Correction: An official from the MLB main office clarified that MLB teams must give their consent to allow a current MiLB player to play in independent baseball.
Even with the minor league season still in limbo, prospects left out of their team’s player pool still have a path to development before 2021.
Contracts for affiliated minor league players are currently suspended due to the national emergency created by the new coronavirus pandemic. Major League Baseball has informed its teams that they can allow minor league players to play in independent leagues until those contracts are reinstated, multiple MLB and independent league officials who had been informed of the MLB decision told Baseball America. An official from the MLB main office said MLB teams must give their consent to allow players to play an independent ball.
Finding a place to play can be a little difficult because the cororavirus pandemic has also forced several independent leagues to suspend their seasons.
The American Association is slated to play a 60-game schedule with six teams beginning July 3.
The Frontier League and Atlantic League have announced that they will not be able to play a championship season this year, freeing their teams to develop their own plans to play. Some Frontier League and Atlantic League teams are working to play smaller, locally established seasons, which will begin later in July.
Any MiLB player who chooses to play in independent leagues would be at risk. Injuries sustained in such activities could be treated by MLB teams as grounds for termination of the contract.
But it would give players a chance to play and even get paid to do it: Baseball America has heard stories that some minor league players have been playing in local amateur leagues only to enter the field. BA has so far been unaware of any players who have yet signed to play, but independent ball officials say they hope there will be some interest.
The player must begin the process, as MLB teams cannot suggest that a player play indy ball, but if they do, they are free to play.
D-Backs RHP Jayson McKinley, a Houston native, has signed to pitch in the Skeeters League in Houston, Texas.
The 120 MiLB teams proposed by MLB for 2021 may include some surprises
As hope shrinks for a 2020 season, the prospects for minor league baseball, as we know it, remain very different.
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