In its continued effort to standardize baseball leagues across North America, Major League Baseball announced a partnership with the West Coast League on Monday. The partnership with the summer wood-bat league, which consists of 16 teams divided across Washington, Oregon, British Columbia and Alberta, will begin in 2023.
“We continue to be impressed by Major League Baseball’s enthusiastic support of amateur baseball,” West Coast League commissioner Rob Neyer said. “We take pride in the West Coast League’s status as the premier collegiate summer league in the western half of North America, so we imagine many potential fruits of this relationship and we are eager to get started.”
No details were immediately available regarding the benefits of this new partnership for either the West Coast League or MLB, although the focus seems set on player and coach development, a two-way flow of analytical data and technological innovation to improve the scout and fan experience .
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“Major League Baseball is excited to enhance our relationship with the West Coast League,” said John D’Angelo, senior vice president of MLB amateur baseball operations. “The West Coast League is an important partner in the development cycle for amateur players and in representing our game in West Coast League communities. This agreement builds on an already solid foundation, and provides a framework for our work together.”
For the two Southwest Washington area teams – the Cowlitz Black Bears and the Ridgefield Raptors – it’s just another move forward in the aim of developing players with the end goal of getting them drafted. Cowlitz and Ridgefield general manager Gus Farah was optimistic about the impact the partnership will have.
“There’s nothing bad about (this partnership),” Farah said. “It offers more cache that the league is growing and making sure that it protects what our core ambition of the league is, which is to develop players and get them drafted some day.”
The details of the brand new deal or still emerging, but that the lack of clarity has not dampened Farah’s excitement.
“We’re going to find out more as we go along. This has been a long time coming in making sure that MLB wants the partnership with us,” added Farah. “I think in the short term, there’s a lot of learning to do. We’ll figure out all of the resources we’ll have out of this partnership in the coming months.”
Farah highlighted the flow of information and the availability of analytical data to West Coast League coaches and players as likely being the most prevalent benefit in this partnership. Players will have access to more information, Major League Baseball will likewise have more information about them, raising their respective profiles.
“It gives the players more visibility and the teams in our league more information on them,” Farah said. “Behind the scenes for the players, it just brings confidence and continual progression towards realizing their dreams.”
This deal with the West Coast League is just another in a long line of deals MLB has struck over the last 20 months with the underlying baseball leagues which serve to develop major-league talent. Since, 2021 Major League Baseball has entirely overhauled its relationship with various amateur and professional baseball leagues across North America. It trimmed its partnership from 160 affiliated minor league teams to 120. It began providing housing for players (with implementation of an ongoing effort) and earlier this month accepted the unionization effort of minor-league players. This after settling a class-action lawsuit brought forth by my former minor-league baseball players for a reported $185 million.
The new arrangement ended the Professional Baseball Agreement which governed the relationship between the majors and the minors. Now, instead of being run by the Florida-based National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, as it had since 1901, the minors are being run by MLB’s New York office under the supervision of Peter Woodfork, MLB’s new senior vice president of minor league operations and development.
It is all still very new and in the infancy of the grand scheme. As Farah noted, there is still much to learn and what exactly this means for fans of the West Coast League is still to be determined.
“I don’t know that there’s an outward look that fans will be able to point to and say, ‘Oh that’s different,'” Farah said. “If you ask me in three-to-four months, I may have a better answer.”
For now, fans can take heart that this partnership will give the WCL more resources moving forward, which should help position the league for continued growth.
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