The 2021 minor league season continues to evolve, even in mid-June. After MLB took over MiLB (a hostile takeover, some would say) and eliminated historic league names in favor of generic labels (which some would also characterize as a hostile move … guess which side of that fence I’m on), the affiliated minor league season began with no All-Star Games and no post-season games nor series on the schedule. There are still no 2021 All-Star Games but we are getting a post-season, unlike any post-season we’ve ever seen.

MiLB announced a couple of weeks ago that the lower-level leagues (Double-A down to Low-A) would play post-season series to determine a league champion. So, that’s good. The two Triple-A leagues would not have a post-season but their regular season would be extended by ten games, and each league would name a Champion based on its teams’ regular season winning percentage.

Today MiLB announced that those final 10 games will not be part of the regular season after all. They will be collectively called the “Triple-A Final Stretch”. It’s apparently a way to have a post-season without actually having a post-season. So the word “stretch” is appropriate.

Here’s how it will work: in addition to a Regular Season Champion being proclaimed based on winning percentage as previously announced, each Triple-A league will also name a “Triple-A Final Stretch” Champion based upon the highest winning percentage during the tacked-on final 10 games. Those ten games will consist of a 5 home and 5 away series. The opponent for each series is different, but it appears that proximity was a significant determining factor. The matchups can be found here.

Because it’s not an actual championship contest it necessitates a host of tie-breaking conditions, which I won’t go into here. I’ll just say that if your opponent is determined randomly and you need a bunch of tie-breakers, you don’t have a true championship series. You don’t even have a real tournament since each team only plays two opponents, there are no rounds, and nobody is eliminated along the way.

To recap: come October we’ll have a Triple-A East Regular Season Champion, a Triple-A West Regular Season Champion, and a Triple-A Final Stretch Champion that has nothing to do with either of them. Glad they could clear that up for us.

While having more baseball games is always better than having fewer baseball games, this is kind of a haphazard mess which we can hope gets hammered into a more traditional look for 2022. We collectors can also hope that MLB/MiLB will produce an official ball for the lower-league post-season series and for the Triple-A Final Stretch. If we can’t have a true Triple-A championship this season at least we might have something new to add to our collection.

-Tony Baseballs