player..