Minor league baseball spring training?

Question

I'm new to baseball, and I can't find any solid information.

What do minor league clubs do for spring training? Do they work with their major league affiliate, or do they train seperately?

Does a minor league team start spring training at the same time as the major's? Do they even do spring training, and if they don't, what do they do?

Answer 1

Minor Leaguers who get a ST invite will work with the Major League club until they get cut from the big club - then they report to minor league camp. But the majority of minor leaguers do not get an invite. They usually report to camp about March 5 and workout on the back fields or minor league fields. They are at the same facility as the major leaguers, just on different fields.

They do a bunch of drills and workouts to get ready for the season. They also play games beginning about March15. They scrimmage each other and they scrimmage other teams minor leaguers who have facilities nearby. Like the Dodgers minors scrimmage the Cardinals and Nartionals minors.

Personally when I go to spring training I like to visit the minor league fields. You can get very close to the players and the field. You can chat with the players - very nice guys. Plus there is no admission to the minor league games and there are very few people there. To me - that's baseball - I usually don't attend major league ST games unless they are at night. Give me the back fields any day!

Answer 2

All the spring training camps have facilities for both the major league team and minor league affiliates. So if, for example, you wanted to see the minor leaguers for the Pittsburgh Pirates training, you'd go to Bradenton, FL, where the Pirates have their major league camp.

Until the end of spring training, the minor leaguers aren't really separated out by which team they'll be playing for - it's just one large multi-team workout to get everyone in shape and help determine what level each person will be playing at.

Answer 3

They start w/ the major league team. Some will battle for roster spots and others will simply stay in the minors. They usually play games in split-squads (2 teams) w/ some major leaguers and some minor leaguers on the same team. This goes on through the start of the MLB season.