A farm team, or farm club, generally refers to a minor leaguebaseball league which are at a lower pay level and play in smaller cities and towns than do Major League Baseball, and which are under the control of the two major leagues and are used for development of younger players.
The existence of the minor league system is partly due to major league baseball's ability to include a reserve clause in the contracts with minor league baseball players which gives a major league team exclusive rights to a player even after the contract has expired. This is possible in baseball because of a 1922 Supreme Court decision which grants baseball a special immunity from antitrust laws.
The term is also used as a metaphor for any organization or activity that serves as a training ground for higher-level endeavors. For instance, sometimes business schools are referred to as "farm clubs" for the world of business.
A farm team, or feeder team, generally refers to a team or club whose role it is to provide experience and training for young players, with an agreement that any successful players will move on to a bigger side at a certain point.
The existence of the minor league system is partly due to major league baseball's ability to include a reserve clause in the contracts with minor league baseball players, which gives a major league team exclusive rights to a player even after the contract has expired.
Alternatively, clubs may use teams playing abroad, particularly if they want to follow the progress of players who they cannot sign due to work permit regulations.
Minor league baseball also goes by the nickname the "farm system," "farmclub," or "farm team(s)," because of a joke passed around by major league players in the 1930s when St. Louis Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey formalized the system and teams in small towns were "growing players down on the farm like corn."
Only 25 of the players on the major league 40 Man Roster play for the major league baseball club, except from September 1 to the end of the regular season, when all major-league teams are allowed to expand their gameday rosters to 40 players.
The Round Rock Express, a Class-AA club in the Austin suburb of Round Rock, was moved to Corpus Christi and renamed the Corpus Christi Hooks.
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