COOPER: Extended Spring Training Has Outlived Its Usefulness To MLB Clubs

Image credit: Jackson Chourio (Bill Mitchell)

Is there any aspect of professional baseball less noticed or less cared about than extended spring training?

Twenty years ago, the minor leagues mostly slid below fans’ radars. Now, they’re nearly mainstream and easily accessible without going to the ballpark. 

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was more famous than many of his future Blue Jays teammates before he ever took his first official MLB at-bat

Orioles fans were more concerned about Adley Rutschman’s development than they were the fate of who won or lost that night’s game for a 2021 Orioles team that was headed nowhere fast.

The latest and greatest minor league feats now get attention, and even the best moments from the Rookie-level complex leagues will get a glance from fans, but extended spring training remains professional baseball’s version of a witness protection program.

Who led extended spring training in ERA last year? Who was the best hitter of extended spring training in 2021?

No one knows. And one could argue that almost no one cares. Extended spring training is baseball’s waiting room. 

It’s time to retire this relic from another time.

For decades, extended spring training served at least one purpose for MLB teams. It allowed them to save money by holding onto players without having to really pay them.

The standard minor league Uniform Player Contract made clear that players were only paid during a “championship season.” Every level of the affiliated minors, even the complex leagues, are participating in championship seasons.

Extended spring training did not qualify. 

Teams could stash players in purgatory and have them play daily exhibition games, but they didn’t have to pay them salaries.

Room and board. Rinse and repeat. Every day just like the day before.

For players, the hope was that a spot would open up at an affiliated team. An assignment to Low-A or High-A or anywhere else meant paychecks and games that counted.

Almost no one knows what happens in extended spring training because the stats largely disappear the day after the game is played. At Baseball America we’ll hear rumblings when a player has a big extended spring training, but that info has a shorter shelf life than a preservative-free loaf of bread. 

Elly De La Cruz was great in extended spring training two years ago, but that was understandably treated with skepticism until he performed in the Arizona Complex League. Seemingly everyone has good extended springs.

The best players in Low-A get noticed. The best players in extended spring just hope for a spot in Low-A.

The first-ever Collective Bargaining Agreement between minor league players and Major League Baseball now ensures that players are paid whether they are currently participating in a championship season or not. 

Whether the CBA had been agreed to or not, MLB was going to have to change its policies, because it just settled a class action lawsuit with minor league players for back wages. Under the old way of doing things, players were not paid during spring training or extended spring training or instructional league.

With no financial benefit, MLB teams no longer have a convincing reason to stick with the current format.

There is a better way, one that a number of farm directors and other front office officials are beginning to push.

Extended spring training can be replaced by an extended complex league season in both Arizona and Florida split into halves. The first half could run from April until the draft. It could shut down for a few days or a week when the draft is held in July, and the second half could run from after the draft until the end of the Class A season. That would ensure that there would be pitchers ready to go if Class A teams needed reinforcements.

For the players, it would mean the games count. That by itself would be an key development. They would also be part of a team that’s actually working for a championship. 

Yes, players can develop and improve over the course of their extended spring training tenure, but they can also do the same in games that don’t get erased as soon as the last out is recorded.

There are a few drawbacks. Rolling a bad inning—that is, ending it before three outs have been recorded—during an extended spring training game is easy and merciful as is calling a game if pitching runs out. Not so much in games that count. Some teams may balk at complex league seasons counting against fourth option eligibility as well.

But the upsides are much greater than the downsides. Being stuck in extended spring training can be replaced by being assigned to the Arizona or Florida complex league. All of a sudden, friends and family can check to see how a player does every day.

And no longer will there be 30 or so players who seem to disappear into a netherworld from April through June. No one dreams of playing in the Rookie complex leagues, but at least it’s three steps up from extended spring training.