We've heard all the rumors about an MLB season starting back up at some point with extended rosters, socially-distanced umps, re-imagined divisions among others, but what about the minor leagues? It seems pretty likely that there will be no MiLB season. But, to be optimistic, I'm going to paint a picture as to what an MiLB season could look like along with the opportunities this situation presents.
The Hypothetical
MLB Opening Day 2020 is June 1st with a 50-man roster to account for heat in the AZ/FL "bubbles", players getting sick, injured, etc. Things are going extremely well, the curve is flattening, and maybe this whole corona thing was overblown. As a precaution, there will be no fans allowed in stadiums through the remainder of the season. For MLB, this is not ideal, but they can still make money through TV contracts. For MiLB, not so much. They rely heavily on gate revenue to stay afloat and cannot afford to eat the expenses with no TV contracts. No season for them.
Or...what if things are starting to look better come middle of June? Or even early July? While it would be wise to continue to avoid having fans in seats at the affiliate stadiums, that doesn't mean there can't be a MiLB season. They can have an abbreviated season on the backfields.
Player Development HQ
In some ways, this is a perfect scenario. I have thought about the benefits of keeping nearly the entire organization at the spring training complex for the past year, but wasn't expecting there to be a pandemic to trigger my plan. This would no doubt stir some controversy in a pandemic year, much less a non-pandemic year, but I believe there would be many positives from both a developmental and a financial perspective. I will get into the pros and cons, but first lets imagine what the HQ would look like.
Rather than playing at an affiliate throughout the summer months, an organization's players are stationed at the spring training complex: Player Development HQ. In a normal year, I think AAA and AA seasons should still take place at an actual affiliate. For the purpose of this post, let's say that the additional 24 players on the 2020 MLB expanded rosters (50 total) come from a mixture of AAA and AA rosters. With roughly 300 players in each organization, that leaves around 250 players working out on their own with no games currently.
Keep the Dominican Republic complexes functioning the same, which, depending on the organization, makes up 60-100 players, leaving 150-190 players on the sidelines. In a normal year, have those 150-190 players would report to HQ, while AAA and AA head out to their affiliates. This year, have 50 players report to HQ.
In a perfect world, teams would still be able to play real games against other organizations on their HQ grounds. At worst, teams can intrasquad.
Many spring training complexes have invested significant amounts of money into new technology that does not get fully utilized from after Spring Training until fall instructs. Some affiliates lack substantial resources more than others, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say there are none with the resources of the complex.
Development Benefits
There is a long list of additional resources at a complex compared to those at an affiliate. Possibly the biggest is having all of the coaches and coordinators in one place. There are many positives to this, some of which I outlined in this post. One example could be Player A, who benefited from working with Coach A during his rookie year in the AZL. Player A would traditionally get moved up and work with Coach B, but with a headquarters, he would be able to stick with Coach A for at least another year. Teams could create a player-coach matching system based on various traits. Coordinators would also get to spend more time with the players and coaches, having a lot more agility to see who they want, when they want.
Some teams have heavily invested in sports science labs. While they do not go completely unused, they go completely underused during the regular season if only rookie leaguers and MLB rehabbers are making use of them.
Strength training and medical care would play a role in many ways. Not only are most complexes more equipped with rehab pools and various tools to help aid in recovery, players would be able to get high-level treatment immediately. Instead of throwing a bag of ice on your body and hopping on a bus for a 10-hour trip, everything would be readily available after a game. Imagine how energizing it would be to not have a long trip for the entire season. (No travel if there are intrasquads, roughly 1 hour radius in AZ, slightly more in FL contingent on other teams adopting a similar model.)
Some organizations may be more technology-strapped than others. Maybe a team only has 2 Edgertronic cameras and they float them around from one affiliate to the next. That would no longer be an issue with a centralized HQ.
Many teams have started giving both english and spanish lessons to the players which is a great idea for many reasons. However, most of those lessons only take place at the complex, not during affiliate seasons. And like anything else, if you are not consistently practicing something, it will be difficult to improve. That would no longer be an issue at the HQ and the money spent on those resources would not go to waste.
