It appears there is a plan in place for a Major League Baseball season in 2020, a shortened one, and one that probably won’t include all of the players you’d expect to see in a pandemic-free year, but some kind of a season at the least. What we won’t see, however, is minor-league baseball this year; other than players who might be on “taxi squads” or whatever we’re calling the supply of extra players kept on hand for injury replacement, minor leaguers won’t see any game action this summer and may not see any in this calendar year*. That has left player development executives facing the possibility of a lost year of development for the majority of the players, including some significant prospects, in the farm systems under their direction.
* There have been and still are ongoing discussions about an extended schedule for the Arizona Fall League, which would allow prospects to make up for some lost playing time, but the subsequent surge of cases of COVID-19 in Arizona has made that a pipe dream. Perhaps the Delaware Fall League would be a better bet?
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I spoke to multiple player development executives about their plans for helping minor leaguers avoid taking a zero for 2020, with some requesting anonymity. The one answer common to all who responded was that they’ve all shifted instruction online where possible, whether focusing on physical conditioning, tweaking mechanics or developing mental skills.
The biggest obstacle everyone cited was uncertainty, which makes planning difficult and increases the anxiety for everyone involved, including players. “We’re operating under some assumptions that will allow us to have some flexibility, but we need to have some type of North Star,” said one AL executive. “What we know to be true today could be wrong in a week. So we forecast different scenarios of what the world could look like, and with some of the tools that we have available to us, plan how can we best engage with players and best walk them through developmental plans.”
“We started off where the framing of the whole situation was important for us,” said Mike LaCassa, director of minor league operations for the Los Angeles Angels. “Every minor league player is dealing with the pandemic and lost regular-season games. How do we separate ourselves from the pack and look at this obstacle as something to make you stronger?” The Angels emphasized to players that they could try to use the downtime as an opportunity. “The lost time on the field is out of your control. We want each player to come out stronger than they were when we started spring training this March. They’ve never had summertime to work on strength and conditioning like this, without the time of regular games” limiting how much they could work on other skill development.
Seattle Mariners Director of Player Development Andy McKay voiced similar sentiments when recalling the first days after teams broke camp in mid-March. “We were kind of flipping the calendar, turning this (shutdown) into an offseason, really pounding away on the weight room and mental skills, swing changes, all things you’d normally do in the offseason. We were thinking that fall was going to end up being a season.”
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Multiple directors emphasized that players will end up taking more responsibility for maintaining and advancing their own development this year if they can’t get into actual games. “It’s going to show — there’s always a bit of separation that happens organically with the players themselves,” said one NL player development director. “How hard workers they are, and how much of self-starters they are. It’s still going to come down to the individual. We can do our best staying in touch, getting eyes on them, be it video or in person in some cases. It’s very much up to the person.”
“Each individual player is different. Some we get to monitor a lot more than others,” said another NL player development director. “We have to provide more structure and guidance and specific routines to some of the younger players, while some older players have more established routines and know what to work on. We utilize Zoom, doing conference calls with groups of players, like chalk talks and baseball 101 type talks, and then we do them with individual players trying to continue to attack areas of weakness.”
That same executive offered a cautionary note about pushing too far with players at home. “From a pitching perspective, if you try to do too much, (a pitcher) forms bad habits and maybe ends up getting injured,” he said. “First and foremost, we’re putting on a workload that is safe. If he can get to a Rapsodo machine that provides that feedback and that data to show where that pitcher is, that’s critical. Or Blast sensors (for hitters) to get some feedback there. It’s tough not being on the field with the player, so we use data we can capture that makes sure that pitcher is close to his baseline levels.”
“All the strength and conditioning things you can do,” said the first NL exec. “You can do Zoom sessions to monitor and encourage their individual work. It’s tough, it’s very much on the individual, do you do the best you can by communicating with them frequently, and getting coaches and coordinators abreast of what they’re working on. You can’t force these guys to do things, or put their safety at risk. You can encourage and provide resources to them.”
