Without players, minor leagues forced to cancel season.
The Minor League Baseball season was canceled Tuesday, postponing baseball for 160 affiliated teams across the country at least until next year amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In Northern California, that included the San Jose Giants and Sacramento River Cats, the Giants’ HighA and TripleA affiliates, and the Stockton Ports, the A’s HighA affiliate.
“For us, it’s disappointing, for sure,” said Matt Alongi, the San Jose Giants’ vice president of marketing. “I think we’ve all been preparing for that as we’ve been using our park in creative ways the past couple of months.
However, this news is never taken easily.”
The Ports announced this will mark the first year since 1977 without professional baseball in Stockton.
“It’s obviously a challenge,” Ports President Pat Filippone said. “It’s obviously something you didn’t expect or plan for. However, I will say that we are in position to pull through this.”
MiLB said it had made the decision after Major League Baseball said it would not provide players to its minorleague affiliates for a season.
“These are unprecedented times for our country and our organization as this is the first
time in our history that we’ve had a summer without Minor League Baseball played,” MiLB President and CEO Pat O’Conner said in a statement. “While this is a sad day for many, this announcement removes the uncertainty surrounding the 2020 season and allows our teams to begin planning for an exciting 2021 season of affordable family entertainment.”
The move was not unexpected, given minorleague teams’ reliance on ticket sales and ingame experience for revenue. Filippone said the financial impact of losing a full season is “significant,” though the Ports have the “infrastructure to survive” due in part to a supportive market.
“You take any small business in any field, if you go a calendar year without generating revenue, most wouldn’t survive,” Filippone said.
In San Jose, the Giants have opened Excite Ballpark recently for events such as a movie night and drivethrough barbecue pickup. Alongi said the lost season is “troublesome,” adding the impact extends to 250300 seasonal workers the team typically hires for games, and that management has turned its focus to ways of making up revenue this offseason and next year.
“I think across minorleague baseball, teams will tell you we’re going through an unprecedented time, not only in terms of health and safety but our financials,” Alongi said. “It’s something that we look forward to brighter days ahead in 2021.”
For many minorleague players, the move increases the possibility that they will not play games in 2020. MLB teams reconvening this week have included some highprofile minorleaguers in their player pools for a potential season, but many prospects face losing a year of development.
“My first reaction is, I feel for our minorleague affiliates,” said Kyle Haines, the Giants’ director of player development. “Obviously, we feel for our players. But first and foremost, the employees of the affiliates and the owners, I feel for them. They’ve worked really hard to try to run a good operation in their cities.
“With our players, we still hold out hope that for at least some of them — definitely not all of them — we’ll try what we can to get them developmental reps in some shape or form. I think you just feel for the ones that we’re not going to have camps available for, or whatever it may be.”
A’s director of player development Ed Sprague said teams share hope that a fall or instructional league might be held later this year, but any ideas are uncertain amid the ongoing pandemic.
“You have a gamut of young players that are just getting into the game that need atbats, and guys that are on the verge of trying to hold onto their careers … missing a whole year and then the aging curve affecting them,” Sprague said.
“I think it affects everybody equally. But us being an organization that prides ourselves on draft and development, it certainly is a challenge for us moving forward.”
A’s minorleague pitcher Aiden McIntyre, drafted in 2018 from Holy Names University in Oakland, said Tuesday’s news did not come as a surprise. Since baseball was first put on hold, McIntyre said: “My idea has pretty much been to prepare for spring training 2021.”
“You’re looking at another nine months of training, which can be a lot to think about,” said McIntyre, 24. “But you’ll never have nine months of straight training time again really as a player. So it is definitely a difficult situation but also could be the most beneficial opportunity of your career.”
James Naile, 27, who pitched last season for the A’s DoubleA Midland affiliate, said the view could be different for minorleaguers later in their careers.
“These teams, they like young players, and if you’re an older minorleaguer in a position like me, it’s not good — you don’t want to be a year older,” Naile said. “But there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The A’s and Giants have said they will continue to pay $400 weekly minorleague stipends to players through the end of the canceled season. Naile said he’ll still likely look for a job and knows other players trying to enroll in classes to finish degrees.
“I think it’s going to look a lot different for everybody,” Naile said.