Major League Baseball on Monday announced that it has teamed with Prep Baseball Report to form the MLB Draft League — a new summer league that will allow the nation’s top draft-eligible players to compete in a 68-game season beginning next year. The league will be headed up by former MLB scout Kerrick Jackson, who resigned from his post as the head coach at Southern University to take this newly created position.
Five teams, all of them former minor league affiliates, have been brought aboard as the founding five clubs in the league: the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, the State College Spikes, the Trenton Thunder, the West Virginia Black Bears and the Williamsport Crosscutters. Talks with a sixth team are in the works, per the league’s press release, with an announcement hopefully coming in the near future.
The Draft League is made possible by MLB’s previous decision to push the annual amateur draft back from early June to instead coincide with the MLB All-Star break in mid-July. Per today’s announcement, the 68-game schedule will include an annual All-Star break centered around the MLB draft, so it seems as though the idea is for play to continue once these players have been drafted. That, conceivably, could help to offset some the elimination of short-season Class-A leagues. Big league scouts will be able to watch the league in person, and the MLB adds that they’ll also be able to evaluate participants via “state-of-the-art scouting technology.”
Jackson appeared on MLB Network this morning to discuss the league and clarify some of the timing and scheduling aspects (video link). The league will commence in early June and run into August. MLB’s goal will be to attract as much top draft-eligible talent as possible, though Jackson acknowledged that some programs which qualify for postseason play will push back against sending their players to participate in the Draft League.
There are some murky areas that have yet to be defined in full. It’s not clear, for instance, whether every MLB team will want its draft signees to continue playing in the league, although that ostensibly could help to offset the loss of some Short-Season Class-A leagues. Jackson alludes to the fact that the league expects some players to pull out of the league after being drafted, noting that “after the draft, we’ll be able to take some kids — some of the seniors and some other guys looking to get those free-agent opportunities and put them in that mix.”
The initial hope is for a six-team league with 30-man rosters, per Jackson, creating 180 roster spots in the league’s first iteration. Depending on how things progress down the line, MLB may look to eventually install additional teams in the league. For the time being, it doesn’t appear as though there will be separation of college and high school talent.
Suffice it to say there are some logistics that need to be sorted out or at least clarified, but the broader takeaway is that the inception of the Draft League will ideally give teams and fans a new level of access to prospects in the days and weeks leading up to the draft. Doing so should create greater marketing opportunities and, hopefully for MLB, draw some extra eyes and attention for the draft itself. The Major League Baseball Draft has never been seen as an event on par with the NBA or NFL drafts, after all. However, there’s no getting around the fundamental difference that prospects selected in those other sports’ drafts will frequently jump directly onto the active roster of their new clubs, while virtually every player selected in the MLB draft is at least a couple of years from MLB readiness.
dang
MLB getting all fancy schmancy. I don’t see what’s wrong with the way the draft has always been.
Nice
Interesting concept.
Little confused about this.
So potential top prospects to be drafted will sign with a team (they choose or does the team draft rosters each year?) and plays until they are drafted by a major league team in July?
This is definitely a weird format.
I would guess it is a draft. We have a college wood bat league in my town for the Prospect League. They have a sort of draft process, so it’ll likely be something similar. A draft for a good amount of spots, then fill in the roster. Like a fantasy draft.
It says the league will be made up of players who are eligible to BE drafted. Once they are drafted, they could continue with their Draft League teams until the end of their season, then move to an affiliate of the organization that drafted them. Or the drafting organization might pull them out immediately, but may not have a spot for them because of the elimination of some of the minor league teams.
…I dunno, I just paraphrased what was there, but it makes sense to me.
Baseball America is also reporting that the league is mainly geared towards rising college seniors but will be open to juco, juniors, and HS
They getting paid?
I don’t see how they could get paid. For the first half of the season they are still amateurs, not to mention some of the high school participants may not like where they get drafted and opt to go to college instead. They would be deemed ineligible by the NCAA if they were getting paid to play prior to attending college.
exactly
NCAA, what a joke
They’ll get paid, they’ll forfeit any collegiate eligibility to join up. I would assume the season will start after the collegiate regular season begins (more players would be signed as their teams are eliminated from the NCAA tourney). This league is going to be for primarily college seniors, with no remaining eligibility, to showcase their skills. And I would imagine most who do get drafted will be later rounds and their drafting team won’t care if they stay there for the full 68 game season.
This is being done to appease some of the markets losing an affiliated team.
I meant to say after the college season (regular season) ends not begins. So mid-May or late-May to begin after most conference tournaments end. .
Ice hockey has multiple junior leagues where the kids are drafted by teams, are basic given living expenses, and stay with a local family while they play. They are still eligible for college hockey because they were not technically paid to play. I would assume it would be something along those lines.