Every executive I asked said they expected teams to load up their taxi squad or “satellite” rosters with prospects. “Teams are going to — I would expect — take advantage of the opportunity to continue development with their top prospects, instead of just having a Triple A team there,” said one NL executive. “They can’t bring everybody, but they’re certainly going to make sure to add the top prospects that may not be ready for the big leagues right now.”
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Another NL exec speculated that “almost every team’s top 10 prospects will be on a satellite roster. The Orioles, maybe it’ll be whoever they think are their 20 best non-roster prospects. There will be guys from this draft who are on our satellite roster.” He guessed that most or all first-round picks from this year’s draft could end up on these taxi squads to try to get those players some reps and allow coaches to get their first live looks at the players post-draft.
For players who don’t get these opportunities, however, there’s a reasonable chance they don’t get to play at all this year. There’s talk of an instructional league and an extended Arizona Fall League, or perhaps a combination of the two that sees a Florida Fall League, but both depend on the COVID-19 case rates and state responses in both jurisdictions improving drastically from where they are right now. Teams have to prepare for the possibility that some players will never see game action this year. Worst off, potentially, are those who were 2019 draft picks. “Players drafted last year — I feel terrible for them,” said one NL exec. “They had limited innings or at-bats last year because they were gassed. They work their tails off all winter. They’re in spring training in two weeks. Now they might not play at all this year. And if we lose a short-season club (to minor-league contraction), you go into next year, all those guys have to jump a level,” and will compete for playing time with the players just drafted in 2020.
That can contribute to player anxiety already spawned or exacerbated by the pandemic itself. “We’ve had some of our mental performance coaches reach out to players,” said the earlier AL executive. “How do you stay upbeat when you’re slated to go to short-season or Low A and trying to make a name for yourself and you don’t know what’s happening. That obviously is something that we’re trying to account for.” The Angels and Mariners have also had their mental skills people work with players; the Angels’ director of mental conditioning Will Lenzner has helped players focus on what they can accomplish this year on their own, rather than dwelling on what they can’t.
“Minimizing the lost development time, a lot of that hangs on motivation. Replacing a hitter getting 400 PA and seeing over 1,000 live pitches, that is a part of skill development that is missed. We’re going to have to find ways down the road to make up for that as best as possible,” said LaCassa. “One thing we created was having competitions with players remotely. Sometimes those were not baseball-related at all, sometimes they were a different way of testing pitch recognition that we could do in a Zoom room. Some players have better setups than others, some have other players they can train with. But when we get back together, we’re going to have to find ways to maximize opportunities. Can we make each pitch or swing be an opportunity for a hitter to recognize pitch types or a defender to get a live read? Can practice to be more hard or game-like?”
McKay did offer a positive note to all of this. “We’re driving home to guys that it’s not a lost year of development. Every year, players come back to spring training way better than when they left. Guys show up at spring training and we say, ‘Oh my God, where did that slider come from? This guy learned how to ride a four-seam fastball! This guy added 3 mph!’ All of those opportunities are still sitting right in front of us, more so now than ever. Through things as simple as FaceTime and using your phone to record, our knowledge of what Rapsodo can do for guys, throwing bullpens, whether through our offseason programs or whatever, you’re going to have players come back from this the best players they’ve ever been without having played a game.”
We will probably see some players return in 2021 completely different from how they looked and performed the last time we saw them — in both directions. Every source I asked said their team’s focuses were on keeping players motivated and giving them skills training remotely, with the hope that they’d get hands-on time with the players later this year. That doesn’t say what will happen to players who regress during the downtime, not due to lack of motivation or effort, but because of anxiety or depression, or lack of access to equipment or training partners, or time spent helping a sick family member. The challenge for player development personnel will only continue once players do return to game action, even more so if that doesn’t come until 2021.
(Photo of Alec Bohm in the Arizona Fall League: Jennifer Stewart / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
