The 2024 Prospect League season is the 15th season of collegiate summer baseball in the Prospect League, a collegiate summer baseball league in the Midwestern United States, since its creation in June 2009. There are 18 Prospect League teams, split evenly between Eastern and Western Conferences. These conferences are then split up between the Northeast, Central, Northwest, and South divisions.
The Chillicothe Paints entered the season as two-time defending champions, having defeated the Quincy Gems, two games to one, in the league's 2023 championship series.[1]
Despite reaching the Prospect League Championship in 2023, the Quincy Gems announced that they would no longer play at QU Stadium and would not return for the 2024 season. The Gems would seek relocation for any potential future seasons.[2][3]
After the Gems announced they would not play in 2024, the league brought in two new teams for the season, the Dubois County Bombers and the Full Count Rhythm.[4][5] For the Bombers, it would be their second stint in the league with the first one being from 2009 to 2012.
The 18 teams in the league are split evenly between two conferences Eastern and Western. These two conferences are then split up into four divisions, Northeast, Central, Northwest, and South.
The season will be played with a 60-game schedule, which is split between two halves, with the first half ending on June 30 and the second half ending on July 31. The first-half winners in each division will host the second-half winners in a one-game divisional championship round. (If the same team wins both halves, the team with the next-best second-half record makes the playoffs).[6]
The playoffs will begin with four winner-take-all division championships followed by two winner-take-all conference championships and will conclude with a best-of-three league championship series. The playoffs are tentatively slated to begin on August 1 and conclude on August 8.
