Minor league baseball isn’t the Show and it isn’t college.

With the MLB openly proposing to nix high school eligibility and offload domestic development to NCAA, it’s useful to remember the purpose of the farm leagues. Of course, for the communities these teams inhabit, they provide public events and encourage commerce. On the baseball side of things, their primary purpose is to develop prospects into players.

For the Triple-A Tacoma Rainiers, who are well out of the Pacific Coast League’s playoff picture deep into the season (having already been a middling team in the first half and sitting nine games out of first for the second half playoff spot - the PCL runs on a similar playoff format to Mexican soccer), the objectives are still the same, more or less, as they would have been were they one game back: develop their top prospects into superstars and keep everyone, regardless of prospect pedigree, ready to go in case the big league club needs them.

“At this level, guys are playing for a lot more than just finishing first,” said Rainiers manager John Russell. “Guys are still wanting to stay ready in case they get an opportunity to go to Seattle or maybe another major league club.”

Organizational depth is the term used in the business for players like Patrick Wisdom, Connor Joe, and Stuart Fairchild. Other players, such as Brock Rodden and Charlie Beilenson, are lower or middle-ranked prospects in the organization who might get a bit of runway if circumstances allow. 

The line between these two categories is blurry, as Ryan Bliss can attest. The pipeline from outside prospect to organizational depth typically runs one way in accordance with the will of undefeated Father Time. But the chance to prove oneself at the major league level is motivation enough for plenty of the guys down in Tacoma. If not that, then a sense of duty to his teammates or a hunger to keep playing the game as long as they can. Or all of it.