No. That’s why they’re doing this.
Why would a top prospect, set to make millions, risk anything to play in this league?
they probably wolnt. it would be for lower ranked guys (mid 1st round down probably) who want to boost their stock.
Third day guys, mostly.
11th round and down.
i mean, there are loads of 2nd and lower round caliber guys who would probably be interested in trying to move up.
That would make sense. If I’m a top prospect, I’d bubble wrap myself until I had ink on contract.
Good question. If they’re already a prospect I really doubt they would risk bad performance or injury just to show off to some scouts.
They already do so in the Cape Cod. It’s not at all a new concept
They aren’t yet “prospects” in the Cape Cod League. Most are college players trying to get better and improve their chances of being drafted.
Does the Cape Cod League have all the carnival garbage that the Northwoods League has?
Thats like 10 kids maybe. The rest have the prove their value in the spring as usual.
If you’re the #1 prospect, you should probably skip it. If you’re a slightly lower prospect, you have a chance for a lucky hot month to make you a lot of extra money by getting you drafted earlier. The money difference between going 10th and going 15th can be significant.
Of course there’s the chance of losing money from a bad month or getting hurt, but confident kids think that’ll be the other guy.
Don’t expect to see many 1st or 2nd day pitchers in this league.
yikes, bigger demotion then could have been expected for the Tunder. i thought they were ready made for the Atlantic League
*Thunder
My guess is that in a no covid world… Trenton would be in the Atlantic league. But who knows what 2021 will have for MiLB and indy leagues. While this draft league will be mostly funded by MLB so less risk for the teams
*Yikes
One more step closer to eliminating the majority of minor league teams….
Eliminating 40 out of 160 is not a majority bucko but please try again
Garbage. Poor replacement for SS ball. Six teams? And why would Top 3 Round talent risk injury there? It’s only 6 rounds worth of players, and my guess is it will be the guys fighting for spots in the last 2. In other words, guys who wouldn’t make SS ball after the draft, but would spend the summer in Complex ball (Gulf Coast & AZ). This decimation of MiLB is awful, and hurts fans. For what? A few million in savings? Doesn’t make a dent in MLB operating budgets, and is meaningless (or should be) to billionaire owners.
Umm…These are undrafted players. Short season A ball is for drafted players.
Pjmcnu
This will be an amazing thing for Juco, D2 and 3 and high school kids not at top schools. Also will be great for someone at any level that missed significant time in their season but would be ready to play in this draft league. Practising and playing in front of MLB scouts will jump some of these kids up a round or two easily. Then in the 2nd half of the season when it becomes undrafted players… also great for teams to see some of the lower level guys playing against slightly better competition.
As far as the changes to MiLB, yes there will be some fans hurt… but the players are making out like bandits in this change. Less travel, more money, better facilities and more access to better developmental and rehab staff
I hope they make this a wooden bat league.
I would think it would have to be since it’s affiliated with MLB
If you were projected top 1/2 of first round – no way u play in this league. Rest will mainly be forced to follow suite. This will give gm’s a much better gauge of talent therefore able to project picks better. It should also develop players faster as they are not going to loose that development time from end of season til signing and reassigning w new club.
Big win for owners ! Let’s see how it shakes out w players. They’ll likely fold and get little to nothing out of this
Probably won’t see many if any major college SP in this league bc they will already have thrown a ton of innings by this point.
JBC on mlb damage control shift
So this league is for the same year draftees to build their stock if it was low. Guys like Evan Carter (the Rangers 2nd round surprise pick last season) who weren’t well scouted, but look like diamonds in the rough.
Yes exactly
They will have offer some sort of injury insurance policy for the players to show up. Good concept in theory but doesn’t seem like it will be a big draw fan wise.
Hardcore fans in the area will probably flock to the first half of the season at least. There are a lot of us out there that love draft season and draft bbn prospects
I’m not sure why they would. A lot of these same guys already play in leagues like the Cape Cod.
MLB ownership is using covid 19 as an excuse to make many changes they have dreamed about for years such as completely rearranging the minor league system, instituting universal DH(sucks hugely by the way), rearranging the draft and setting a new bar for player salaries. Much more is coming.
I will not be surprised at all if the players union calls for a strike over these changes.
Perhaps fans should form their own union as well and call for a general strike.
Fat chance of that, lemmings that we are.
@toasty,
I nominate you as the president of the “fan union.”
Toasty
Zero chance the union complains. Minor leaguers are winning with these changes. More money better facilities, more access to better developmental and rehab staff. Plus the biggie, a lot less travel
MLB announced this change of reducing the number of clubs before covid. Covid just made it easier for them to do,
The Universal DH is wonderful. Way more exciting than Pitchers getting out at the plate. There will always be teams with a crappy DH that hates the rule. It makes the game more action packed. Idk how I can ever watch a Pitcher at the plate again
It’s called “baseball.”
