Let the kids play. Carp just isn’t ready, and if I never watch another Donaldson at-bat, well, that would be great. If his defense is just so amazing that you have to play him, ffs don’t put him in the middle of the order. No higher than eighth, please.
And, importantly, unlike English football, in which the teams at lower levels are independent of the teams at the top level (the Premier League), many minor league baseball teams (particularly those at the AAA and AA level) are directly affiliated with, and controlled by, MLB teams.
Those “high minors” are developmental teams for MLB, and although they certainly compete, and seek to win, the reality is that, at a certain point, their success on the field is secondary to serving to develop future MLB players.
So, while the idea of having promotion/relegation is kind of interesting, the majors/minors setup of American baseball, as it stands today, doesn’t lend itself to that system.
They’re almost like “practice squads” for MLB teams, or at least that’s how I see them. You often see MLB players “sent down” to AAA or even lower if they are struggling, and it’s a chance for them to work on skills and/or build up confidence outside of the pressure and heavy competition seen in Major League games. They are expected to eventually go back to the MLB team once they work out whatever they need. I also see players doing that when recovering from an injury.
You wouldn’t. Such a system could only happen if MLB collapsed and professional baseball essentially started over again.
In MLB, a franchise is not just an organization that organizes a baseball team and arranged games; it’s an ownership stake in the second most money-generating sports league on the planet. It would make no sense at all for any team to agree to the possibility of being relegated to AAA, because that would devastate the value of the franchise. That’s what these owners paid to NOT have happen. Even bad teams - say, the Washington Nationals - derive millions of dollars in value from being MLB teams that would be instantly lost if they weren’t MLB teams.
MLB has therefore structured itself and all its rules for team organization so that teams don’t end up at the bottom indefinitely - the Nationals, who were this year’s worst team, won the World Series only three years ago. Teams can and do get dramatically better in very short periods of time; this year’s playoffs included the Padres, Blue Jays, Mariners, and Phillies, all of which were bullshit teams three or four years ago. This sort of thing is deliberate, encouraged by draft orders, free agent compensation systems, signing bonus limits, and so on.
That’s not even getting into the fact that most minor league players are employees of major league teams.
If you literally destroyed MLB and MiLB and started over, you could try to construct a system like the English football league system, whereby all leagues are interconnected but al clubs are wholly independent and could theoretically be promoted or relegated up or down any amount. Whether fans unaccustomed to such a system - which does tend to result in extreme competitive imbalance at the top - would like it, I am not sure.
Well, that’s one purpose, but it’s not the larger one. Players being sent down to work out specific problems isn’t really the most common use of the AAA team; it does happen, but there are limits on a team’s ability to do that, and there’s other ways to address specific problems, such as winter ball. More senior players CAN’T be sent down, and some players have no “options” for demotion, so you can demote them but must place them on waivers, so attempting to demote them can result in their being snapped up by other teams. A limited number of players can be available for recall at any time, and having too many players of a certain level of minor league experience means some can be taken away by other teams. MLB has a dizzying array of rules preventing teams from abusing player movement from MLB to its minor league affiliates.
The primary purpose of the minors is simply to train players before they reach MLB. Baseball is a sport of extreme precision and repetition; while physical strength and speed is important, it’s not a sport that physical talent can overwhelm skill. Young men drafted out of high school or college, or signed from countries they don’t draft players from, are almost never ready for MLB, so they have to be trained for years. Baseball teams draft WAY more players than will ever reach the majors, or even reach AAA; most young men drafted/signed will never sniff AAA ball. The minors exist to just sort through them.
Eventually, AAA does end up being where players are swapped up and down, but it’s not so much that players are sent down to correct problems - it’s largely just that they fail or get hurt. MLB teams can have 26 players most of the time, but a team will chew through 45-60 players a year, a lot of that just due to injuries. AAA is… where you keep your spares.
LOL, the Mariners were a bullshit team 20 years ago. 
