Minor Leagues

[molarmite]

When did minor leagues become apart of MLB? I'm starting in 1901, so should I begin with minor leagues or add them later?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by molarmite

When did minor leagues become apart of MLB?

That's actually a complicted question because of how the major-minor relationship evolved (and much of that cannot as yet really be recreated in OOTP).

There were a number of pseudo-minor leagues in the late 1870s-early 1880s. The first "official" minor league was that of the 1883-84 Northwestern League, which signed the Tri-Partite Agreement with the National League and American Association in which the Northwestern League accepted a subordinate position to the other two leagues (though some accounts have the single-season Northwestern League of 1879 being the first minor league).

Up until the late 1920s, the minor leagues were almost entirely independent outfits, much like today's independent leagues. Starting with the late 1920s and into the 1930s and beyond, major league teams began establishing working agreement/affiliation ties with minor league clubs. This process continued on a gradual basis up until the early 1960s, by which point the minor league system as it exists today was essentially formed.

So, basically, there really isn't one year that can be pointed to as the year when the minors became part of MLB.