Minor League Contraction: What It Means For Low-Level Prospects
Major League Baseball announced a couple weeks ago that the Appalachian League would become a summer wood-bat league for college players, starting the process of minor league contraction.
The league will become a part of what MLB and USA Baseball are calling a Prospect Development Pipeline. A total of 320 college players will be invited to play next year in a 54-game regular season, providing more opportunities for playing time, exposure and tech-aided information with TrackMan in the ballparks.
The 10 teams in the Appalachian League are part of a plan by MLB to cut affiliates from 160 to 120 next year. We’re likely to see something similar in the Pioneer and New York-Penn leagues as MLB cuts out the short-season leagues located outside of team complexes.
This can be a positive for college players who want to continue playing during the summer, whether it’s to simply get more on-field reps or increased exposure.
Summer wood-bat leagues have become quite the scene lately, with teams popping up in the Southeast region, even some proposing new ballparks and developments, and now entire leagues being created. The growth in these leagues does create a potential saturation problem with talent and competition spread thin across leagues, but it should be a net positive overall for the college and amateur scene.
This decision hurts franchises, because losing a pro affiliation is a big deal. Franchises lose the connection that comes with being affiliated, such as the ability for Danville to say it helped produce the next generation of Braves stars like Ronald Acuña Jr. and Ian Anderson. Fans take pride in that connection, too.
However, I doubt franchises see much difference in day-to-day revenue from ticket and concession sales, and if anything, there could be increases in merchandise sales from new identities. It’s also worth noting that it’s not a tremendous shift considering the league was already under MLB’s umbrella and franchises were almost all owned by the organizations, including Danville.
We will probably see a continuation of the minor league theme of crazy new team names and logos. The casual fan who wants to get a beer and hot dog and watch a game, or a family that wants to get out on a summer night, will still enjoy a similar environment at the park. Some wood-bat teams even take the entertainment a step further to create a fun atmosphere for families.
But what does it mean for prospects? Streamlined player development means only four full-season teams and complex ball. For the Braves, that would mean Gwinnett, Mississippi, Florida (or its equivalent), Rome and the GCL Braves. There will no longer be the late-season promotion to an advanced short-season team for newly drafted players. They either stay on the complex in Florida or make the jump to Low-A Rome.
For one, none of this makes sense unless organizations invest heavily in their complex programs. Teams are doing that better these days, including the Braves, who have a new facility in North Port with academy-style buildings and the space to accommodate different types of training for large numbers of players. It would have been counterintuitive to eliminate advanced short-season ball just to hold back prospects on a complex that doesn’t provide the best training opportunities for them. The timing of the new facility is great for the Braves.
Once these changes take effect, I could see organizations, including the Braves, hold younger prospects back on the complex. The extra time spent in extended spring training and the Gulf Coast League could be used to further develop the 17-19-year-olds until player development feels they are ready for the full-season jump to Rome or higher. The spring complex is the best facility a prospect will see until at least Double-A or even the major leagues, and it provides excellent development opportunities. It would make sense for organizations to utilize this investment by keeping certain prospects on the complexes for longer periods of time.
There are countless examples of prospects getting a late-season promotion to an advanced rookie league like the Appalachian League. Acuña played 37 games on the complex in the Gulf Coast League as a 17-year-old in 2015 before getting that late assignment to Danville for the final 18 games. As is often the case, he started the next season at Rome. This is a pretty typical route.
Another common route is starting a young prospect in the South Atlantic League for the first time to give him a taste of a full-season league before sending him to the complex or an advanced short-season league once those leagues begin play mid-summer.
These routes will be no longer. Someone like Acuña would now go from the GCL to Rome. This path is certainly not unheard of. Third-round outfielder Michael Harris was assigned to Rome for his final 22 games of 2019 after playing 31 games in the GCL after the draft.
In the past, this sort of jump has been reserved for prospects whom the org felt were advanced enough to handle the increase in competition. You may still see this sort of aggressive assignment on occasion, especially as a late-season reward or challenge. However, for the most part, I expect younger prospects to hang back on the complex as is often the case now.
With no middle-man league to help smooth out the transition to full-season ball, prospects will need to be ready for that big jump to Low-A. It puts increased focus on development to properly identify a prospect’s readiness. It also puts focus on the effectiveness of an org’s complex in developing prospects.
Ultimately, the goal of streamlining player development is to increase efficiency in churning out major leaguers while limiting costs. It will be worth tracking how orgs handle this, including player assignments in the lower levels, going forward.