On May 13, the Arizona Complex League Giants walloped the ACL Dodgers in a seven-inning game by an eye-popping final score of 29-2. 

Almost nobody saw it.

This pummeling took place at Papago Sports Complex on the southern edge of Scottsdale, Arizona, hundreds of miles and a universe away from Oracle Park and Dodger Stadium. The unrelenting desert heat touched 98 degrees at first pitch, despite a 6 p.m. local start time. San Francisco’s rookie-level youngsters pushed one run across in the first and five in the second against a teenaged Dominican hurler named Cesar Sanchez.

Then things flew completely off the rails. Six ACL Dodgers relievers proceeded to surrender 24 runs over the next four frames, combining for more walks (13) than outs recorded (12). They hit two batters for good measure. To finish the game, multiple position players were asked to pitch. A 21-year-old outfielder named Jose Gonzalez faced eight Giants hitters; he allowed two hits and five walks while notching just one out.

It seemed like a meaningless, futile, interminable day at the ballfield.

So who cares? Why does this matter? If a minor-league blowout falls in the desert, does it even make a sound?

Many folks in the industry — scouts, coaches, executives, player development personnel — argue that it should, that this recent drubbing encapsulates a number of concerning trends impacting the low minors. They claim the complex league is floundering and the ripple effects are beginning to seep up the pro-ball ladder. In their minds, if the fraying of low-level pro ball is left unchecked, it will eventually alter how the sport looks and functions at the highest level.

That’s because the ACL Dodgers’ inability to fill innings was far from an isolated incident. A handful of other teams are running precipitously low on healthy, viable arms. Games are regularly being shortened to seven innings or, in multiple instances, canceled altogether. Underprepared Latin American arms are being called up ahead of schedule from the Dominican Complex. Predictably, many of those arms are struggling to throw strikes. On Tuesday, the ACL Reds scored 30 runs against the ACL Athletics.

The complex leagues have always existed as something of a baseball twilight zone, one capable of producing wonky box scores. That’s what happens in a space designed for young players to fail in private. But industry experts resoundingly agree that the quality of play on the complex has reached an all-time low. Pitchers are throwing fewer strikes than ever. That’s hurting hitters, particularly Latin hitters. Everyone is then underprepared to make the leap to an actual minor-league team. At least one game per day is turning into an unproductive slog, incrementally stunting the developmental timeline of every player involved.

“It’s way, way worse than it’s been,” a team employee told Yahoo Sports over the phone. “It’s a total s*** show.”

Play 2026 Soccer Pick 'Em with FOX One and make your picks for the world's biggest soccer tournament

To understand what has gone wrong and why it matters, it’s important to understand how the minor leagues are structured.

Currently, there are six rungs of affiliated baseball operating beneath MLB. The top four tiers — Triple-A, Double-A, High-A and Low-A — are familiar to most fans. These are your traditional minor-league baseball teams, the ones with whimsical promotions and cheap tickets. You know the drill: Grab a hot dog for a dollar and watch the stars of tomorrow. For years, there was an additional level known as Class A Short Season, which started play after the draft, but MLB scuttled that as part of its minor-league contraction in 2021.

Below those four are the two lesser-known “complex” levels: one in the U.S. and one in the Dominican Republic. Games are held at or near an organization’s spring training or Latin American facility, with the stateside action split between the Arizona Complex League (ACL) and the Florida Complex League (FCL). 

This is not a product intended for consumption by the public. Tickets are not sold, attendance is not usually listed, and contests are not streamed online. These leagues function entirely for the development of young players, particularly those matriculating from Latin America. Of the 25 healthy, non-rehabbing players currently on the ACL Dodgers’ roster, just three were born in the United States.

The complex leagues are an overlooked yet vital piece of the sport’s talent pipeline. Nearly every Latin superstar currently shining in The Show spent time honing his skills in front of zero fans on the complex. The environment is particularly important for late-blooming prospects who didn’t receive large signing bonuses — the Jose Ramirezes, the Jose Altuves, the Junior Camineros. It is a place to learn, to grow, to fall and get back up again.

But over the past decade, two separate trends have lessened the value of the complex leagues: the ongoing arms race for pitch velocity and minor-league contraction. The former increased the demand for healthy hurlers, while the latter reduced the supply.

