AFL Set to Expand Schedule in 2019
With many MLB organizations curtailing or (as is the case with the Cubs) completely eliminating Fall Instructs, there are plans afoot to expand the Arizona Fall league (AFL) schedule in 2019 from the present six weeks (30 games) to eight weeks (40 games). If implemented, the 2019 AFL season would begin two weeks earlier than it does now (the last week of September instead of the second week in October),
Because there is presently about a four-week gap between the end of the minor league season and the start of the AFL season, players assigned to the AFL have to spend a week to ten days at their parent MLB organization's minor league facility in Florida or Arizona getting back into playing shape before reporting to their AFL team. It is presumed that starting the AFL season two weeks earlier and closer to the end of the minor league season would eliminate the need for players to prepare for the AFL by attending Fall Instructs and playing in Instructs games.
What is not (yet) on the table is expansion of the AFL from six to ten teams. At present only six of the ten Cactus League Spring Training stadiums (Camelback Ranch, Mesa Sloan, Peoria, Salt River at Talking Stick, Scottsdale, and Surprise) are used by the AFL, but three of the other four stadiums (Mesa HoHoKam, Phoenix Maryvale, and Tempe Diablo) have hosted AFL teams in the past, and the fourth (Goodyear) could easily host a team as well. Expanding from six to ten teams would mean that three (rather than five) MLB organizations would be affiliated with each of the AFL teams, with each club sending seven or eight pitchers and five or six position players to their AFL affiliate instead of four pitchers and three or four position players as is the case now.
Prior to 2017 most of the clubs with a Spring Training base in Arizona participated in what was called "AZ Advanced Instructs" (AKA the "Junior AFL"), a league that was created for players who could not get a slot in the AFL because of roster limitations (the Cubs fielded an AZ Advanced Instructs "co-op" team with the Angels). But the league was disbanded in 2017 as clubs began to cut-back Fall Instructs operations, leaving players who are too advanced for "basic" instructs no place to get additional coaching and game experience. Expanding the AFL (and thus creating more AFL slots for each MLB organization) would help make-up for the loss of Advanced Instructs.
It should be noted that over the past two or three years the eligibilty rules for the AFL have been relaxed, allowing more international players and players with no experience above Lo-A (like Cubs 2018 1st round draft pick SS Nico Hoerner) to participate.
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