Mar 30, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; General view of a base prior to the opening day baseball game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
Minor League Baseball released it’s new app for the iPhone and iPad today with plenty of improvements for the 2014 season. The first thing that jumps out is the fact it is no longer dedicated purely to Double-A and Triple-A, but instead now has team pages and scoreboards across the six levels of the minor leagues.
It will cover 14 of the 16 domestic leagues, leaving only the Gulf Coast League and Arizona League without coverage on the app. You will also be able to watch games from 11 of the domestic leagues via your MiLB.TV subscription through the app. The Florida State League, Northwest League, Appy League, GCL and AZL are the only leagues that do not have at least one participating team in the MiLB.TV package.
My main initial complaint with the new app is the fact it is not easy to quickly access a team page unless it is set as a favorite team. There are not yet links on the schedule or standing pages to quickly access a given team, so if you are a Boston Red Sox fan like me, but want to take a look at the roster for the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, who will be taking on the Red Sox Triple-A affiliate on opening day, I have to add the Iron Pigs as a favorite team.
For the most part, the app does a fantastic job of bringing all of minor league baseball to your fingertips. Last season I had to download apps for specific minor league teams in order to quickly access the lower minors news from my phone, but now that will all be available in one convenient app.
While today may be opening day in the big leagues, getting the updated minor league app has me ready for Thursday’s opening day across the whole of full-season Minor League Baseball.