farm league

farm league (plural farm leagues)

1. (baseball) One or more minor league teams owned by a baseball franchise and used as a training and testing ground for rookies, who, if they perform well, move on to play in the main major league team.
   • 2005, Lance A. Berger, Management Wisdom From the New York Yankees' Dynasty, →ISBN:

     The Yankees entered the farm league business in 1929 when they purchased Chambersburg in the Class D Blue Ridge League.

   • 2009, Robert Peyton Wiggins, The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, →ISBN, page 229:

     Still, the Colonial League experiment was successful enough in its first season for the Federals to become interested in pursuing it as a farm league for its excess players.

   • 2014, Jerry Hall, Simply, Jim, →ISBN:

     Now, understand, you would probably go in the farm league before going up in the majors.

2. (sports, by extension) A minor league team from which scouts recruit players for the major league.
   • 1999 November, “It's a whole new league”, in Black Enterprise, volume 30, number 3, page 28:

     Now the CEO of Isiah International Inc. has his sights set on nothing short of establishing an official farm league for the NBA, establishing a system similar to the one which currently operates in Major League Baseball.

   • 2005, Steve O'Brien, The Canadian Football League, →ISBN:

     Scenarios were floated that the CFL and WLAF would merge or that the CFL would revert to a fall schedule and become a farm league for the NFL.

   • 2015, Chris Elzey, David K. Wiggins, DC Sports: The Nation’s Capital at Play, →ISBN, page 237:

     Heading into their third year, a minor league coach judged the Capitals to be an “average hockey team”—by the standards of a farm league club.

3. (by extension) A position or venue from which talent is recruited for showing potential.
   • 1999 November, “UMG May Use Web Site For A&R Purposes”, in CMJ New Music Report, volume 60, number 642, page 9:

     An industry source told MP3.com that the site is "supposed to be a farm-league thing.

   • 2011, James Emery White, What They Didn't Teach You in Seminary, →ISBN, page 29:

     Hire from the farm league. I constantly counsel church leaders to hire from within.

   • 2011, Harold C. Relyea, Executive Office of the President: An Historical Overview, →ISBN:

     Assessing the historical record, former presidential aide and student of the Presidency Theodore Sorensen once quipped that some Presidents use the Executive Office “as a farm league, some use it as a source of experts and implementers, and some use it as Elba."