Yesterday I had a great day, attended Super Reg JUCO tournament in the morning and minor league game in the evening. What struck me the most was the level of play, The pitching and fielding seemed better at the JUCO games, The minor league players appeared to be just going through the motions?? Three quarters of the minor league players on both teams were between 28 and 32 years old, I found this very odd, or is this the norm??
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What level of minors was it? Independent ball? Semi-pro?
If it was a real minor league game, the pitching would normally be much better. Only the very best Juco pitchers ever pitch in a minor league game. Then again, on any given day you never know. My son once walked 7 hitters in one inning in AAA. I'm sure there were a lot of Juco pitchers that were better on that day.
As far as fielding, I have seen High School games with better fielding than some MLB games. Kind of depends on what day and which games you see.
This sounds like independent ball, what were the name of the teams? I know of no team where the players are between 28 and 32 ( even in AAA) let alone on two. That is not normal and and odd IMO.
The teams were the Oklahoma City Redhawks an Salt Lake City Bee's, OK City Triple A affiliate of Houston, the JUCO was Div 1 Super Reg, Reg 6 that was being played in Wichita Kansas. At the tournament there was a national rank #2 team, a former ranked team and a team that was not ranked but receiving votes, it was very good baseball.
Check out their rosters, OK city has two catchers that are 31 and 32 tears old.
Ah that explains the minor league game. It is the Astros 
This sounds like independent ball, what were the name of the teams? I know of no team where the players are between 28 and 32 ( even in AAA) let alone on two. That is not normal and and odd IMO.
I posted in error, what I meant was that I know of no team where the majority of the players are over 28.
You are correct that these AAA teams have older players, the most being on the Angels affiliate of SLC at about 12 where OK is about 5 according to todays date, and these older players make up for the team that the actual prospects that will become ML players need to play with. Some of these older players are also career mil guys who get paid very well and there because of what they bring to the clubhouse, same as the older vets in ML and what they bring as well.
Backstopdad32,
You should do some homework on the Astros, a team which is in the rebuilding phase under Jeff Luhnow. The GM is the guy who brought through the draft, most of the current young players to STL (home grown), and why their farm system is one of the if not the best at this present time.
Some of those players do make up reserves for the 40 man, which usually are older players. Interesting to note that one of those guys is scott cousins, the player who took out Buster Posey.
I think what you have witnessed may be typical of some AAA teams, the players are older, they make up reserves and they are just there to get work in to stay sharp for when and if called up. I am not sure winning or losing as a unit means much to them, but rather how they do individually. I think that the meaning of the team concept gets losts at times in the upper levels of milb, it becomes more about me than we.
There is nothing wrong with this, all of these guys got to where they are due to what they bring, just not sure if for many the waiting for call up or up and then down is all that exciting.
