Independent Baseball Leagues: The Atlantic League and Beyond
How professional independent leagues differ from affiliated minor leagues, their history, the Atlantic League's role as a testing ground for rule changes, and how players move from independent ball to the majors.
Most readers who follow the minor leagues know the ladder: a prospect starts in the lowest level of a major-league club's system and climbs through levels owned by the parent club in everything but name. There is a second ladder that most fans never see. A set of professional leagues operate outside that system entirely. Their teams sign their own players, pay their own bills, hire their own managers and answer to no major-league club. These are the independent leagues, and for a few decades they have been where careers go to be extended, restarted or noticed.
In recent years they have also become something else: a laboratory. The best-known independent circuit, the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, has been used by Major League Baseball to try out rule changes before considering them for the majors. This article explains how independent baseball works, where it came from, what the experiments have been, and what a reader should check before assuming anything about a particular league, because the landscape changes more quickly than almost any other part of the sport.
What independent means
In affiliated minor-league baseball, each team has a player development contract with a major-league club. The major-league club supplies the players and pays their salaries, and it decides who plays, who is promoted and who is released. The minor-league team runs the stadium, sells the tickets and the hot dogs, and has little say over its own roster. The arrangement is the subject of minor league affiliation explained.
An independent team is different in the way that matters most: it owns its roster. The manager and front office sign players directly, sometimes from released affiliated players, sometimes from college, sometimes from overseas. A major-league club that likes a player can buy his contract, and the independent team receives a fee. Independent teams have to pay for everything themselves, which means their finances depend on gate revenue, sponsorship and local support. That makes the business model more fragile than that of an affiliated team, and the history of independent leagues is a history of leagues forming, growing and in many cases folding.
The players are professionals in the sense that they are paid, but the pay is modest, and few expect to make a living from it for long. Independent baseball is a bridge, a second chance or a last stop, depending on the player. A pitcher released by an affiliated club can pitch his way back into notice. A player who went undrafted can show scouts what he can do. A veteran can extend a career by a season or two.
Where independent baseball came from
The word "independent" had a different meaning in the early decades of professional baseball. Before major-league clubs built systems of farm teams, which began to take shape in the 1920s and 1930s, minor leagues and their teams were largely independent businesses. They sold players to the majors for cash. The Baltimore club of the International League under Jack Dunn is the most famous example: Dunn signed young players, developed them and sold them, and one of the players he sold was Babe Ruth, to Boston in 1914. The Pacific Coast League also operated largely on its own terms for many years. The history of those leagues, and how they came to terms with the farm system, is told in the Pacific Coast League and the International League.
The farm system changed the economics. Once major-league clubs owned or controlled their minor-league teams, the independent model shrank to the margins. What exists today as independent baseball is largely a later development: modern leagues formed in the 1990s and after, in towns and cities that wanted professional baseball but did not have, or no longer had, an affiliated team.
The Frontier League, which began play in 1993, is the oldest of the major independent circuits still operating. The Atlantic League of Professional Baseball began in 1998 and drew its teams largely from the northeastern and mid-Atlantic states. The American Association, a name borrowed from an older minor league, began as an independent league in 2006. Other leagues, among them the Northern League, were prominent for a time and no longer exist, which is a reminder that the independent landscape is crowded with names that disappeared.
The 2021 reset: partner leagues
The most important recent change came after the 2020 season. The agreement between Major League Baseball and the minor leagues expired, and MLB took a much more direct role in running affiliated minor-league baseball. It reorganized the system to 120 affiliated teams. A number of cities that had affiliated clubs were not included in the new structure, and some of those clubs, along with some existing independent teams, found a new place in the sport.
MLB recognized a group of independent circuits as Partner Leagues. As of the 2021 reorganization, these were the Atlantic League, the Frontier League, the American Association and the Pioneer League. The Pioneer League has a long history of its own: it began in 1939 as a league of affiliated, lower-level teams, and since 2021 it has operated as an independent circuit. The status of Partner League is a closer relationship with the majors than independent leagues had before, though it does not make them affiliated: the teams still own their rosters and players.
The reorganization also reshaped the fate of some familiar teams. The St. Paul Saints, long a fixture of independent baseball, became an affiliate in 2021 as the Triple-A club of the Minnesota Twins. The same year MLB launched the MLB Draft League, a summer league for college players who are eligible for the draft, which has a different purpose from the independent circuits but sits in the same part of the ecosystem. The process of how amateurs enter the system is covered in the history of the amateur draft and signing bonuses.
League membership, team lists and Partner League status have all changed over time, so for any specific question, check the league's own site and MLB's announcements. What follows is the general pattern.
| League | Began | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Frontier League | 1993 | Oldest of the current independent circuits; Partner League since 2021 |
| Atlantic League | 1998 | Northeast and mid-Atlantic; MLB's rules-testing partner |
| American Association | 2006 | Name borrowed from an earlier minor league; Partner League since 2021 |
| Pioneer League | 1939 | Affiliated for decades; independent Partner League since 2021 |
The Atlantic League as a rules laboratory
In 2019 Major League Baseball announced a partnership with the Atlantic League in which the league would adopt experimental rules chosen by MLB, with the aim of testing ideas under real game conditions before considering them for the majors. The reasoning is simple. An independent league has no parent clubs to object, and its players do not have the same union protections as major leaguers, so changes can be tried quickly. The cost is that results in the Atlantic League do not always translate to the majors, where players are better and the stakes are higher.
