MINOR MATTERS - IMPERFECT SCENARIO

A glimpse of what player development could look like this year in the summer of COVID

- JOSH NORRIS

On the Monday following the draft, Major League Baseball lifted its ban on scouting—though it did limit teams to three scouts per event—which meant amateur departments could begin covering the yearly showcase circuit in advance of the 2021 draft.

And in preparation for what looked like a severely shortened major league season—at press time, the negotiations between MLB and the players’ union looked like they would result in a season between 60 and 70 games— the league instructed teams to begin selecting sites within 100 miles of their home parks where their taxi squads could train.

Though the number of players wasn’t official, the aims of the taxi squads were to provide a group of reinforcements for the big league team in case of injury or ineffectiveness and to keep some of their higher-priority prospects in some semblance of game shape.

The taxi squads were also the first hints of in-person player development since the sport shut down on March 12 as a reaction to the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, it’s been the responsibility of the players to stay in game shape without access to team facilities or even local gyms, which had been shut down in most areas because of the pandemic.

Otherwise, MLB had banned all organized workouts at team facilities, and nobody was sure when the ban would be lifted. In the meantime, prospects were missing out on games, at-bats, and innings of development.

At some point, though—probably after the negotiations in the major leagues reach their conclusion—things will resume as much as the virus will allow. The question is: What will player development look like in 2020?