MLB Creating Draft League; Morgantown Included

NEW YORK (AP) – Major League Baseball is creating a minor league for top eligible prospects leading to the summer draft. The MLB Draft League is launching with five teams and could add a sixth. The teams are in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New Jersey. The West Virginia Team will be the Black Bears located in Morgantown. Teams will use wood bats and play a 68-game regular season that includes an All-Star break coinciding with the draft in early July. Teams are going to communities that lost franchises as MLB moved to shrink the affiliated minor leagues from 160 to 120 teams this offseason. The reduction followed the expiration of the agreement between the major and minor leagues. MLB has planned to eliminate the separate governing body of minor league baseball.