Explaining The New MLB Draft, Pioneer Leagues For 2021

With the previous announcement that the 10-team Appalachian League would switch to a summer amateur wood bat league, MLB has now announced destinations for 23 formerly affiliated clubs. MLB also said that it expects to announce a sixth team for the MLB Draft League before long.

With the expected moves of St. Paul, Somerset and Sugar Land to affiliated baseball from independent leagues, it is believed 43 teams that were in affiliated baseball will be left out of MLB’s 120-team minor league format moving forward.

The announcements of the MLB Draft League and the Pioneer League are yet a further indication that MLB is getting close to finalizing the 120 teams it is inviting to be part of affiliated baseball.

 

But Monday’s news was significant on its own, as two new leagues were created that will fill new slots in the baseball landscape.

The MLB Draft League will be a 68-game, summer amateur wood bat league set to play in four former New York-Penn League locales—State College, Williamsport, Mahoning Valley and West Virginia—as well as Trenton, which was a member of the Double-A Eastern League. It is designed for draft-eligible players. 

While high school players will be allowed to participate, the league is primarily designed for players who have just completed their junior and senior years of college baseball and are therefore draft eligible. Draft-eligible junior college players (who are eligible to be drafted after each year of college) would also be a potential target for the six-team league.

The league will begin play in late May and run until mid-August. The league is designed to offer draft-eligible players a chance to play in the leadup to the draft, which has been moved from its traditional early June date to an early July date that coincides with MLB’s All-Star weekend.

“Times change, our stances need to change with them,” State College Spikes owner Chuck Greenberg said. This new concept as a baseball fan is one I believe is truly exceptional. From a baseball standpoint, it will be everything we have had with a greater concentration of talent.”

In conversations with multiple player agents, they said they expect few potential first-round picks will opt to play in a pre-draft league because the risk of a potential first-rounder harming one’s draft stock would be worse than the upside of improving their stock.

That won’t be much of a change for New York-Penn League teams. Of the 32 first-round picks who signed in 2018, only three played in the NYPL.

But the total amount of potential draftees that will play in the league could mean that Greenberg’s prediction comes true.

Former MiLB Affiliates Changing Leagues
Team	Previous League	New League	Format
Billings	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Bluefield	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Bristol	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Burlington	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Danville	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Elizabethton	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Grand Junction	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Great Falls	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Greeneville	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Idaho Falls	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Johnson City	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Kingsport	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Mahoning Valley	New York-Penn	MLB Draft	Summer wood bat
Missoula	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Northern Colorado	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Ogden	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
Princeton	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Pulaski	Appalachian	Appalachian	Summer wood bat
Rocky Mountain	Pioneer	Pioneer	Pro partner league
State College	New York-Penn	MLB Draft	Summer wood bat
Trenton	Eastern	MLB Draft	Summer wood bat
West Virginia	New York-Penn	MLB Draft	Summer wood bat
Williamsport	New York-Penn	MLB Draft	Summer wood bat

 

Also on Monday, the Pioneer League announced it will be a professional partner league in 2021. That fulfills the promise that multiple Pioneer League owners made months ago that they intended to field professional teams.

The league does include one facility change. The Orem Owlz are now the Northern Colorado Owlz, as they will move to Windsor, Colo. in 2022.

The new league will play a 92-game schedule (a significant increase over the 76 games the league played before). It will be slotted to be a professional league for recently undrafted players as well as players who have been released from affiliated ball early in their professional careers.

“Over the past year, we have worked closely with Pioneer League owners and elected officials to ensure the continued success of baseball in the Mountain West,” said Morgan Sword, MLB Vice President,  Baseball Economics & Operations, in a statement. “We’re excited to support this new initiative and look forward to Pioneer League baseball returning in 2021.”

The three other MLB partner leagues—the American Association, Atlantic League and Frontier League—all have roster eligibility rules that allow veteran minor and major leaguers to play in the league. The Pioneer League will aim to attract recently undrafted players. It is expected the league will have relatively strict age limits to ensure it remains focused on young players who have the potential to move on to affiliated ball.

“We felt like, and MLB agreed with us, that there was this void for players who would have been drafted in rounds 21-40 or who have played a year or two in MiLB before being released,” Idaho Falls Chukars owner D.G. Ellmore said. “I have to give Morgan Sword and (Rockies owner) Dick Monfort credit. (Monfort) owns Grand Junction. We worked on this for a while. They were willing to think about and explore different ways of looking at this. I think this will work out really well.” 

Major League Baseball will provide “initial funding” for the league’s expenses, but the league will have to be self-sustaining going forward. As a partner league, the Pioneer League will gather analytical data from Trackman and other MLB-provided data tracking and will be able to use MLB statistical services and other support. As a partner league, it will also be able to engage in joint-marketing, ticketing and potentially sponsorships with MLB.

The Missoula Paddleheads, in their release announcing their participation in the new league, suggested some of the league’s players could be affiliated players under contract with MLB teams who have been loaned to the Pioneer League clubs. Multiple sources with knowledge of the negotiations said that no such agreement for player loans has been reached between MLB and the Pioneer League.