Financial Impact
When I first wrote this, I was under the impression that MLB organizations were responsible for travel expenses such as hotels and busses. After looking into it more, it looks like the affiliate franchise is responsible for those expenses, while MLB is responsible for meal money, player and staff salaries. Even though the biggest costs of travel and living expenses would not be eliminated like I thought, there are still some expenses slashed should teams not have affiliated games in 2020, and made the jump to HQ in years 2021 and beyond.
Coordinators and other traveling staff would also not require plane tickets, hotels and meal money on a regular basis. Their quality of life would also possibly go up, being based in one area the entire year and spending less time traveling.
As exciting as meal money is when on the road, a season at the HQ would be considered "home" and not require meal money. So multiply daily allowance by the number of players and staff, by the number of away games and you get your meal money savings. Of course, if everything took place at HQ, there would still be food costs. Save on food by hiring a few chefs to cook at the HQ rather than catering every meal both at home and on the road.
Housing could go a few different ways during both pandemic and non-pandemic times. If possible, the current system would stay the same where players are either on their own to find a place, or there are host families if they are lucky. If that's not possible and the team has to provide some form of housing allowance, I imagine that long-term rates would be lower than a typical 10-night road trip in three different cities with a flat rate. Especially this year, where hotels and resorts (mainly for the Florida-based teams) are already lacking guests, baseball could provide some relief to their industry's uncertain future by negotiating discounted long-term group rates to teams and/or players.
Cost of No Season
This section primarily addresses the HQ for this year, not so much the future. It is also contingent on rules out of each organization's hands. To make this applicable, both the government and MLB will need to grant teams the right to do what they want with the minor leagues. Let's say that all minor league seasons are cancelled, but teams have the option to do everything I have suggested.
The question becomes: "What would be the long term effects of not bringing the minor leaguers to the complex?" Right now, I know players whose catch partner is a net or tree, and most hitters are unable to even get access to a machine, much less a pro pitcher. I get that many clubs are financially constrained right now, but the cost of players not developing properly could exceed taking a loss in the present. Driveline's Dan Aucoin has done some really interesting work in this realm that is definitely worth checking out. For some teams, players might be better off developing remotely, but as an organization, you cannot put that matter into someone else's hands and you must have confidence in your system.
Anther cost to consider: injuries. While it would be great to always know what players have been up to remotely and knowing they are putting theirs career into their own hands, some players need their hands to be held more than others along the way. Some may find it difficult to train remotely and then lie about what they did when the season returns to avoid backlash. This could potentially put them at higher injury risk and if they get hurt under the team's watch and it requires surgery, that comes at the organization's expense. The chart below shows how an increase in achilles tears may have come as a result of the NFL lockout. Players may have not have followed training guidelines, or they were not able to for a multitude of reasons or it could just be a fallacy, but worth pointing out. Not to say the same would happen in baseball, but essentially what I believe is that the sooner organization's can get players back in person, the better.
*Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy: https://www.jospt.org/doi/full/10.2519/jospt.2011.0107
Drawbacks to HQ
Now that I have explained why I believe there to be many positives to a Player Development HQ that extends beyond spring training, I will address the potential drawbacks.
The first would have to be getting rid of affiliates. There has already been backlash for MLB proposing to slash 42 teams, which is totally understandable. People rely on MiLB teams for their small-town economies and I am not trying to ruin that for anyone. There are also contracts between MLB teams and their affiliates that cannot be completely torn up in order to adopt a HQ model. If the only option is to head to the complex this year, it presents an opportunity to test out this model going forward.
Another potential drawback is lack of competition, which I feel is an integral part of developing as a player. Like I said earlier in this post, if other organizations adopted a similar approach, there could still be competitive games played on HQ grounds, with fans in the stadium( after this season). If not, there would be a lot of intrasquads which would certainly get old.
The weather would also play a factor, as Arizona and Florida summers both have their downfalls. While both have leagues during the summer time, the schedules are built around ideal weather conditions throughout the day. Having more players at the HQ than there are during AZL and GCL games could present scheduling challenges.
Recap
For all I know, this plan could be completely illegal. There are also a lot of hypotheticals getting thrown around. Basically what I'm getting at is that I think teams would benefit from centralizing their player development and that this year, if able, would be a great time to test it out.
If anything, all of this time gives teams a great opportunity to play catch-up if they were falling behind.
Really well thought out - appreciated comments about AZL!