American Indie Leagues Explained

Mar 2 ## Mar 2 American Indie Leagues Explained

By Bill Thompson, @BillCubbieBlue

People love to say “baseball season is here” as soon as the Super Bowl ends. Those people aren’t really baseball fans, they are Major League Baseball fans. There’s nothing wrong with being an MLB fan, but there really isn’t a baseball season any longer. There is always some professional league taking place every week of every year. Heck, if not for some holidays I’d wager there would be a professional baseball game taking place every day of the year. Baseball is year-round, has been year-round for some time, and will likely always be year-round.

Still, it’s important to make the distinction that even if you are just a fan of MLB, when you say baseball season is returning you’re ignoring all the other leagues that are scheduled to kick off around the same time as MLB and its affiliates. There are pro leagues in Latin America, Asia, Europe, and America that will start their seasons either slightly before or slightly after MLB starts their season. Yes, you read that right, there are pro leagues in America who are not affiliated with MLB teams and operate on their own with players who are not under MLB contracts.

There are many of these leagues. As important as they are to the larger picture of pro baseball in America the goal of this article is not to talk about all of them. I’m sure I’ll give the Pecos League, United Shore Professional Baseball League, Pacific Association, Pioneer League, Pacific Association, Mavericks Independent Baseball League, Southern Shores Professional Baseball League, Empire Professional Baseball League, and Yinzer Baseball Confederacy their fair time at some point in the future. Those leagues, teams, and players deserve attention as well, but our focus today is on the big three of unaffiliated, or independent, baseball in America.

Before we get into the three leagues there is one bit of business that needs to be dealt with. All three signed agreements in the past couple of years to become official MLB Partner Leagues. This does not mean they are affiliated, but it does mean they have agreed to be a part, along with the Pioneer League, of MLB’s proposed baseball hegemony. I personally am not a fan of the partnership and don’t see it benefiting the leagues in the long run. That however is a different view from the leagues themselves who view their partnership league status as a sign of legitimacy, misguided as that belief may be.

Atlantic League

The Atlantic League is considered by most to be the top-level of unaffiliated ball in America. The league has been around since 1998 and is located mainly on the East Coast. It’s had plenty of former major leaguers spend time in its ranks, and has sent many of its best players either back to the major leagues or to the major leagues for the very first time. Generally, the Atlantic League is viewed as being at a AAA-AAAA level. Teams occupy 5,000-6,000 seat stadiums and the teams that stick around are known for having great attendance.

The 2021 iteration of the league is scheduled to kick off on May 27th with eight teams playing a 120-game schedule that is capped off with a traditional playoffs/championship series model. The only true drawback to the league is that they do not have any sort of centralized streaming service. Every team streams games live, but they all do so via their YouTube pages. While this is not a drawback for someone who watches as much unaffiliated baseball as I do, it is a barrier to fandom/interest to many. Either way, I have put together a Baseball Streaming Guide for unaffiliated baseball and the Atlantic League section has links to all the team YouTube pages.

The other important thing to note about the Atlantic League is that they have accepted a role as the guinea pig for MLB’s rule changes. If MLB decides they want to test out a new possible rule you will see it first in the Atlantic League. Stealing first base on any passed ball/wild pitch, robot home plate umps, increased balk rules, and so on all see the light of day in the Atlantic League before they ever make it to MLB shores.

American Association

In recent years the American Association has come to be considered the 1-A to the Atlantic League’s 1-B. The league typically operated at an AA-level but recently it has made a huge push to operate at the same AAA-AAAA level as their Eastern seaboard counterpart. Formed in 2005, the American Association is mainly Midwest centered and currently consists of 11 teams (plus a traveling team from the Pecos League for the 2021 season). Teams play in stadiums that range from 1,500 to 11,000 seat capacity. The league plays a 100 game season beginning May 18th that ends in a traditional playoff/championship series model.

The American Association does not, as of now at least, test out new rules for MLB. They operate in every way a traditional baseball league operates. They even have their own centralized streaming service, AABaseball.TV. Every game is streamed via that service, including the playoffs, for the cost of $12.99 a month. Therein lies the rub with the American Association. They offer incredibly easy access to their league and games, but their price point is ridiculous and a clear detriment to people giving the league a chance.

Frontier League

The oldest of the major American unaffiliated leagues, the Frontier League has been around since 1995. It operates teams on the East Coast and Midwest as well as up into Canada. The league is made up of 16 teams, in stadiums ranging from 3,500 to 10,500 seat capacity, that play a 96 game schedule. Opening day will take place on May 27th and the regular season will be followed by the standard playoffs/championship series model.

The Frontier League has historically been viewed as an A-level league. There’s no real reason that should change, even with their recent expansion. They have a limit on veteran players that is not found in the other two big unaffiliated American leagues; no more than three players over the age of 29. This results in a league that is full of young talent. Players are typically right out of college and/or former Pecos League or Pacific Association players who have maybe one or two years of experience tops.

If you’re not going to see a Frontier League game live it is a very hard league to follow. Only a handful of teams use some form of social media to stream home games. Links to those streams can be found in the Frontier League section in the aforementioned Baseball Streaming Guide. There’s really no reason that the Frontier League does not have a centralized streaming service at this time. The infrastructure already exists to provide streams of every game, and in situations where stadiums don’t have such infrastructure, the cost of adding it is balanced out by the increased exposure for the league. As it stands, the lack of actual viable methods for watching Frontier League games is a definitive barrier to the growth of the league.

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