Part of MLB's New Minor League Proposal Includes 'The Baseball Cup', a Tournament Featuring Every MLB and MiLB Team

Well this would certainly be something new for the game of baseball.

MLB submitted its plan for Minor League Baseball going forward, which includes cutting the number of affiliated teams to 120 — eliminating many short-season and rookie ball teams — and MLB assuming full control of MiLB operations. But the most interesting idea included in the plan is something called The Baseball Cup, which would be the most interesting baseball tournament we've ever seen.

Baseball America — MLB proposed the idea of having a single-elimination tournament—known as the Baseball Cup—in which the 30 MLB teams and all 120 MiLB teams would compete for a title held during MLB’s regular season.

Theoretically, the New York Yankees could head to Eastlake, Ohio to take on the Class A Lake County Captains. Imagine Asa Lacy trying to lead a Royals farm team to a win against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The idea is modeled largely after European soccer competitions, in which lower-level clubs can compete with top-level clubs in yearly tournaments. For instance, England’s FA Cup allows soccer teams from 10 levels of English soccer to compete for a title. The FA Cup runs concurrently with the Premier League season.

I'm sure this plan has a ton of obstacles to clear in order to even get close to becoming reality, but this actually sounds like a ton of fun. This is the professional sports equivalent of the NCAA Tournament. Let the little guys have their shot at the big boys.

Would it not be fun as hell to have the championship game of this tournament be a Major League team against, say, the Double-A team of the top farm system? Baseball fans care about prospects more than fans of any other sport, so getting a chance to see them once a year go up against other top Minor League talent and potentially play a Major League team would be electric.

As someone who loves keeping up with prospects and going to MiLB games, this idea is super exciting. Once a year, everybody would get a chance to watch all the young stars in baseball and possibly see a Single-A team take down the Miami Marlins.

This is an idea I think would be universally praised, something baseball could desperately use right now. Make this happen.