I enjoy watching baseball, but don't get as deep into it as some on here. So take this as a naïve question. I keep reading how guys are going from AA to the Majors. Completely bypassing AAA. Does this make AAA baseball basically a dumping ground for people who just can't make it to the Majors? Or a place to do rehab stints? I would think that players would progress from A-AA-AAA-MLB, but it doesn't seem to be happening in the stuff I read about.
More or less that correct. AAA becomes a place where you take guys who can help you short term. You see a lot more AAA players being called up for assignment in the Brewers organization.
Kinda strange, but that has been the case where kids who are stars play together until AA and then get brought up long term. This bodes well for the Brewers down the road, because Biloxi was really good in AA this year. I'd say they are at least two years from the major league level though.
As far as injuries go, I'd say that our local club uses the Timber Rattlers more for rehab assignments than AAA because of the proximity. Not sure how that works league wide.
It does seem that the Brewers use AAA as a place to stockpile "AAAA" players they can call up to the roster if they need to without worrying about service time. They also have tired to keep their best prospects together as a group and move them up as a group in the past since it gets them use to winning (see Biloxi last year) and builds chemistry - wondering if this will continue.