For bonus points, how do you think the differences in scheduling impact talent evaluation? Do you think it's different for pitchers and position players? And how much do you think it varies by conference?

Sorry if this is too OT, just seems like there isn't a lot to be OnT about these days.

For the player quality of life, a lot of D1 options are better than a couple years in the minors. Better food, better travel, nicer hotels and probably better instruction. Pay in the minors is terrible, food is minimal and you will always be on the bus staying in some cheap hotel.

I agree with everything except quality of play. Minor league baseball is very good, better than any college.

(05-06-2020 09:38 PM)Pounce FTW Wrote:  For bonus points, how do you think the differences in scheduling impact talent evaluation? Do you think it's different for pitchers and position players? And how much do you think it varies by conference?

Sorry if this is too OT, just seems like there isn't a lot to be OnT about these days.

I’d put the talent level of D1 between A and AA. There are some MLB players on the roster that have great potential, and there are some players that will give you a couple years of serviceable play and off they go to do something else.

AAA may be overall better than AA, but AAA is also for career minor leaguers. AA is where the kids are that have the potential to make it to the bigs.

I think the biggest issue with this comparison is the purpose of the minor league teams is to prepare or develop players for the majors, not necessarily about winning. If you can do both, great, but if you have a guy in A or AA that has great velocity but needs work you can see him get a number of innings whether he walks 10 guys as he needs development. I don't think you see that any more in D1 ball. You used to see it in the past before RPI when mid-week games weren't typically needed to make post season, but now all games are critical to your final RPI. JMO

(05-07-2020 10:53 AM)Yarddog Wrote:  I agree with everything except quality of play. Minor league baseball is very good, better than any college.

Have you seen much of the likely soon to be gone Appalachian League? They are Rookie and not bad but they are certainly Rookie League. I think plenty of colleges could take an Appalachian League team.

I live close to the Burlington Indians and the ticket the last time I attended one of their games was $5 with free parking and concessions were also cheap so for a night out with the family it was a cheaper option that heading into Greensboro for low A Sally League games. Stadium is much nicer but tickets are more expensive, parking is not free (until I realized the parking deak the city runs is free that time of the evening.) and concessions are more expensive. There is some difference between low-A and Rookie.

I hate to see the contraction of the minors but a city of Greensboro's size and with the nice stadium we have should be at least high A ball if not AA. Durham is just down the road with a smaller population and has AAA ball and Winston-Salem on the other side is high-A ball. There is some talk Greensboro may get bumped up to a higher level. If not they will be the bottom rung outside of the Florida leagues that don't even have real team names.

Sorry for the tangent.

Appalachian League is the advanced rookie league too. Those FL and AZ rookie leagues are a rung below that even. Those are purely developmental leagues. Morning/afternoon mid-week games with no tickets/concessions or anything. Pretty much just a full season of scrimmages at that level.

(05-07-2020 08:42 PM)McLeansvilleAppFan Wrote:  

(05-07-2020 10:53 AM)Yarddog Wrote:  I agree with everything except quality of play. Minor league baseball is very good, better than any college.

Have you seen much of the likely soon to be gone Appalachian League? They are Rookie and not bad but they are certainly Rookie League. I think plenty of colleges could take an Appalachian League team.

I live close to the Burlington Indians and the ticket the last time I attended one of their games was $5 with free parking and concessions were also cheap so for a night out with the family it was a cheaper option that heading into Greensboro for low A Sally League games. Stadium is much nicer but tickets are more expensive, parking is not free (until I realized the parking deak the city runs is free that time of the evening.) and concessions are more expensive. There is some difference between low-A and Rookie.

I hate to see the contraction of the minors but a city of Greensboro's size and with the nice stadium we have should be at least high A ball if not AA. Durham is just down the road with a smaller population and has AAA ball and Winston-Salem on the other side is high-A ball. There is some talk Greensboro may get bumped up to a higher level. If not they will be the bottom rung outside of the Florida leagues that don't even have real team names.

Sorry for the tangent.

