Looking to the future
The Cincinnati Enquirer had a five-question Q&A with FL commissioner Bill Lee. Here was one of the questions and his answer:
Q. During your tenure, the league has expanded to 12 teams in seven states. What do you envision in five years?
A. Five years into the job, I couldn't have told you 10 years from now what would be happening. I have a little more understanding now, and I think you'll see 16 teams.
My reply: While 16 teams might be interesting from the standpoint of seeing different opponents instead of Chillicothe and Florence every other week, I'd prefer to see the FL go back to 10 teams. The level of play in the league was at its highest last year with the 10-team format. The pitching, especially the relief pitching, was much better with 10 teams. Before pushing on to 16 teams, the FL should take a look at how the boost in its salary cap next year impacts some of the smaller markets, such as Chillicothe.
Q. During your tenure, the league has expanded to 12 teams in seven states. What do you envision in five years?
A. Five years into the job, I couldn't have told you 10 years from now what would be happening. I have a little more understanding now, and I think you'll see 16 teams.
My reply: While 16 teams might be interesting from the standpoint of seeing different opponents instead of Chillicothe and Florence every other week, I'd prefer to see the FL go back to 10 teams. The level of play in the league was at its highest last year with the 10-team format. The pitching, especially the relief pitching, was much better with 10 teams. Before pushing on to 16 teams, the FL should take a look at how the boost in its salary cap next year impacts some of the smaller markets, such as Chillicothe.
posted by Chris Dugan at
7:47 AM
2 Comments:
What is the present salary cap in the Frontier League and what will it be next year both per player and per team for the whole year.
Also is it different for a rookie and veteran?
Sometime when you need fill ins on off days and so forth, it might be interesting to know some of the oddities of the league such as what constitutes the difference between rookie, league 1, league 2 and veteran, when they play a 9 inning vs 7 inning game, how different stadiums compare etc.
What Wild Thing player has been the highest in affiliate ball, etc.
That's a lot of questions but I'll do my best to answer them. Here goes:
The salary cap, I believe, in the Frontier League still is $60,000 for the season. Next year, it will jump to $75,000. Player salaries range from $600 per month for rookies to $1,200 per month for veterans. Next year, the maximum will be raised to $1,600 per month. Teams can pay rookies more than $600 per month and vets less than $1,2000. Those are just the minimum and maximum.
Players fall into four classifications: Rookie, L1, L2 and Veteran. Rookies have less than 1 full season of pro experience. An L1 has 1 full year, an L2 has 2 full years and a Vet has at least 3 full years. A full year of pro experience is defined as either 60 innings pitched or more than 30 appearances for pitchers, and more than 150 at-bats in a pro season for hitters. For example, Patrick Sadler had 147 at-bats for Ohio Valley in 2005, and 30 games and 50.1 innings pitched with Washington last year. He's still a rookie. Mario Garza had 3 seasons in the Astros' system in which he had 239, 348 and 230 at-bats. Thus, he's a veteran.
Each team is limited to 3 Vets, 2 L2s and 7 L1s. If you are short in one class, you can have extras at a lower class. For example, if you have only 1 Vet, then you are permitted 4 L2s.
Next year, there will be 2 rookie classifications: R-1 and R-2.
All games in doubleheaders are 7 innings. This is standard throughout all levels of minor league baseball. The only exception is when the first game of the DH is the completion of a suspended 9-inning game. In this case, the first game is the resumption of the suspended game and 9 innings in length with the nightcap a 7-inning game.
The former Wild Thing who reached the highest level in affiliated ball after playing in Washington would be Dave Bradley, who was in Class AAA spring training with Milwaukee this year and Oakland in 2006. Bradley spent 2 years in Double-A and is now out of baseball. Josh Loggins and Chad Ehrnsberger also played in Double-A and Robert Garvin was in camp with the Expos' Double-A team in 2003.
The ex-Wild Thing who reached the highest level before playing in Washington is Doug Garcia, who played in a few games for Texas' Triple-A team in 2002, the year before joining Washington.
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