Current season, competition or edition: 2025 Frontier League season | |
 | |
| Classification | Independent baseball |
|---|---|
| Sport | Baseball |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Commissioner | Steve Tahsler |
| No. of teams | 18 |
| Countries |
|
| Headquarters | Arsenal BG Ballpark 2301 Grizzlie Bear Blvd. Sauget, Illinois, United States |
| Continent | North America |
| Most recent champions | Québec Capitales (4th title) (2025) |
| Most titles | Schaumburg Boomers andQuébec Capitales (4 titles) |
| Broadcasters | TSN RDS TVA Sports |
| Streaming partner | HomeTeam Network |
| Official website | frontierleague.com |
TheFrontier League (FL;French:Ligue Frontière,LF) is a professionalbaseball league inNorth America composed of 15 teams in theUnited States and 3 inCanada.[1] The league is an officialMLB Partner League since 2020, and the level of play is comparable toMinor League Baseball'sSingle-A level.[2] The FL is headquartered inSauget, Illinois.
The Frontier League was organized by several men who got together in the winter of 1992–1993 and decided to start anindependent baseball league to serve theWest Virginia, easternKentucky and southeastOhio areas. They believed they could bring professional baseball to areas that would never have a chance of affiliated professional baseball coming to their communities. The seed was planted and they named their projectThe Frontier League.[3]
At its inception, the FL had eight teams, all in the United States. The league expanded to Canada in 1999, when theLondon Werewolves joined, and has since consisted of both American and Canadian teams. From 2008 to 2019, the league operated with many different franchises, peaking with 14 in the league at one time. The league added five new teams as a result of the Can-Am and Frontier Leagues merger in 2020, then increased to 16 teams by 2021, and to 18 teams due to the 2025 expansion.Pearl, Mississippi andKinston, North Carolina were awarded anexpansion franchise in 2025; it acquired the baseball assets of theMississippi Braves and theDown East Wood Ducks, which folded, and established theMississippi Mud Monsters and theDown East Bird Dawgs that increased the total number of teams to 18.
The FL is the fifth-highest grossing professional minor sports league in the United States by revenue, after theAmerican Hockey League (AHL),International League (IL), thePacific Coast League (PCL) and theAtlantic League of Professional Baseball (ALPB).[citation needed] The league's headquarters have been in Sauget, Illinois since 2001, when theGateway Grizzlies were formed. As of the 2024 season, the FL had players from 17 different countries.
The league's regular season is typically held from May to September, with each team playing 96 games.[4] Following the conclusion of the regular season, 8 teams advance to the Frontier League playoffs, a three-round tournament that runs into late-September to determine the league champion.[5] Since the league's founding in 1993, theSchaumburg Boomers have won the most combined FL titles with four, and the reigning league champions are theQuébec Capitales, who defeated theWashington Wild Things in the 2024 Frontier League Championship Series.[6][7]
The Frontier League was founded in 1993. It initially struggled to retain franchises, with four of its eight founding teams folding within three seasons, though steadily grew to twelve teams within a decade. The first league champions were theZanesville Greys. Eight teams have won more than one championship: Springfield in 1996 and 1998; Johnstown in 1995 (as theSteal) and in 2000 (as theJohnnies),Richmond Roosters in 2001 and 2002, Windy City in 2007 and 2008, the Joliet Slammers in 2011 and 2018, and theEvansville Otters in 2006 and 2016. With four titles, theSchaumburg Boomers have won the most league championships.
On June 20, 2000,Brian Tollberg debuted with theSan Diego Padres, becoming the first FL player to make it to the Majors. A week later,Morgan Burkhart made his debut with theBoston Red Sox.