Minor league contraction was going to happen before all this BS, now it may be even worse. I think/hope some independent leagues come in and take the place of the lost minor league teams and leagues. There will be a lot of empty baseball stadiums around this country in a couple years, and that is just sad. Minor league baseball is so much fun and is the right price for a family to go to a game.

(05-07-2020 10:20 PM)Usajags Wrote:  

(05-07-2020 08:42 PM)McLeansvilleAppFan Wrote:  

(05-07-2020 10:53 AM)Yarddog Wrote:  I agree with everything except quality of play. Minor league baseball is very good, better than any college.

Have you seen much of the likely soon to be gone Appalachian League? They are Rookie and not bad but they are certainly Rookie League. I think plenty of colleges could take an Appalachian League team.

I live close to the Burlington Indians and the ticket the last time I attended one of their games was $5 with free parking and concessions were also cheap so for a night out with the family it was a cheaper option that heading into Greensboro for low A Sally League games. Stadium is much nicer but tickets are more expensive, parking is not free (until I realized the parking deak the city runs is free that time of the evening.) and concessions are more expensive. There is some difference between low-A and Rookie.

I hate to see the contraction of the minors but a city of Greensboro's size and with the nice stadium we have should be at least high A ball if not AA. Durham is just down the road with a smaller population and has AAA ball and Winston-Salem on the other side is high-A ball. There is some talk Greensboro may get bumped up to a higher level. If not they will be the bottom rung outside of the Florida leagues that don't even have real team names.

Sorry for the tangent.

Minor league contraction was going to happen before all this BS, now it may be even worse. I think/hope some independent leagues come in and take the place of the lost minor league teams and leagues. There will be a lot of empty baseball stadiums around this country in a couple years, and that is just sad. Minor league baseball is so much fun and is the right price for a family to go to a game.

Yes, this was going to happen. They control most of the purse strings so I am sure the negotiations are very one-sided.

From what has been published in the Greensboro paper it sounds like MLB will control even more of the process down to ticket prices. I am not sure why anyone local would want to own the team. I am sure there were already many conditions in place but it sounds like hiring anything more than ushers may be out of the purview of the MLB team.

High Point is just south of Greensboro and in the same county. Much too close to both Greensboro and Winston-Salem for a MiLB team so they picked up a franchise that needed to move in the Atlantic League. Though independent, there is some connections between the Atlantic League and MLB. MLB has some player connections but non of the financial burdens of paying for player payroll. It can be done and done in an area with 4 minor league teams within an easy drive and 3 more within an hour drive. I have no idea though if this independent team will make it long term, as they averaged about 2,500 per game, in year one. Not bad, but they have a lot of salaries to pay. I have no idea how the stadium rent is done. If free that would be a huge savings of course.

I think the Appalachian League could go amateur and become a summer wood-bat college league, though we have one of those in NC already.

I actually hadn't even thought about the coming contraction; that will almost certainly alter this discussion a bit. I appreciate the replies. Seems like maybe D1 ball could be safely placed somewhere around A to high A, with greater variation in talent expected in college but greater variation in acceptable use of that talent expected in the minors.

Contraction is a bit sad. I grew up in southwest GA and spent a lot of time with the likes of the Columbus Mudcats, Albany Polecats, and Macon Braves. I hate that the opportunity is going to be taken away from so many kids now, but hopefully independent leagues and summer college leagues will be able to fill some of those gaps. On the one hand, some of the top operations in those realms are more stable than a lot of minor league teams in the MiLB system; on the other, that MLB affiliation is probably a bigger draw than many realize.

Minor league baseball players get paid somewhere around $300 a week, which is one reason why I never understood the AAF and XFL paying their players $50k+ for a 3 month season. Baseball players is that same time make $3600.... I understand the toll football takes on their body, but they play 10 games versus 75 games, and we are still talking minor league players, not guys to that were stolen from NFL rosters.

