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A growing sign that the 2021 season is nearing is the announcement of minor league coaching staffs. That came Monday for the Dodgers, with several notable changes, including old friend Jamey Wright as the pitching coach in Triple-A and legendary coach John Shoemaker adding yet another city to his minor league managing résumé.
This is a season of change for minor league baseball as a whole, with a restructuring across the sport, paring down to four domestic affiliates per organization plus teams at complexes in spring training cities and the Dominican Republic. In December, major league teams invited four affiliates the Dodgers chose to stick with the same top four teams, though with Rancho Cucamonga and Great Lakes swapping Class-A levels with minor league teams having a month to sign 10-year development contracts. As J.J. Cooper of Baseball America, the deadline to accept those deals is this Wednesday