MiLB (whatever that means these days) has announced that the affiliated minor leagues will return to their historical league names beginning this season!
Apparently, the terrible, generic league names used in 2021 were there to give time for MLB to acquire the rights to use the real (historical) names. It’s unclear exactly what that entailed.
From BaseballAmerica.com, here’s what the 2022 season will look like:
- Triple-A East becomes the International League
- Triple-A West becomes the Pacific Coast League
- Double-A Central becomes the Texas League
- Double-A South becomes the Southern League
- Double-A East becomes the Eastern League
- High-A Central becomes the Midwest League
- High-A East becomes the South Atlantic League
- High-A West becomes the Northwest League
- Low-A West becomes the California League
- Low-A East becomes the Carolina League
- Low-A Southeast becomes the Florida State League
There remain slight differences between now and when MLB first muscled its way to full control of MiLB after the 2020 season. The Northwest League will remain at the High-A classification after being Class A-Short Season as of 2020; the Appalachian League transitioned to a collegiate summer league; the Pioneer League is now an independent MLB Partner League; and the New York-Penn League is still gone.
Now that sanity has been partially restored to affiliated minor league baseball, some questions remain for us collectors. Namely, what will the official baseballs look like? Will all leagues continue to use generic MiLB balls with Manfred’s stamp? Will they go back to unique balls for each league, but with Manfred’s stamp? Will each league still have its own President and if so, will they be the same people who presided over the leagues as of 2020?
Stay tuned to this space for the answers as soon as I receive them.