The Appalachian League will be part of the Prospect Development PipelineAPPALACHIAN LEAGUE
MLB and USA Baseball are reformatting the Appalachian League from an A-level minor league to a “wood-bat league featuring prominent college freshmen and sophomores,” according to a front-page piece by Parker Cotton of the DANVILLE REGISTER & BEE. The league will be “considered part of the Prospect Development Pipeline, a collaboration between MLB and USA Baseball to provide amateur baseball players with a path, potentially, to professional baseball.” Each of the 10 teams in the league “will undergo a process of changing their names and logos to incorporate symbols and images that represent their specific communities.” MLB and USA Baseball already are “identifying and inviting players to participate in the 2021 season” (DANVILLE REGISTER & BEE, 9/30). In West Virginia, Eric Walker notes the Appalachian League was one of the leagues that MLB “was planning to cut as it is reducing its minor leagues affiliates from 160 to 120 beginning next season.” The current agreement between MLB and MiLB expires today (BLUEFIELD DAILY TELEGRAPH, 9/30).
THREE-YEAR COMMITMENT MADE: The AP noted each of the 10 teams in the Appalachian League “will be scheduled for a 54-game regular season with wood bats, and the two organizations will support staffing and administration.” USA Baseball will operate the league, while MLB “has made a three-year commitment for it to be a college summer league.” MLB owns the majority of the Appalachian League teams “and has local operators, making the change the easiest of the switches.” MLB and USA Baseball are talking with the NCAA “to ensure participation does not detract from college eligibility.” Many teams in both the Rookie Advanced Pioneer League and the Class A Short Season New York-Penn League “also were on an early list of those targeted to lose their affiliations, but it is not clear whether those targeted by MLB have changed” (AP, 9/29).
CAPE COD LEAGUE SAFE: BASEBALL AMERICA's J.J. Cooper noted that MLB “made clear that this league is not designed to compete with the Cape Cod League for talent, as it still expects the top rising juniors to head to either the Collegiate National Team or the Cape Cod League.” However, the expectations that this “will be an elite-level league does seem to create competition” with the Northwoods League and “other summer college leagues that attract top rising freshmen and sophomores” (BASEBALLAMERICA.com, 9/29).
MANFRED'S TAKE: MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred earlier this week in a podcast with Jon Heyman and Tony Gwynn Jr. talked about the new MiLB set-up and said, “The minor league system for most people will look very similar to how it looks today. There will be 120 or so affiliated franchises that are in exactly the same situation as today. In the other 40 or so communities, you will have premier amateur and or college leagues that will keep baseball alive in those communities." He said the shift to either elite amateur or collegiate leagues "will promote a better relationship with college baseball," while it reduced the "number of players that were signing that don’t really have a realistic possibility of making it to the major leagues." Manfred: “The idea that somehow we are abandoning markets -- I hate to use that phrase, but that’s fake news. That was put out by the minor leagues in an effort to leverage us. It’s just untrue. You’ve seen in recent days we’ve made partnerships with independent leagues, trying to bring more leagues under our umbrella to help grow the game in those communities” ("Big Time Baseball," 9/28).