Nowadays, fastball velocity is not just an asset; it’s a requirement. Pitchers of all ages and skill levels train for it unrelentingly. That has had myriad effects on the sport, few more significant than the seemingly unstoppable wave of arm injuries. More pitchers are getting hurt more often than ever before.

Insiders disagree somewhat on specifics but generally believe that the quest for velocity is a major culprit. It makes sense then, that the teams with reputations for prioritizing velocity, such as the Dodgers, Orioles and Nationals, are among the clubs with the most hurt arms and having the toughest time filling innings on the complex.

“We could make things a lot easier on ourselves if we had more guys that threw it over the plate more often, so we didn't have to use three arms to get through an inning,” one team employee, speaking broadly about the industry, admitted.

Fewer healthy pitchers and fewer strike-throwers mean more open spots and more innings to fill. Teams are struggling to make that happen, in large part because of the artificial roster limits imposed by MLB during the most recent minor-league CBA negotiations in 2023. As part of bargaining, the parties agreed to reduce the size of the Domestic Reserve List from 180 to 165, meaning that organizations could roster only 165 minor leaguers across all of their stateside affiliates.

A few years ago, a club could simply pluck a soft-tosser from Independent Ball to fill innings on the complex. But with the new cap, roster spots have become a commodity all their own, one that clubs are more likely to use on low-command flamethrowers with an incremental shot of having an impact down the road. Those types of pitchers tend to be more injury-prone, further reinforcing the cycle.

“The downstream impact of the roster limits is that you're increasing the likelihood that guys get injured because guys are gonna have to throw more often,” a scout explained. “And they're not gonna necessarily change how they throw, when we're paying them a certain way in arbitration and we're valuing certain things as an industry. They’re gonna redline every time they touch the mound because we’re measuring everything.”

With fewer healthy pitchers available, unqualified pitchers are often pushed up the organizational ladder to fill in. This scout described that unfortunate trend as “microwaving.” It happens even more during this part of the year — after spring training roster cuts but before the influx of new players from the draft in July.

Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox via Getty Images

What does this all mean? What’s the impact? Will bad baseball at the complex level have a negative effect on the big leagues? Some around the game think it’s possible.

“I fear that the Latin hitter is the type of player that will lose out here,” one veteran scout hypothesized, “because they’re the ones that benefit most from games on the complex.”

Seven-inning games and canceled games mean fewer opportunities for hitters to hone their skills. A handful of teams indicated to Yahoo Sports that they’ve had to hold more live BP sessions on their backfields to ensure position players are getting sufficient work in. Latin players — the majority of whom come from the Dominican Republic or Venezuela — are usually in need of that extra developmental time. That’s a product of how the international market functions.

Before signing at age 16, most Latin players spend very little time playing in actual baseball games. Teams are interested in skills and tools, so players train accordingly. The amateur showcase culture means the complex is often the first place players learn integral skills such as pitch selection, swing decisions, game strategy, situational hitting and team offense. Then again, that’s changing alongside shifts in what the sport prioritizes.

“I think across baseball, we’re starting to view the complex level just as a training facility, right or wrong,” an AL team official told Yahoo Sports.

The fear among industry insiders is that the continued decline of low-level ball will lead to MLB feeling empowered to contract the minor leagues even further when the current minor-league CBA expires after the 2027 season. There’s a growing sense that the league would prefer to effectively outsource aspects of the development process to top college programs. Why spend money, the thinking goes, to make players better when Clemson and Mississippi State will do it for you?

But besides eliminating affiliated baseball from 30 more minor-league towns, such a cost-cutting measure would lead to a further reduction of team employees, particularly on the scouting side.

In recent years, a number of teams have slashed their pro scouting departments, relying on video and date to evaluate minor leaguers. Some clubs, such as the Dodgers, Rays and Royals, still run substantial scouting apparatuses. Unlike other owners, theirs believe it's well worth the cost.

At the end of the day, that’s what this entire discussion is about: money. Fewer levels, fewer players, fewer employees — that’s all more cost effective for the billionaires running these organizations. But it’s a short-term gain for a potential long-term loss, one that could damage the fabric of the sport at the big-league level. While the ACL Giants’ 29-2 blowout will likely fade into the dustbin of baseball history, its causes will live on and grow stronger.

It might not happen soon, but eventually, something will have to give.