Though I guess that sort of goes against your point…
Sure, yes. They are primarily development teams. My point was that they aren’t exclusively that. And the vast majority of Minor League players will never play on a Major League team. But I believe every player (or almost?) in the Major Leagues was on a Minor League team first. (Correct me if I’m wrong; I am not an expert on the MLB, I consider myself a relatively casual fan.) Which is why they are crucial for player development.
You’re pretty much correct. In recent years, there have been a very small number of players who didn’t play in the minors before being on an active MLB roster: Shohei Ohtani and Ichiro Suzuki are two examples of that, but they both had several years of experience in Nippon Professional Baseball prior to joining an MLB team.
Below is a link to a list of drafted players (which, as @RickJay noted, only includes players from the U.S. and Canada) who went directly to the majors, without ever playing in the minors, dating back to when the MLB draft began in 1965. Most of them had experience in college ball, and there’s only been three, in total, in the past 22 years.
And I think several of those (I know Nady did) played a few MLB games and then went down to the Minors.
Jumping from college to MLB isn’t that crazy, since it’s like the lower level minor leagues anyway. The three guys on that list who went from high school to MLB were all sent down to the minors for a couple years.
I’m more impressed by guys who come up at age 18 or 19 and stick, like A-Rod and Griffey jr…
Not on that list, because he did play briefly in the minors, is Robin Yount. He was drafted by the Brewers at age 17, just as he graduated from high school in June of 1973; he then played 64 games that summer in a short-season single-A league, before joining (and sticking with) the major-league team for the start of the 1974 season, at age 18.
Prior to 1965 they had the Bonus Baby rule. If a team paid a new player more than $4,000 (in 1947. Not sure if the amount went up) they had to put them directly on the big league roster for at least two years. That was to keep big teams from gobbling up young players and keeping them in the minors. If you were going to offer an 18 year old a big contract you had to be really sure of their talent. There were some really famous Bonus Babies like Harmon Killebrew, Sandy Koufax and Catfish Hunter.
All day, the MLB app said that tonight’s ALCS game 2 first pitch would be at 7:37 PM ET…at 7:15, I got an app notification that the game was about to start…and right now it thinks that the game is underway and it’s the bottom of the first. However, I’m watching TBS and they just implied the first pitch wouldn’t be until more like 8:05. Pregame coverage is still on, and they’re showing the field and clearly no baseball is being played yet. Anyone know what’s up with the app??
Right now it’s 8:18 and the game is in the bottom of the second inning, so it certainly started before 8:05.
So the app is right! How/why, then, is TBS a half hour behind? Am I the only one/in some kind of baseball bizzarro world?
If I stream TBS, it’s on schedule. I wonder WTF is up with my local broadcast, but at least I can watch the game actually live!
Almost every. Players transferred from the Japanese leagues will go straight into MLB, and once in a great while a young player never plays in the minors.
What’s interesting about players skipping the minors is that, at least recently, it’s NOT a sure sign of future success. The last ten to make the jump include some pretty good players, the best being John Olerud, but also guys no one remembers anymore, like Xavier Nady.
Conversely, there is a fairly strong correlation between debuting young, even if after a little minor league seasoning, and being a very good player.
A good game in Houston tonight.
In the last 3 innings, the Yankees had 11 plate appearances. Two walks, two flyouts, seven strikeouts.
Granted, one of the flyouts was Judge’s drive caught at the top of the wall, but a weak effort from the other batters. Stanton had a 3-0 count and took 2 of the next 3 pitches and was called out on strikes.
That was a good game. I’ll take the Astros win.
The Yankees have a good rookie shortstop. That Oswald Peraza is a player.
Severino threw one bad pitch and Judge was inches shy of winning the game. Odd in this series that the aces won’t square off against each other due to the length of the ALDS for NY. Worked to Houston’s advantage in games 1-2, will be flipped for the next few games.
Of course, if Valdez fields the comebacker cleanly in the fourth inning, it’s an easy double play and he throws shutout ball for 7 innings. Both of the Yankees runs were unearned.
Things are looking very dire for the Yanks. Bases loaded and no one out for the Astros. We’re already down 2-0.
Make that down 3-0 but 1 out at least. 2nd & 3rd.