Triple-A season extended to 150 games

While it’s still up in the air what the major-league season is going to look like in 2022 with the lockout potentially altering the schedule if it lasts too much longer, the minor-league season is expected to go on as scheduled since the majority of the players on those rosters wouldn’t be on 40-man rosters. And on Thursday, we got some news about some changes to the Triple-A schedule.

Specifically, via J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, they are going to be adding a handful of games onto the end of the Triple-A season, expanding that season to 150 games. That’s up from 144 previously. The Worcester Red Sox, Boston’s Triple-A affiliate, will now have their season end on September 28 on the road in Rochester. Their home finale will be September 25 against Syracuse.

This kind of change doesn’t seem like a huge thing on the surface, but it does make much more sense for Triple-A players to still be playing through most of September and having a schedule that more closely mirrors that of their major-league club. With injuries, teams won’t have to rely on players who hadn’t played in a few weeks to come up as replacements. In the past this wasn’t as big of a deal with expanded rosters including up to 40 players in the majors, but with the recent change with expanded rosters only adding two more spots (under the old CBA, anyway) there aren’t as many players up with the big-league club staying ready and getting on the field.

Let’s hope this is the only schedule change we’ll have to worry about this year.