Revamped Minor Leagues enjoy historic 2021

Higher wages, less travel and better facilities all made their way to Minor League Baseball in 2021, making Major League Baseball’s first foray into the overall operation of the Minors a success for both players and franchises.

“The 2021 season was the best we've ever done in terms of providing an environment conducive to professional development,” said Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president for baseball operations. “We are in Year 1 of what's going to be some pretty significant steps forward here in the next couple of years.”

Prior to the season, MLB announced a new structure for affiliated baseball, with 120 teams agreeing to join the new Professional Development League. One of the key changes was the relocation of Triple-A affiliates closer to their Major League clubs, as the average commute from a Triple-A team to its big league affiliate is now 200 miles closer than it was in 2019.

“As recently as 2019, the Washington Nationals had their Triple-A team in Fresno, California; it was actually so far away that they couldn't get players from Fresno to D.C. in time for the next day's game,” Sword said. “The Triple-A team is not of much use if you can't actually get those players to your Major League city in time. Getting each Major League team’s Triple-A affiliate very close provided easy roster support to the Major League club and made those travel demands easier on the players and coaches that are moving back and forth.”

Facilities were upgraded at the 120 ballparks (including six brand-new parks in Worcester, Wichita, Kannapolis, Rocket City, Fredericksburg and Beloit), most of which were already among the highest quality in the Minors. Sword noted that the structure will take a couple years to materialize, as every Minor League team will need to comply with a set of standards by 2023.

“Millions and millions of dollars of player-facing facility improvements are already underway; things like weight rooms, locker rooms, food service and transportation,” Sword said. “All of the pieces of the Minor League experience that help players develop.”

• Complete 2021 Minor League stats

The geographical realignment also helped teams reduce the overall number of miles they traveled during the season, as did the introduction of six-game series throughout the schedule.

“Playing six-game series relative to three-game series obviously cuts your number of trips in half, which is really helpful,” Sword said. “It also provided for an off-day every single week for players, which had never happened before in the history of the Minor Leagues, which has also been a real positive.”

Those weekly Monday off-days provided clubs with a built-in day for travel and rest, a new twist that players, coaches and staff members alike seemed to enjoy.

“People really liked the set off-day each week for player health and wellness, being able to kind of reset; it was less travel, less living out of your suitcase,” said Peter Woodfork, MLB’s senior vice president for Minor League operations & development. “The downfall [of a six-game series] being you can get a little too much of one opponent right in a row, and that can lead to issues because it is competitive. It’s competition. Overall, it was something that surprisingly went over really well.”

Players also saw their salaries increased by 38-72 percent, something Sword said MLB and its clubs had been focused on improving well in advance of 2021.

“Player salaries were an important piece of this restructuring plan from the beginning,” Sword said. “We heard from a number of players that really felt like it made a difference for them and their ability to prepare themselves for the Major Leagues. I’m glad that the clubs made that decision and I think it's paid off.”

Another notable change in 2021 came on the field, where a number of experimental rules changes were put into effect in various leagues.

Among the rule changes were Triple-A games featuring larger bases, Double-A games requiring all four infielders to have their cleats on the infield dirt and pickoff attempt restrictions in Low-A games.

“We got to collect a lot of data and see how it impacted people both objectively and subjectively,” Woodfork said. “What the fans liked, the feedback players provided, that’s important. What happened to philosophy when you put in a pitch clock? What happened with ground balls with shifting; did it have an impact? I think all of that allows us to gather more information so we can have constructive conversations on where we should change and what we should do.”

One of the most impactful rules came in the Low-A West league, where a 15-second pitch clock helped shave approximately 20 minutes off the average game time in comparison to 2019.

“The pitch clock was a very positive story for us; not only did it have the effect of reducing the time of the game by over 20 minutes, but it actually increased the amount of total action in the game,” Sword said. “There was more offense, more baserunning, fewer strikeouts and walks. It was literally just removing 20 minutes of dead time from the baseball game. The result is just a much crisper, more engaging fan experience.”

The positive feedback didn’t just come from fans. Both players and coaches in the Low-A West league were pleased with the way the clock impacted the game, some even telling MLB it should be expanded beyond their league.

“That was probably one of the ones that when we started getting feedback from a lot of the managers and the umpires and even the operators, this was really good,” Woodfork said. “The rhythm of the game went well and it didn’t seem to impact the performance. It was really just taking out dead time where nothing was happening. That's something that is a benefit and something that we'll continue to look at and see where it goes next.”

With all of the current affiliates in the first year of a 10-year agreement, 2021 served as a springboard for many MLB clubs to set a good foundation with their Minor League clubs. As the new structure evolves in '22, that groundwork should help both clubs and players on many levels in the ensuing years.

“They understand the important parts of what they needed from food to housing to clubhouses,” Woodfork said. “Being able to establish that relationship is important for everyone to be successful. It’s probably not exactly where we want it to be, but it was a tremendous first step and I think we'll continue to get better.”

Woodfork pointed out that most of these changes were made back in February, March and April, when it was impossible to know what the COVID-impacted world would look like in May, June or July. As would be expected with any change of this magnitude, there have been some growing pains, including criticism from players. But all in all, league officials are pleased with the progress of year one.

“This was a significant structural overhaul for a system that's been around for 150 years,” Sword said. “We’re trying to create a development environment that's more conducive to becoming a big league baseball player. You need to play in better facilities, you need to travel less, you need to eat better food, you need to be paid better, you need more access to coaching and technology. We made progress; this was the best year we've ever had on most of those dimensions, but we're not quite done on our journey.”