Rays have to ‘reprogram our entire operation’ to get ready
ST. PETERSBURG — The Rays are obviously happy to get back to work.
But the task of opening Spring 2.0 camp next week, implementing myriad health and safety regulations while getting their talented team ready to play a 60-game sprint of a season set to start July 23-24, is monumental.
“You’re talking about something where we’re essentially going to have to reprogram our entire operation, outside of the rules of the game itself on the field, to make this work,” general manager Erik Neander said Wednesday via videoconference. “But we’re going to find a way to make it happen.
“[Tuesday] was busy, today is extremely busy and that’s only going to continue here until we get off the ground and find our way through this. A lot of communication, a lot of awaiting word from the league on the health and safety protocols in that final-final version, but we’re ready for it. A lot of people have a lot of energy stored up to put into this here.”
Neander said the top priorities are essentially three-fold:
■ Planning how to stage the Spring 2.0 workouts for most of the 60 players at Tropicana Field, which has just one field and limited mounds and batting cages, and how best to maximize the time of the others who will be sent to the Port Charlotte spring facility, about 90 minutes away. Players are set to report by next Wednesday and the first official workout is slated for Friday, July 3.
■ Deciding how best to deploy staff, as workouts are expected to be staggered with players in small groups to adhere to social-distancing guidelines and other precautions.
■ Meeting the league’s 3 p.m. Sunday deadline to pick the 60 players who will be invited to camp and form the squad from which they will choose the active roster, which will be 30 players for opening day, then cut down to 28, then 26.
“That’s one, two and three,” Neander said, “but they all have to be done one, one and one right now. So that’s the focus.”
Also of note:
■ Neander said no one participating in the informal workouts during the past month has tested positive for COVID-19, but “over the last couple of months, within the entirety of our organization, we have had a few cases that have come up. It’s a small number, we followed all the protocols and everything that we needed to do from a CDC/MLB standpoint. Thankfully the outcomes have all been very favorable.” Neander declined to say who they were or what positions they held and that “out of abundance of respect to the privacy of staff, players, etc., not going to elaborate any further on that.”
■ Outfielder Yoshi Tsutsugo, who went home to Japan in late March, is preparing to travel back to the United States, according to what his agent told the Rays. (First baseman Ji-Man Choi, who went home to South Korea in late March, is already back in the United States, planning to stop first in Arizona, where he has a home.)
■ Manager Kevin Cash said the mood of the players at Wednesday’s workout at the Trop “was upbeat and positive” given the official announcement Tuesday night that the season would be starting. “Certainly a positive vibe in the building today,” he said. “There was genuine excitement.” Activity increased to a live batting practice/simulated game format, with Charlie Morton, Ryan Yarbrough, Yonny Chirinos and Nick Anderson throwing.