Syracuse, N.Y. -- International League president Randy Mobley doesn’t know how many teams will be in that group for the 2021 season.
He doesn’t know what alignment they will be in or many games they’ll play.
He doesn’t know if the league will retain its name, or even if he’ll remain employed beyond the next few weeks.
Apart from all that, preparations for what could be the most uncertain and unfamiliar season in the history of minor league baseball are breezing right along.
“We’re just kind of plodding our way through at this time,” Mobley said.
That work is about to get very, very heavy.
Major and minor league baseball are on the cusp of releasing details of a new Professional Baseball Agreement that will eliminate dozens of affiliates and revamp the sport.
Mobley said he has no inside information but expects the first step to be the announcement of the pared-down 120 major-league affiliated teams that will operate in 2021, or four per major league team.
In the case of the New York Mets, for example, that grouping will consist of Syracuse at Triple-A, Binghamton at Double-A, Brooklyn at high Class A and St. Lucie at Class A.
Mobley said he is confident all 14 IL teams will return in the same cities they were in when play was suspended by the coronavirus but had no idea how the 30 Triple-A teams overall, including the 16 in the PCL, will be grouped.
“We don’t know if there will be something called the International League or there will be something called something else,” Mobley said.
The size and scope of schedules also remain a mystery. Triple-A schedules are typically released months in advance, but that can’t happen for 2021 until it’s determined what teams are playing where. Continuing restrictions because of the coronavirus, which wiped away the 2020 minor league season, are also a variable.
Finally, the front office structures of the minors themselves are likely to be disassembled. Mobley said major league baseball is taking over all the major operations of the minors, such as scheduling, affiliation moves and discipline. That could mean people like Mobley, who has been president of the IL since 1990, will be out of a job or at least be offered reduced responsibilities.
Until then, Mobley and his office keep doing what they can to smooth a transition that will probably lead to their collective extinction.
“You just keep trying to assist as you can,” he said. “There’s a whole lot more questions than answers.”
Lindsay Kramer is a reporter for the Syracuse Post-Standard and syracuse.com. Got a comment or idea for a story? He can be reached via email at LKramer@Syracuse.com.
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