The list of experiments has been long, and the details varied from season to season. Among the ideas tried in the Atlantic League or in minor-league settings generally were these.
- Automated ball-and-strike calling. A tracking system, rather than a home-plate umpire, determined whether a pitch was a ball or a strike. The system was first used in a league game in the 2019 All-Star Game and later used more widely. The challenge to it, which is that the strike zone is a three-dimensional space that a machine measures differently from a human, is part of the discussion in counts, walks and strikeouts.
- Limits on defensive shifts. Requirements on where infielders must stand, such as keeping two on each side of second base, were tested before they appeared in the majors.
- A pitch timer. A clock limiting the time between pitches was tested in various forms.
- Larger bases and limits on pickoff throws. Bigger bases shorten the distance between them slightly, and limits on throws to first base change the running game.
- Moving the pitching rubber. In the second half of the 2021 season the league moved the rubber back by a foot, to test the effect of a longer distance on pitchers and hitters.
Not every test led anywhere. The point of a laboratory is that some experiments fail, and readers can find the league's and MLB's own descriptions of each test on their official sites.
Several of the changes that the major leagues adopted for the 2023 season, among them a pitch timer, limits on defensive shifts, larger bases and limits on pickoff attempts, had been tried in the minors and in independent baseball first. The timer in the majors began at 15 seconds with the bases empty and 20 seconds with runners on, and the runners-on limit was cut to 18 seconds in 2024. The experience of a rule in the Atlantic League did not guarantee the same effect in the majors, but it gave the people who made the decision something to look at.
This is the sense in which the word "lab" is accurate and also incomplete. The league is a real competition. Its standings count, its fans buy tickets, and its players are trying to win. They also, by league arrangement, play under rules that are subject to change, and that is part of what it means to play there.
Who plays independent ball, and where they go
The players fall into rough groups. Some are recently released affiliated players who want another chance. Some are college players who were not drafted or did not sign. Some are veterans of the majors or Triple-A looking for another season. Some are international players who have not yet signed with a major-league organization. The mix gives the leagues an unusual level of experience for the minors.
Moving from independent ball to affiliated ball happens when a major-league organization buys a player's contract or signs him after his independent season. The standard of play varies by league and by team, and individual players can be well above or below the typical level. Rich Hill, a pitcher who was in the majors before and after, pitched for the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League in 2015 before returning to the majors with Boston. His path is a well-known example of the second-chance route. It is an example, not a typical outcome: most independent players do not reach the majors.
What happens in the other direction is less visible. Players who are released by affiliated clubs and not picked up often finish their careers in independent leagues. For them the leagues are a way to keep playing, which is worth something in itself. How players are promoted within the affiliated system is explained in the call-up process from Triple-A, and the summer showcase events used to evaluate prospects are covered in the Arizona Fall League and the Futures Game.
The fan's experience
Independent teams depend on the experience they offer, and many lean on promotions, community events and lower prices than the majors charge. A fan at an independent game is usually close to the field. The baseball is the same game, though the standard of play and the rules can vary. At the Atlantic League the rules being tested are announced in advance, and fans can see a different sport than they know from the majors. For fans who want to understand the language of the game on the field, baseball slang and language is a useful companion.
Why so many independent teams and leagues have come and gone
An independent team has no parent club to cover its losses. It must fill enough seats and sell enough sponsorships in a small market to pay its players, its coaches, its travel and its ballpark costs. When a market cools, a ballpark deal ends or a league cannot keep its member teams solvent, there is no major-league organization to step in. That is why the history of independent baseball reads as a long list of formations, mergers and closures, and why a reader should treat any list of current teams as a snapshot.
The same fragility is the reason leagues cluster around stable ballparks and local ownership groups. A team that owns or leases a good park and has a loyal fan base can last for decades. A team that depends on one owner's enthusiasm may not. Leagues that last tend to have a core of clubs that fit the first description.
What the record cannot tell you
The historical record covers major-league baseball, including Negro Leagues statistics for 1920 to 1948, and it does not include independent-league statistics. Any numbers about independent leagues, such as standings, attendance or player statistics, come from the leagues themselves and from MLB. This article therefore gives few figures. The ones it does give, the founding years and the structure after 2021, are the kind that are easy to check against the leagues' own pages.
Common questions
Are independent league players affiliated with major-league teams? No. Independent teams own their players, though a major-league club can buy a player's contract.
Is the Atlantic League the minor leagues? It is a professional league that is independent of the affiliated minor leagues, and since 2021 it has been a Partner League of MLB. It is not one of the affiliated levels.
Do independent leagues have a draft? Independent teams do not take part in the MLB draft, which selects amateur players for major-league organizations. They find players through tryouts, releases from affiliated organizations and direct signings.
Can an independent player reach the majors? Yes. Some have, though it is uncommon. A major-league organization has to sign the player or buy his contract first.
Do the rules differ from the majors? In the Atlantic League, sometimes. The league has played under experimental rules chosen with MLB. Check the league's current rules before assuming a game works as it does at the major-league level.
Where to go next
The affiliated side of the story is in minor league affiliation explained and the Pacific Coast League and the International League. For the major-league side of October, see how the MLB postseason works, and browse the site's minor leagues pages and the minor league topic page for more.