I’m not sure this makes much sense. It seems MLB is more interested in forcing viewers to have fewer options to go to minor league games. It seems all of these teams are in Pennsylvania–will there be similar leagues in California, Florida, etc? MLB has much bigger problems than this and should be focusing on improving the quality of play and the cost for a family to go see a game. I’d even rate ESPN having the Cubs play in half (this is no exaggeration–it is a carefully tabulated 3 year average–no other team comes even remotely close) the games they televise is hurting baseball more than the lower minor leagues.
Most people I’ve known that go to minor league games could care less about a MLB affiliation. They go for fun and cheap entertainment. That’s why the independent St Paul saints are in the top 10 of all american non MLB attendance
And the St. Paul Saints attendance and proximity to MIN is why they are one of at least 2 unaffiliated teams that will become affiliated.
They’ll be the 3rd. Sugsrland and Somerset are already announced .
I like this idea. Though, I think after they get drafted they should be forced out of the league to create openings for undrafted players who have a shot at being signed as UDFA’s
Exactly what they are doing by doing two halves to the season. 1st half is draft eligible and 2nd half is undrafted
Kind of like the Senior Bowl in football. More for the scouts than the fans but good showings/meetings have been known to move a player up the draft board.
Umm are they forgetting about the Cape Code Baseball League… Freddie Prince Jr didn’t work his @ss off for nothin!
Interesting idea, but it seems like it would widen the economic gaps in opportunities. Given that they likely won’t be paid, how many disadvantaged families can afford to send their kids to this? Seems like a good way to miss talent.
MLB will pick up the costs for food and insurance. And teams will most likely use host families for the players like indy leagues offer if a player doesn’t want to pay for a hotel
I’m curious about the impact this will have on existing wood bat leagues
So, what does this mean for the Cape Cod league?
It will continue.
Cape cod is mainly only D1 NCAA players. This league includes juco, HS, and D2-3 players
This league will do two positive things for MLB:
1) It will make draft picks more valuable and meaningful, less of a crap-shoot by providing a format for these players to compete vs. equal competition. As an example, in the 2020 draft there were 160 players drafted. Of those, sixty-three (39%) played in The SEC/PAC-12/ACC/Big-12. The remaining ninety-seven (61%) were drafted out of high-school, junior or community college, Div-II or III, or from the remaining thirteen Div-I conferences where they were among the only 1-5 players drafted. In other words, well over half of the players in the 2020 draft were drafted while never having played against reasonable competition, and even the remaining 39% played against well-diluted competition. This is the primary reason for the league. The overall effect is that the lower tier MLB teams from year-to-year will benefit by making their higher draft choices more meaningful.
2) It will also give players who would not otherwise have an opportunity to be drafted the format to prove themselves. The league will eventually add teams, and/or there will be another regional league structured the same way, giving a lot more young players potential draft opportunity.
2nd string
If I read correctly MLB does want to use some of the Northwest league and Pioneer league teams to do the same out west.
I was wrong … the Pioneer league is now an independent league. And it sounds like a decent piece of the Northwest league, if not all of it will become low A full season
Who are the players in this league?
If this league is targeting its all star break to coincide with the MLB draft – then, wouldn’t these players be in High School or College ball?
There’s a small window between HS and the MLB Draft – but doesn’t the MLB Draft generally overlap with the College World Series?
The league is targeted towards draft prospects for 2021
They are moving the draft to the MLB all star game break
Well, I guess I just saw my last Mahoning Valley Scrappers game. I go to see Indians’ prospects, not a bunch of random guys, who might not even make it. Thanks Rob Manfred, for more nothing!
If you’re gonna be angry… be angry at the right people. The owners made this decision. Manfred only carries out their wishes
Do you really think that team like the Indians, or Royals, or Pirates, actually think all of this is good for their player development? Oh yeah, Manfred is “Mr. Change,” and is going to shape the game to a slicker, more dumbed-down version in an attempt to grab fans’ attention.
We had minor league hockey in this area (equivalent to AA baseball), and now after that got screwed-up by ownership (Thank You, Herb Washington…yes, baseball fans, THAT Herb Washington), we now have playing in our nice arena a junior league “draft prep” team that charges THE SAME PRICE as the old team for glorified high school all-star hockey. How much you wanna’ bet the Scrappers’ prices remain the same for lesser baseball?
Wow, now fans will say, “See that guy on the bench for the Diamondbacks, he played here in Niles.” Instead of, “It was great seeing C.C. Sabathia, Victor Martinez, Jason Kipnis, etc. etc get their start for our Indians, right here!”
