Ok, love may be too strong of a word, so let’s say I approve of it tremendously. I like it way more than the formats used by its parent, aka Major League Baseball. This blog will discuss the two different formats for both Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball regular season games, determining postseason participants, and eventually crowning a champion at their level. This is just part of why I love Minor League Baseball and have made a significant shift as a fan to attend and support more Minor League Baseball for the past decade or so.

Minor League Baseball (MILB) teams on the Single A, High A, Double A, and Triple A affiliate levels of Major League Baseball (MLB) use a slightly different schedule and postseason participant system than their parent organization at the Major League level. MILB teams, for the most part, play a 6 game schedule – Tuesday through Sunday – against the same team at their home park or as a visiting team. A team comes to town or you travel to a town, you play 6 games on 6 consecutives days and nights, maybe a DH if you get a rainout, then you travel or have an off day. Here is an example, with my new hometown team, the Norfolk Tides:

MLB teams typically play three to four game sets against a specific opponent, with a break or day off here and there. Scheduling wise, an East Coast team, like the Boston Red Sox, tends to play multiple West Coast teams in consecutive series to help minimize the travel situation. Like for example, the Red Sox traveled West in June to play the Seattle Mariners, then the SF Giants, then the Anaheim Angels, before returning home for a series or two in Boston now going into July. But you have some weird trips and weird tangents during the season, like the ones out west or to play another league’s Central Division, and it seems just so disjointed logic wise sometimes. See their schedule below:

The regular MILB season is broken into two halves (First Half, Second Half) and each half has a winner based on the best record in their half, who then competes for a championship via playoffs at the end of the regular season. Here is how the 2025 MILB season was explained on MILB.com “The 2025 Triple-A National Championship Game, which will feature the winners of the best-of-three International League and Pacific Coast League Championship Series in a single-game format, will be played on Saturday, September 27th in Las Vegas and crown an overall winner of the highest level of the Minor Leagues. Each Triple-A season will be split into two halves, with the first half ending on June 22 and the second half commencing June 24. The regular season will conclude on Sunday, Sept. 21. Following an off day on Monday, Sept, 22, the first-half winners will serve as the hosts of the pair of best-of-three LCS, which are slated to begin on Tuesday, Sept. 23. The winners of the two LCS will advance to Las Vegas Ballpark, which will host the Triple-A Championship Game for the fourth consecutive season.” Here are the standings for the first half of 2025 at the Double A level’s Eastern Division, per milb.com. According to the standings, Binghamton (NY Mets) and Erie (Detroit Tigers) each secured playoff spots by winning their respective sub-divisions in the first half of the 2025 season.

MLB has 6 division winners (AL, NL: East, Central, West) that have the most wins over the 162 game season, plus the wildcard teams that make the playoffs. By late June, sometimes July, more likely August, some MLB teams have such a massive lead in their division that a playoff spot is all but guaranteed. Even with one month or so left in the season, barring any total collapses, that team will be in the playoffs. Conversely by July, heck sometimes by June, an MLB team could be so far out of winning a division or securing a wildcard spot let alone securing a winning record, that you sometimes have to think to yourself, ‘what is their motivation at this point?’ Well, what if their motivation was to wipe their first half disastrous record from their short memories and focus on the second half? With players coming off injury after the All-Star break, I have seen crappy, basement dwelling teams make real surges in the second half of the season, mainly because they are healthy.

Here are the current National League standings. Pay close attention to the Washington Nationals and the Pittsburgh Pirates from now until the end of the year. I am going to make a bold prediction that they will have great 2nd halves of 2025. Add in the basement dwelling Baltimore Orioles of the AL East, who are now getting healthy, and you have at least 3 teams that are currently in last place that may wind up with better 2nd half records than the eventual division winners. And in the MILB format, they would make the playoffs!

The MILB playoffs are short and sweet and eventually crown a champion for each Minor League level. For example, the Sugar Land Space Cowboys were crowned the AAA champions on September 29th. Most MILB teams start their season in late March/April, with some starting even later into April. But they finish in mid to late September, which is very much aligned with weather and balancing the other major sports that pull fans away, aka football on all levels.

MLB’s playoffs have added so many layers and wild card teams and conditions over the years. What happened to the AL and NL division winners playing each other, add in one wildcard for each league maybe, then those AL and NL winners play and then the World Series is played in a reasonable amount of time? The current postseason format seems to drag on and on and on with the World Series now in late October, sometimes funneling into November. Fans at that time of year tend to be going to football games at their local high schools, watching 10 hours of college football on Saturdays, and attending NFL games on Sundays. MLB Playoffs and World Series need to end by October 1 at the latest, in my opinion. Like it does at the Minor League level!

I love the minor league regular season schedule and postseason format. It works great for travel for the players and MILB organizational staff, you sort of have a mini playoff series every week, and MILB fans can watch multiple games of their team vs another on consecutive days. I love the fact that MILB teams can win their first half or their second half of their season. This benefits teams that are moving players up and down in their system, or up to the parent club/MLB team. A MILB team stacked with talent at the Double A level gets rewarded with a playoff berth by winning the first half of a season and not punished for losing the second half of their season because of player promotions. Likewise, a struggling team in the first half, fresh with promotions to their level, wins the second half with better players, and secures a playoff spot. I like that the minor league seasons, for the most part, are done by mid-September and the championships are decided before October 1st.

I take it back, it wasn’t too much – This fan loves the Minor League Baseball format of scheduling games and picking postseason participants over the Major League Baseball format. If you care to debate, disagree, agree, or tell me otherwise, send me a message.