Friday BP: AAA season expands to 150 games

There will be a baseball season in 2022. There will a full baseball season in 2022, even. There will be a full season of professional baseball, no less.

We just don’t know if there will be an MLB season.

Minor League Baseball announced on Thursday that the AAA season will expand from 144 games to 150, in an effort to more closely emulate the Major League season that may or may not happen.

While MLB and the Players Association are currently having fruitless negotiations in their quest to end the lockout, the Minor League season is getting ready to start. The Minors will go as planned with or without the Majors, meaning that San Francisco Giants fans can, at the very least, get 150 games of the Sacramento River Cats.

It is worth noting, since the lockout is inspiring pessimism, that players currently on the Giants 40-man roster will not be able to partake in the Minor League season until the lockout ends. Which is to say, if the Minor League season gets started before the lockout is over, the Giants won’t be able to get Joey Bart some extra reps, or assign not-yet-MLB-ready players like Randy Rodriguez to an affiliate.

So all of this would be much more simple if the lockout would just end, but in the meantime, enjoy knowing there’s more AAA baseball to watch this year.

How many days has it been since the owners locked out the players?

66 days! What poop.

Have a really great Friday, friends.