To any extent, when it comes to supporting your local minor league system, rather it be an MLB affiliated club or independent, it all comes to marketing. Does the league and local team put themselves out there to get the community involved??? Does the local media, news broadcast and paper cover games and the league??? To gain interest in the team it only takes a gimmick or two. An NFL player that wants to take a stab at baseball during his off time, a young MLB all star that has forgotten how to hit a curve or can’t throw from 2nd to 1st without throwing 10 rows up in the stands, that is still trying to get back to the league. There are all sorts of things that will bring people out to the ballpark, it just takes the right marketing.

(05-08-2020 11:11 AM)Usajags Wrote:  Minor league baseball players get paid somewhere around $300 a week, which is one reason why I never understood the AAF and XFL paying their players $50k+ for a 3 month season. Baseball players is that same time make $3600.... I understand the toll football takes on their body, but they play 10 games versus 75 games, and we are still talking minor league players, not guys to that were stolen from NFL rosters.

To any extent, when it comes to supporting your local minor league system, rather it be an MLB affiliated club or independent, it all comes to marketing. Does the league and local team put themselves out there to get the community involved??? Does the local media, news broadcast and paper cover games and the league??? To gain interest in the team it only takes a gimmick or two. An NFL player that wants to take a stab at baseball during his off time, a young MLB all star that has forgotten how to hit a curve or can’t throw from 2nd to 1st without throwing 10 rows up in the stands, that is still trying to get back to the league. There are all sorts of things that will bring people out to the ballpark, it just takes the right marketing.

I think this contraction may bring about some changes in MiLB pay, and may be driving some of the contraction.

Baseball is going to slowly die over the decades and this is not helping as it takes that live connection away from 40 communities around the country. Long term not a great business decision but short term it will save tens of millions a year for MLB teams.

Maybe Rookie league at the lowest level.

(05-09-2020 08:12 AM)Gemofthehills Wrote:  Maybe Rookie league at the lowest level.

As in the worst D1 teams could play at the Rookie level, or D1 teams in general could compete in one of the Rookie complex leagues? The second sounds closer to the truth to me, but maybe I'm underestimating how good even the worst D1 players are.

Sounds like the current possible plans for MLB baseball this year is a July 1st opening day, with no fans in the stands. And NO minor league baseball this year. Those cities paying for those minor league parks are going to be hurting even more this year.

I played in a men's league several years ago. It included several guys who played at stAte and another small college. We had two pitchers who were drafted. This was after college and the men's league. One didn't sign the other did. A small lefty who did well at stAte. Everything he threw moved. We had some guys who played high school ball who didn't want to warm him up. I think he played 3 years in the minors. Never got out of A ball. I doubt any college team could come close to competing against a low minor league team. Individual players yeah but not a full team.

So are they playing with wood bats or metal bats?
There can be a difficult transition going from HS/college baseball using metal bats, to Rookie and A ball using wood bats. The lifestyle of a D1 baseball player is definitely better. Being on a nice college campus, enjoying the college life. Possibly living in apartment style dorms, and having free meal plans on campus. While in the lower minors, unless you had a big signing bonus, you are likely living with a host family and eating ramen noodles.

(05-12-2020 01:23 PM)GoBigRed26 Wrote:  So are they playing with wood bats or metal bats?
There can be a difficult transition going from HS/college baseball using metal bats, to Rookie and A ball using wood bats. The lifestyle of a D1 baseball player is definitely better. Being on a nice college campus, enjoying the college life. Possibly living in apartment style dorms, and having free meal plans on campus. While in the lower minors, unless you had a big signing bonus, you are likely living with a host family and eating ramen noodles.

I guess I'd treat this as a wood bat competition, with an assumption that the college kids are able to get as used to swinging them as their professional brethren. Maybe go ahead and weed out the kids that just can't adjust to wood to keep it as fair as possible...although it seems like the level of the minors comparable to D1 (if there is one) is about as likely to have players struggling with the transition from metal as actual college players would be.

Is it for sure no minor league baseball this year? That would be awful.

(05-15-2020 02:29 PM)TOPSTRAIGHT Wrote:  Is it for sure no minor league baseball this year? That would be awful.

Doesn't seem to be determined yet...

https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/12...3373007875