Minor League Baseball Fields and Teams Locations Locator Map and Directory

'Minor league baseball' means different things. Within the business of baseball, it's the teams that operate under Minor League Baseball (MiLB), a/k/a the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues. The 19 leagues and 242 teams in this group, which itself is informally divided in two, exist to develop players for Major League Baseball.

The 160 teams of the 14 U.S.-based leagues that play in Classes AAA, AA, A-Advanced, A, A-Short Season and Rookie-Advanced are more business-oriented, trying to bring fans into the stands to make a profit for their owner. Most are owned and operated by a business entity that hires administrative employees but uses players supplied by a Major League 'parent' team in what is called an 'affiliation.' The exceptions, only about 30, are owned and operated by their parent team. Affiliations are contracts, with terms of two or four years that always expire in EVEN-numbered years with the end of each league's season around Labor Day. What happens then?

1. A roughly two-week period when either partner can terminate the affiliation by notifying the league commissioner or MiLB president
2. If accepted (terminations can be denied as not in the best interests of baseball), a three-day period during which terminated parties are notified
3. A two-week negotation period for all terminated teams to seek new affiliations
4. In early October, any unaffiliated teams will receive 'forced affiliations'

It may sound as if swapping affiliates every two years is common, but that's really the exception. Why? First, if neither club acts, the affiliation automatically renews. (Affiliations lasting decades are not uncommon; the longest on record was 53 seasons.) What's more, pairing options make this almost a zero-sum game - to terminate is really just to express a desire, because if anyone winds up without a partner the league commissioner or MiLB will 'force' an affiliation - and it may well be the same pairing that was 'terminated.'

The other 84 MiLB teams consist of 68 entry-level rookie teams and the 16 teams of the Mexican League. The former are owned by their parent team (although sometimes operated by someone else under a management contract) and operate much more like a division of the company that is that club that trains recruits than like the model above. These teams are in Florida, Arizona, Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. The Mexican League fits better in this 'rest of' group, even though it's afforded AAA status and its teams are independently owned, because its teams are not affiliated with Major League Baseball.

Another six professional (i.e., the players are paid) leagues operate entirely outside MiLB. The business refers to these as 'independent' teams or leagues. Lacking the advantage of affiliation, they must pay their own players; lacking the identification with a Major League club and with the lower-quality ball that necessarily results from using players passed over by organized baseball, they have less to sell to draw fans into their parks; because they are typically in smaller cities than most MiLB teams, they have fewer fans to sell TO. But the players ARE paid, so this group is professional - and therefore, by lay definition, minor-league - baseball.

A special thanks to Kurt Pickering for contributing so much data and content to this map!