When Major League Baseball and the players’ union came to an agreement on the structure of this season, it included an expanded 60-player pool that would let teams bring 30-odd extra players to a second site that we mostly refer to now, in the most awkward fashion, as the “alternate site,” as if it were someplace where they only play music by indie artists and serve third-wave coffee. (On second thought, that sounds great – sign me up.) Most teams chose to add their best prospects to the back of that pool, even if those players had little to no chance to see major-league time this year, because it was the only way to secure any sort of playing time at all for them, and gave player development staff a chance to at least work with some of their prospects in person.
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The days over at that second site are quite different from any typical baseball experience. I had guessed before the season began that it would look a bit like minor-league spring training over there, but COVID-19 protocols and the sheer dearth of both position players and pitchers have made even the simple art of playing games difficult. I spoke to several player development executives to get a sense of what those days are like, and what challenges they’ve faced in just getting guys the reps they need to improve.
“Our normal pregame is kind of a little bit like the regular season,” said JJ Picollo, Vice President and Assistant GM for Player Personnel of the Kansas City Royals. ” We take BP every day on the field, but we also might go through a defensive period or work on team fundamentals, just like we would during the regular season.
“An hour or hour and a half before that is early work that’s like instructional league,” he said, referring to the usual offseason programs teams hold in September or now sometimes in January, where the emphasis is on teaching and games are malleable things. “We’ll have a group in the cage, a group doing defense or bunting or baserunning, station to station like in instructs. Post-game work is definitely more instructional league – in the regular season we wouldn’t have guys stay after the game and work in the cage.”
“We do a lot of early work, and get some individual instruction,” said Kyle Haines, Farm Director for the San Francisco Giants. “Guys come in as the day goes. We do separate stretches to break the group up so not everyone’s together, then we bring them all back for a bit of fundamentals on the field. If guys have more BP or such, they stay. If pitchers are done for the day, they hurry and get their lifting in or go eat, and then disperse. Then we try to do an intrasquad if we have the innings available.”
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Haines mentioned that even players arriving at the stadium is a novel experience. “We have a lot of new routines that people don’t see to make sure we’re being safe on the COVID issue. We have specific check-in times for players, a check-in station away from the locker room and from eating and congregating areas. They check in with a medical expert, enter the complex or facility for the day, and go through protocols. We’ve eliminated all the things that keep people comfortable in the locker room, couches and TVs, to avoid having players congregate or just lounge.”
“We’re trying to mimic the major-league lifestyle to some degree while balancing with more development than is typical of the major-league style,” said another VP of Player Development who asked not to be named. “Players come in, get a meal, then we do early individualized work with position players. We do small group defense rather than all infielders at once to maintain distancing. We try to do some sort of variation of hitting on the field, with machine work, traditional BP, a break, then a sim game.”
Everyone to whom I spoke said they’re playing as many games as they can at the alternate site, but that the shape of those games can differ from camp to camp and day to day.
“We are playing a lot of games,” said Jared Porter, senior vice president & assistant general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks. “Usually it’s a 4- to 9-inning game, depending on the day and the pitching. The games tend to be longer when the team is at home, because the taxi squad guys aren’t gone,” meaning there are a few more bodies available. “If we don’t have enough guys for a game that day, we’ll run some sort of a BP type practice for position players, and the pitchers will get their work in. Our guys are getting a lot of at-bats.”
“The biggest challenge is the games. The most we’ve been able to get in is five and a half innings,” said Picollo. “There are days we put eight guys in the field and have just two to three guys hitting. Some days we go one outfielder and a couple of infielders, and then everyone hits. We may play three innings tomorrow and make it a situational game, all relievers and no fielders, so the first inning might be (getting) a guy over, and the third inning might be the extra-inning rule.”
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“I’d say we’ve had games almost every day,” said the anonymous VP. “Maybe that’s because we have more pitchers on our roster, and a number of guys getting stretched out, so games are ranging 3 to 9 innings. We don’t have two teams, with about 12 position players there including four catchers, so guys are playing defense for two half-innings in a row, then coming in and hitting in a small group. So in a six-inning game, they’re getting 8-9 innings of defense and four to five at-bats, although it’s not perfect standing out there two or three half-innings in a row.”
“We typically have about five position players on each team,” said Porter. “We even have coaches and some ‘Tier 2′ people, like interpreters and strength coaches, playing. We have (outfield coordinator) Jonny Gomes played some left field, (farm director) Josh Barfield second base, (field coordinator) Blake Lalli, a bunch of coaches who recently played, so they play the field a lot, but they don’t hit. There’s even been some highlight plays from some of those guys!”
“We try to fashion two teams as best as we can and put some little things on the line,” said Haines. “We try to make things count. We post the stats so players know they matter to us. We document all thrown and batted balls, and use the technology to gather as much information so we can help the guys.”
If there’s been any sort of silver lining in all of this, it’s that teams have had the opportunity to work more intensively with some of their best young prospects in a way that wouldn’t have been possible in a typical season. “For our young guys like Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas and Bryce Jarvis to interact with guys who have had major-league time, or other prospects like Daulton Varsho, it’s so good for those young guys to see that,” said Porter. “Not that anything can replace a 140-game season, but from a mentality and day-to-day professionalism standpoint, getting dressed in our ML clubhouse at Salt River and wearing that ML uniform every day, it’ll be tremendously beneficial for those guys.”
“One fringe benefit we didn’t really think about until halfway through this thing,” says Picollo, “is that (left-handed Royals prospects) Nick Pratto, MJ Melendez, and Kyle Isbel are getting more at-bats this year against lefties than righties. And it’s good left-handed pitching, either 4A guys better than they’ve seen before or Kris Bubic and Daniel Lynch,” two of the Royals’ best arms.
Picollo did mention the downside of these simulated games is that the players still play differently because they’re playing their teammates. “The hitters have no fear because pitchers won’t pitch inside like they would in a regular season. They’re not missing in and off the plate where you’re really moving a guy, and hitters are seeing the same pitchers over and over and over, so they know these guys inside and out.”
The Giants also have a number of very young hitting prospects at their alternate site, including Marco Luciano, Alex Canario and Luis Toribio. In Low-A or short-season ball, “they’ll face the stuff, or maybe the command, but the combination of pitchers throwing two or three pitches where they want at any time with plans behind setting them up, that’s new” to those young hitters, says Haines. “It’s a huge growth opportunity for them as they see the difference between rookie ball and major-league players. We have a more aggressive weightlifting program for them as well. They don’t need to be ready for the ML tomorrow, so we don’t have to worry about overwork, and we can do more one-on-one instruction and early work for guys who are less in the ‘stay ready’ category.”
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The other bit of good news is that no team so far has reported an outbreak of COVID-19 cases at those alternate sites, where no outside personnel (including scouts or media) are allowed and, thus far, distancing protocols, staggered arrivals and workouts, and other precautions have helped avoid any shutdowns. It also gives teams some hope that we might have a fall league — a regular Arizona Fall League, a split league in Arizona and Florida, or perhaps even “pods” played in cities around the country — to continue the development of some more prospects, including many who didn’t make MLB player pools this year. It’s not ideal, but it has worked, and these executives show that player development staffs can still extract something, even from this unfortunate situation.
(Photo: Rob Tringali / Sportschrome / Getty Images)
