The Dominican Summer League (DSL) gets underway this morning.  Here's a brief preview.

There are forty-three teams in the DSL.  Teams take the names of their parent clubs (e. g. DSL Twins, DSL Astros, etc.)  As there are obviously not forty-four major league teams, this means some teams have two entries in the league.  These are sometimes differentiated by numbers (e. g. Cubs1 and Cubs2), sometimes by colors (e. g. Cardinals Blue and Cardinals Red), and in one instance by the names of great players (Dodgers Guerrero and Dodgers Robinson).  There is also one coop team the DSL Indians/Brewers.

The teams play a seventy-two game schedule.  Thirty-five players may be on the active roster.  No player on the Active List may have four or more years of prior Minor League Service. In addition, no Draft-eligible player from the U.S. or Canada (not including players from Puerto Rico) may participate in the DSL.  At one time there were age limits, but that is no longer the case.

There are six divisions, each with anywhere from six to eight teams.  The six division winners go into the playoffs.  The two teams with the best records get a first-round bye.  It appears that the first round will be best-of-three and the other rounds best-of-five, although I am not certain of that.  There will be a game of the week broadcast on radio, and you can find a link to the broadcast at dominicansummerleague.com, but it's in Spanish, so unless you speak Spanish, which I don't, that probably won't do you a whole lot of good.

The players are fine athletes, but they're mostly young.  There tend to be lots of walks and errors.  But still, it's baseball, and the Twins have team there, so we'll be following it.  Go Twins!