Although the league does not have any teams located in the same city as Major League teams, it does nonetheless have teams located within the markets of Major League teams. TheChicago area has three teams (Joliet Slammers,Schaumburg Boomers andWindy City ThunderBolts), as does theNew York area (New Jersey Jackals,Sussex County Miners, andNew York Boulders), andSt. Louis (Gateway Grizzlies),Cleveland (Lake Erie Crushers),Cincinnati (Florence Y'alls) andPittsburgh (Washington Wild Things) each have one. The Wild Things, in particular, have been able to market themselves as a successful alternative to thePittsburgh Pirates due to the latter franchise's long stretch of losing seasons, which lasted from the league's founding in 1993 until 2013 when the Pirates finished with a record of 94–68.[8]
On October 16, 2019, it was announced that the Frontier League would be merging with theCan-Am League, absorbing five of its teams to form the largest independent professional baseball league. This added theNew Jersey Jackals,New York Boulders,Québec Capitales,Sussex County Miners, andTrois-Rivières Aigles to the league; theOttawa Champions, the last remaining Can-Am League team, were not invited to participate.[9] The divisions were renamed, with the easternmost teams playing in the Can-Am Division and the westernmost teams playing in the Midwest Division.
On September 24, 2020,Major League Baseball announced that it named the FL as an ''MLB Partner League''.[10] This enables collaboration with MLB to jointly discuss marketing and promotional initiatives to grow, expand, and enhance the game and quality of baseball.[11]
For the 2021 season, the league announced that they would be adding two new teams. The first announcement came around the same time as the announcement of the partnership with Major League Baseball, asOttawa was granted an expansion franchise in the league. The team, as chosen by fans in a contest, was named theTitans and started playing atOttawa Stadium.[12][13] Then, on January 8, 2021, after the reorganization of Minor League Baseball, the league added theTri-City ValleyCats, which were one of several teams that were orphaned or disbanded when theNew York-Penn League was folded. The Titans, ValleyCats as well as theWashington Wild Things joined the five former Can-Am League teams in the Can-Am Division, to even the divisions at eight teams;Lake Erie was transferred to the Midwest Division.
On April 22, 2021, the league announced that theQuébec Capitales, theTrois-Rivières Aigles, and theOttawa Titans would not compete in the 2021 season due to theprolonged closure of the Canada–United States border as a result of the ongoingCOVID-19 pandemic. The Titans, Aigles and Capitales later joined forces to form a new team that competed as a member of the Atlantic Division in the Can-Am Conference.[14] Known asÉquipe Québec, they began the season as atraveling team, and starting on July 30, 2021, started sharing home games betweenQuebec City andTrois-Rivières following a loosening in border restrictions.[15][16] 10 games were played in Québec City and 11 in Trois-Rivières. They did not play in Ottawa due to COVID-19 restrictions inOntario.
On October 6, 2021, the owners of theSouthern Illinois Miners, Jayne and John Simmons, announced they would be retiring from professional baseball to spend more time with family and the Miners would be ceasing operations and dropping out of the FL.[17][18] As a result, the league formed theEmpire State Greys, to compete as atraveling team with a roster of players from theEmpire Professional Baseball League.[19]
In September 2023, the league announced a new team, theNew England Knockouts, who were planned to play at Campanelli Stadium inBrockton, Massachusetts, beginning with the 2024 season. This brought the total number of permanent members of the league to sixteen teams.[20] After playing one season as the Knockouts, the team was renamed as theBrockton Rox in January 2025.[21]
In September 2024, the league announced an expansion to Mississippi and North Carolina.[22][23] A franchise was awarded toPearl, Mississippi, called theMississippi Mud Monsters,[24] following the departure of theAtlanta BravesDouble-A affiliate, theMississippi Braves.[22] TheDown East Bird Dawgs, a new team inKinston, North Carolina, will play inGrainger Stadium, which was formerly home of theTexas Rangers-affiliatedDown East Wood Ducks.[25][23][26]
The Frontier League season is divided into a preseason (late April and early May), a regular season (from early May through early September) and a postseason (the Frontier League playoffs) that runs until late September.[4]
Teams usually hold a spring showcase for prospects in April and participate in prospect tournaments, full games that do not feature any veterans, in late April. Full training camps begin in late April, including a preseason consisting of a fewexhibition games. Split squad games, in which parts of a team's regular season roster play separate games on the same day, are occasionally played during the preseason.