We have some sort of minor league hockey, here. It’s glorified HS hockey, not even close to the old WHL (Go SD Gulls!). They charge outrageous prices, and nearly the entire roster is “unafilliated,” just hoping to get drafted.
It’s the last thing I want to see in baseball. I go to minor league baseball games to see good baseball played by prospects of my favorite ML team.
Manfred doesn’t understand baseball; the game or its fans.
Should we tell him that there is literally no difference between a bunch of random guys that wont make it & his Indians Prospects
Absolutely love all the new changes to MiLB. Keeping teams closer to big league cities or spring training sites allows for more access to higher quality developmental and rehab staff. Better pay and less travel greatly improves quality of life for minor leaguers. A baseline for quality of facilities and quality of hotels on the road is also a huge win for players. Less rounds to the draft and more exposure through draft leagues and partnering with the main three indy leagues will allow those not drafted to be seen against better competition and honestly it’s better to come into the league as a UDFA than a 30th round pick bc you will have more say in where you go and probably make a better signing bonus especially if there is any kind of bidding war? Most of the 42 teams being cut from organized ball will probably keep some form of baseball which is good for the cities involved. And the cutting of rookie leagues and moving the draft back is actually great for the overall health of college players. They are usually worn down after a full college season, especially pitchers. So going to the compound leagues is better. My expectations are you won’t even see many college pitchers go to the compound leagues… more likely sit them til fall ik instructionals. These changes are a Godsend for players
Don’t you have better things to do with your time than comment on this discussion, Rob Manfred?
Sorry that I have friends and basically relatives in the minors and am excited to see th ings improve for them. What do you have against minor league players getting a better shake in things toasty?
I simply do not trust the owners or Manfred to do anything but dilute and mangle this beautiful game and line their own pockets. They have not proven themselves to be worthy caretakers of America’s pastime
Most of the owners have been in place for quite a while so are you saying that the game has been declining for basically 20 years
Yep
Not even close. MLB is healthier than than the 90s
Nope…in the 90’s baseball was Rockin’ for my Indians…now, we have the Dolans and Manfred…yipee!
No, it’s actually been much longer than that. I would posit that the start of this decline was in 1969 when the mound was lowered so as to have fewer strike outs. The most egregious offense was the institution of the designated hitter in the AL. Now, there is discussion of lowering the mound even more and having universal DH.
What’s next, aluminum bats? Let’s not stop there. Just let the batters hit off of a tee like 5 year olds! That should certainly increase offensive production!
toastyroasty for the win. Put the mound height back to 15 inches high and let’s hope that eventually decreases the number of TJS and helps keep pitchers healthy. Who knows, you might shorten games with better starting pitching and a nice tip of the cap to the hitters who keep raking despite the change.
Toasty knows baseball. He’s my nomination for Commissioner.
Good to see MV gets to still have a team. Go Scrappers.
Yeah, a team of non-affiliated maybes, instead of future-Indians. There is one other thing they won’t have any more…MY MONEY!
Not to be confused with an MLB fantasy draft league. lol
this is surprising….hope it eventually leads to minor leaguers getting some benefits. they deserve it!
Smart move….hope they televise this!!
Possibly on the MLB network
Definitely a neat idea. I promote anything that gives kids more opportunities to showcase their skills for a contract. Needs to be on tv though. More baseball!!
Who would watch a bunch of unknown HS kids on TV?
Yawn.
Looks like I’m coming out of retirement fellas! Just look for the good-looking guy effortlessly hitting home runs – that’s me.
I think it’s a good idea to take the top prospects for the 2021 draft and put them in a league and yes these guys will be drafted into the major league baseball but they’ll still be playing in this summer league even after being drafted by whatever major-league team they get drafted by
That’s one way to solve the MiLB pay problem, just have them play before they’re even drafted and get rid of the rest of the low level leagues altogether
Is anybody else completely done with Manfred? He needs to get out of baseball.
Me! Me! Me!
This seems similar to the Cape Cod league, controlled by MLB. Also a chance to see how these players will react in a more level playing field with wooden bats.
There are a LOT of highly regarded wooden bat leagues. The Cape Cod League just happens to be closest to New effing York.
State College (and if the Black Bears are the team that was in Morgantown) would a great place to be a minor league ballplayer.
This is great for baseball. Players don’t need to get paid in this league – This will be a haven for Mike Piazza type players. Getting reps and exposure against comparable competition with a narrative of rags to riches as a backdrop will make this a success. I’d add an independent team of released players in each league vying to make a comeback (without pay) People will pay to see good amateur baseball. Minor leaguers (outside of bonus babies) don’t make sustainable money already. This idea has unlimited potential and should invigorate youth interest in baseball in America.
Envision a nationwide Cape Cod League – Nice! Or Perfect Game (travel baseball) on steroids! 600 teams with one national champion will add to baseball’s popularity in the US.