March-May MiLB Player Releases Could Exceed 2019, 2018 Numbers

Across Minor League Baseball, players are receiving word of their official release, some months after they played their last spring training games and were sent home because of the novel coronavirus pandemic that shut down baseball and society at large.

In some cases, this is bad news that has been delayed. More than two-third of MLB teams did not complete their normal wave of releases in March (22 teams released five players or less and 18 released zero or one player).

Normally every team lets go of a significant number of players as minor league spring training wraps up—301 players were released in March 2019, according to MLB’s official MiLB transactions. This year only 131 MiLB players were released in the same timeframe.

But it would appear that in some cases, the releases are larger in scope than in a normal course of March-May MiLB transactions.