During the regular season, clubs play each other in a predefined schedule. Since 2021, in the regular season, all teams play 96 games: 48 games each of home and road, playing 84 games in their own geographic division—four series (12 games) against five of their eight intra-conference opponents, plus three series (9 games) against two others, and two series (6 games) against the remaining one; and only one series (3 games) against four of the nine teams in the other conference once—home or road.[27]
The league's regular season standings are based on a win percentage system. At the end of the regular season, the team that finishes with the highest win percentage in each divisions is crowned the division champion, and the league's overall leader are named the Frontier League regular season champions.
The Frontier League playoffs, which go from early to late September, are an elimination tournament where two teams play against each other to win a series in order to advance to the next round. The final remaining team is crowned the Frontier League champion. Four teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs: the top team in each division plus the two conference teams with the next highest win percentage.[28] The two Wild Card Series winners proceed to the Frontier League Division Series (FLDS) as the league's conference finals, and the two conference champions proceed to the Frontier League Championship Series (FLCS). In all rounds, the higher-ranked team is awarded home-field advantage, with up to three of the five games played at this team's home venue. In the FLCS, the team with the most wins during the regular season has the home-field advantage.[5]
Teams in the FL must recruit and sign their own players, who usually are undrafted college players or one-time prospects who have been released by their teams.
The league also has several other rules to give younger players more opportunities. This includes a maximum of eight veterans per team, and a minimum of ten rookies in their roster.[29] The remaining six players on the 24-man roster can be classified as ''Experienced-1'' or ''Experienced-2''. Rosters are limited to a size of 24 players on the Opening Day series, although up to 10 additional players can be added to a team's roster during the regular season before the transactions limit.
For the 2021 season, the Frontier League consisted of 14 teams—13 based in the United States and 1 in Canada.[30] The FL divided the 14 teams into two conferences: the Can-Am Conference and the Midwest Conference. Each conference was split into twodivisions: the Can-Am Conference contained 6 teams (three per division), while the Midwest Conference had 8 teams (four per division).[31] The league temporarily realigned from the2022 to the2024 seasons but returned to the previous alignment the following year. With the addition of theEmpire State Greys in 2022–23 and theBrockton Rox in 2024, the league operated at 16 teams with only two divisions: East and West.[32][33]
The league expanded for the first time in 9 years to 15 teams with the addition of theOttawa Titans in 2020, then to 16 with the addition of theTri-City ValleyCats in 2021.[34] In September 2024, anew expansion team in Mississippi was created, after the ownership group of theMississippi Braves sold the team.[35] A few weeks later, a second new team inKinston, North Carolina joined the FL, and started playing in 2025 as theDown East Bird Dawgs.[36] The expansion of the two new teams marks the league's first expansion into the deep south, and largest expansion in history. The league reverted to the 2021 setup: two conferences with four divisions.[37]
| Statistic | Record | Player |
|---|---|---|
| Games Played | 588 | Chris Sidick |
| At Bats | 2,225 | |
| Runs | 434 | |
| Hits | 725 | Santiago Chirino |
| Home Runs | 127 | Charlie Lisk |
| Runs Batted In | 442 |
| Statistic | Record | Player |
|---|---|---|
| Games | 255 | Nick Kennedy |
| Games started | 98 | Aaron Ledbetter |
| Innings Pitched | 671.2 | |
| Wins | 51 | |
| Strikeouts | 522 | |
| Complete Games | 18 | |
| Saves | 74 | Zach Strecker |
On February 24, 2022, the FL announced that all games for the 2022 season would be available through the streaming platformFloSports.[39] They then announced a move to streaming platform HomeTeam Network for the 2025 season.[40]
