{"id":2181,"date":"2009-03-14T23:56:41","date_gmt":"2009-03-14T22:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2181"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:34:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:34:04","slug":"something-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2181","title":{"rendered":"Something Different"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other week college baseball was on MLB.TV and this prompted a short discussion about some of the subtle differences between college and MLB baseball with BaseballGB owner Matt.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Away from the majors, there\u00c2\u00a0is a whole host of baseball played from high school baseball to the Minors.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>At some point in the future, I will return to high school & college baseball but I will focus on the Minors for the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

The Minor baseball system runs all year round but a majority of the teams run a season alongside the main MLB season.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>The Minors\u00c2\u00a0are there to help develop future MLB players with a majority of teams being affiliated with an MLB organisation.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>One of the biggest differences compared to MLB is the amount of leagues. Currently in the Minors there\u00c2\u00a0are 20 leagues with a total of 246 clubs split into a number of classifications.<\/p>\n

There are five classifications of minor leagues that are associated with the MLB and then various independent leagues:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

AAA (Triple A)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the last stop before the big leagues as most teams in this class are made up of the last 15 players from an MLB 40-person major league roster.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>The major league teams will call up people from this class to fill positions throughout the season and this is the reason this class is often called the ‘spares’ class.<\/p>\n

Class AA (Double A)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

This class is interesting as all but one league in this class split the season, which means they will play one half of the season and a team will get a playoff spot. Then they clear the standings and start again for the second half of the season with another team getting a playoff spot at the end.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Then wild cards decide the remaining places.<\/p>\n

Class A
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Class A is often called the ‘issues’ class, as you tend to find players are assigned to this class to deal with specific issues they are having. Batting constancy and pitching control are the two main issues why players end up playing in a Class A team.<\/p>\n

Short-Season A
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leagues in this class play a shortened season running from June and then finishing in September.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>The main reason for this short season is that most players in this league are drafted college players so it gives time for the College World Series to finish and gives team managers more time to decide on who to draft.<\/p>\n

Rookie<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

This class also runs a short season.\u00c2\u00a0 Again, this is due to a number of high school drafts entering into this league.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>It is the lowest of the classes to help players develop and due to very few spectators, there can be less pressure on the players.<\/p>\n

Independents<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are also a number of independent leagues whose teams are not affiliated with MLB teams. Some of these are affiliated with other professional teams worldwide, such as Japanese teams.<\/p>\n

As a rule the level of difficulty goes from Rookie (which is entry level) to Triple A which is the last stop before the majors.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/span>Players in the Minors will move between teams that will move them up or down the classes but there are few exceptions, such as major league players being allowed to play a few weeks in a Minors team if they are on the disabled list as part of rehab. These players will go to the nearest affiliated minor club to the team’s home stadium.<\/p>\n

Which of the classifications do you find the most interesting to follow?<\/p>\n

For more info, see: http:\/\/www.minorleaguebaseball.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other week college baseball was on MLB.TV and this prompted a short discussion about some of the subtle differences between college and MLB baseball with BaseballGB owner Matt.\u00c2\u00a0 Away from the majors, there\u00c2\u00a0is a whole host of baseball played from high school baseball to the Minors.\u00c2\u00a0 At some point in the future, I will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[50,553],"class_list":["post-2181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-minor-leagues","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2181"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7278,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2181\/revisions\/7278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}