Arizona Fall League

As the Arizona Fall League has been in action for about a month or so, I felt it was time to address how the Phillies' players are doing. Before I go into the the players and how they are doing thusfar I wanted to go over what exactly the Arizona Fall League is. Below is the listing of the MLB rules surrounding the Arizona Fall League and the overall purpose of its existence.

Each Major League organization is required to provide 6 players to participate in the Arizona Fall League. The 6 players selected must be on the Double-A or Triple-A roster by August 1st of the current season. An organization is also allowed to select one player below the Double-A level. In addition to these players, an organization is allowed to select a foreign born player as long as the player does not reside in a country where Caribbean or Australian League Winter Ball is played. No player with more than one year of Major League experience is allowed to participate in the Arizona Fall League. The purpose of the Arizona Fall League is to allow a select amount of elite minorleague prospects an additional level of competition during the offseason. This league can almost be compared to the Major League version of spring training. Statistical results aren't the entire focus of this league. Many batters focus more on improving weaknesses such as plate discipline than overall offensive production and many pitchers work on developing secondary pitches.


For the purpose of the Arizona Fall League posts i will be including Michael Taylor even though he is currently playing in the Mexican League. Taylor played in the Arizona Fall League in 2008 and is in a similar situation as many of the Arizona Fall League players as the Phillies would like to continue to give Taylor professional competition.

In my next few posts I will be discussing the players representing the Phillies in the Arizona Fall League.

Below is the official site of the Arizona Fall League.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/winterleagues/league.jsp?league=afl