Significant News Regarding Instructional Leagues

Tuesday night, a significant development in the game of baseball happened. Josh Norris Senior Editor at Baseball America reported that MLB gave the green light on instructional league play. JJ Cooper, an Executive Editor at Baseball America, reported the news on Twitter.

Big news. MLB has told its teams that they can hold instructional league workouts/games for its minor leaguers. Teams that do so will be required to pay their players at their normal in-season pay rate. @jnorris427 has the news and the details ($).https://t.co/elGgWf0xkp

— JJ Cooper (@jjcoop36) September 2, 2020

The reason why this is so important is that it provides some clarity for teams regarding the future. To date, there have been concerns around the game regarding getting certain players an adequate amount of playing time.

Instructional league is a league where prospects coming up through the ranks can gain valuable knowledge and experience about playing in the bigs. Often times, the coaches involved are former players and have a wealth of skills to offer those young prospects.

Growing Frustration Around the Game

In addition, there has been growing frustration among some in the game regarding issues related to this topic. Dayton Moore, General Manager of the Kansas City Royals, expressed his frustration last week. Moore expressed frustration over the lack of a stable plan by Major League Baseball regarding playing time for prospects.

Essentially, Moore expressed negative feelings towards the fact that many prospects were missing out on the valuable instruction and advice that they can receive.

Now, General Managers such as Moore have clarity regarding the future. Plenty of other General Managers will likely find this as great news as well. Another reason why this is an important development is because of the evaluation process involved.

Often times, teams will follow the action down in their instructional leagues to gauge a prospect’s readiness for big league playing time. As any General Manager knows, having that evaluation is imperative for the short and long-term planning processes that an organization goes through during a given season.

Final Thoughts

In the end, with tonight’s news teams now have another option regarding playing time for prospects. This is something that will be advantageous for all thirty clubs. Instead of having their prospects watching the games from the sidelines, teams will now be able to give those prospects valuable experience in the instructional league.

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