Independent Professional Baseball Teams

Author: Independent Baseball

You may have recently heard about an independent baseball team near where you live, or near where you were traveling.  If so, you may have wondered what makes a team "independent" and if it is worth your money to go watch that team.

An independent professional baseball team is a team which plays in a professional baseball league that is not affiliated with any Major League organization or the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, which is now named (officially) Minor League Baseball.  These teams have complete control over the players they sign, the personnel they hire, and their players can be signed by any "affiliated" team in Minor League Baseball.  

Occasionally, an independent baseball player may make it to a Major League Baseball roster after having started his career in the independent baseball leagues.  Many players who make it to a Major League roster after having spent time with an independent baseball team usually had previous Major League, or high-level Minor League experience prior to joining a Major League Baseball roster.  

For the 2009 season, nearly 60 independent teams fielded a team in 8 independent leagues.  The teams play in the U.S. and Canada.  There are independent baseball teams in the Northeast, Quebec, Calgary, California, the Mid-Atlantic, Texas, Arizona, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota and the Dakotas, just to name a few regions.  The players can range from just out of college, former "affiliated" minor league players who were released, players who could be in the minors but opted to play closer to home for family reasons, former Major League players, and occasionally international players.  Many teams have managers and coaches whom have previous Major League Baseball experience.

The question you may still have, however, is if an independent baseball team is worth your time and money.  In most markets this is a "yes."

Here are just some of the reasons why:

• Prices are usually equal to or less than comparable entertainment, such as the movies
• Concession prices are usually less than at higher-level professional sports
• Kids and fans get participate in on-field and off-field promotions
• Many teams offer incentives for you to bring groups
• Many of the general managers and team executives have years of professional sports experience, so they understand what it takes to give you good entertainment for your money
• Many of the players are accessible for autographs
• The quality of play is considerably high, especially compared to other alternatives you may have in your area

Hopefully this article gives you a better understanding of independent baseball and helps you make a better decision for your entertainment dollar.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/baseball-articles/independent-professional-baseball-teams-what-they-are-998077.html

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Baseball Scouting As Well As The Significance of Top Quality Baseball Scouts

Baseball Scouts are trained talent evaluators that are constantly on the road evaluating upcoming baseball prospects. They're trying to discover the elite group of players that each and every key league club will consider drafting. This might need traveling across the nation to be able to analyze and draft prospective players. They are ordinarily geared with laptops, note cards, stopwatches, and radar guns. These are the typical tools of baseball scouting. This permits scouts to record correct information and facts and document everything they see in the course of their time evaluating a young baseball prospect. Each Significant League Baseball team is utilizing computers to collect and organize data. This permits them to share it with other scouts within the organization and maintain extra in-depth baseball scouting reports.
Many scouts are former players, coaches, or knowledgeable baseball enthusiast that have years of encounter following the baseball business. An individual have to have information of the five tools of baseball in order to turn out to be a baseball scout. These tools incorporate; arm strength, running speed, fielding capacity, hitting capacity, and hitting for power. Out of all the players within Significant League Baseball, there are only a handful of players could be thought to be to be a five tool player. That's why there is a premium for versatile players that possess all of these tools. To place it into perspective, that suggests that an individual player can beat you in five different ways.
A scout will need to do extensive study on a baseball prospect just before recommending him to their team. This generally involves interviewing coaches, strength & conditioning trainers, family or anyone else affiliated with the prospect so as to verify what type of work ethic they have, if they know of any reoccurring injuries the player may have, and if the player has been in any kind of trouble before. This fact finding process can be extremely time consuming, but it's vital to do so as to minimize risks down the road. Overtime talent evaluators will develop relationships with numerous baseball coaches and this will help them get a whole lot of leads on upcoming prospects. A professional sports organization can never gather too much information and facts.
Skilled baseball scouts will help determine which players could be the best fit for their organization and which players are drafted. The Main League Baseball Draft can be the difference between a team experiencing success or failure. With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line baseball scouting is an important factor of a team being a profitable sports organization.
You'll find also professional baseball scouts, which focus on scouting opposing minor league baseball players. They're looking for prospects that may fill a void in their lineup or that may well be upcoming free agents that they feel will one day develop into a legitimate Main League Baseball player.
As you may see there are a great deal of factors involved in the baseball scouting industry. If you are passionate about sports baseball scouting is something you could possibly want to think about getting into.

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