Minor leaguers face future out of game
With the 2020 minor league season likely to be canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Rockies have joined the majority of major league teams by releasing players throughout their farm system.
The Rockies wouldn’t give any information about the cuts, but estimates that about 34 players have been released over the past two months. The most notable of those was righthander Tim Melville, who posted a 4.86 ERA in seven second-half starts for Colorado last season.
The majority of players released are prospects that the average fan has never heard of. But the recent cuts — and the likelihood of the Rockies losing two minor league affiliates in 2021, rookie-league Grand Junction and Class-A Advanced Lancaster, as part
of a 42-team MiLB contraction — means that current and future minor leaguers are facing a new baseball reality.
“It’s a tricky time right now, where I want to hold onto baseball, but it’s just a reality that there might not be baseball to hold onto,” said right-hander Jordan Foley, who was released by the Rockies on May 18. “So I’m getting the ball rolling on the rest of my life, and really focusing on that. If baseball happens, great. If not, then I have finishing my degree to focus on and I’ll stay ready in the fall and winter in case a team calls for next season.”
Originally a fifth-round draft pick out of Central Michigan by the Yankees in 2014, Foley has pitched six seasons in the minors, including last year in Double-A
Hartford. He posted a 4.78 ERA in 42 appearances (two starts), and was expected to begin 2020 in Triple-A. But in just his second season in the organization, he never got the chance.
“I can’t say for certain if my release was directly because of coronavirus and an economical decision that had to be made, or they just wanted to move on,” Foley said. “But it definitely caught me off guard… It sucks I didn’t have an opportunity to force their hand and earn a spot this spring. That’s the worst part about it in my mind.”
Foley now eyes a shot with another organization or an independent league, should those get going this summer.
Right-hander Micah Kaczor, signed out of the Frontier League last summer before going 1-3 with a 5.13 ERA in six starts for the short-season Class-A Boise Hawks, was let go the same day as Foley.
“It was a weird feeling for me, because I know I might not have another chance at pro ball. But at no point in the conversation (with farm director Zach Wilson) did I feel malice,” Kaczor said. “I know they don’t like cutting players and depth from their system.
“Being realistic, I was an undrafted free agent who got picked up late in the year, so I only got a month-and-a-half in front of them and then a few weeks of spring training. There were cuts going on around the league with low-level players. I wasn’t not going to be hopeful, but at the same time you don’t want to be totally naive to the situation.”
Kaczor knows the road to the major leagues is only going to get tougher for the average prospect. Next week’s draft has been shortened to five rounds from the usual 40, and the 2021 draft could be cut to as few as 20 rounds. That means less entry points into professional baseball, and fewer jobs in the minor leagues.
“Now, it’s going from a select few to an even fewer select few,” Kaczor said.
Colorado didn’t do its normal wave of releases that usually comes at the end of spring training, so it’s probable that some of the 34 estimated cuts over the past couple months were cases of bad news delayed for certain prospects, and not caused by the pandemic.
As the Rockies have made those cuts, and as MLB and its players association continue to negotiate to salvage a major-league season, the team is financially supporting its remaining minor leaguers. Colorado will pay its minor leaguers $400 a week, plus benefits, through June.