TIME IS PRECIOUS

With a shortened 2020, Padres make most of their play in Arizona instructional league.

PADRES

It’s mid-november. The Masters is on TV. And the Padres on Saturday wrapped up their fall instructional league schedule some six weeks later than usual, the least of anyone’s concerns after everything that’s transpired — and more importantly so much of what didn’t — since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown baseball in March. It’s 2020.

You take what you can get, especially when you have no idea what’s next.

“You’re not going to make up for lost time,” Padres farm director Sam Geaney said Friday between games in Peoria, Ariz., “… so we’ve definitely been focused on getting through 2020 and making it the best that we can, probably with in the back of our mind knowing that a lot of the challenges we faced this year are probably going to exist in somewhat similar capacities in 2021.

“But we don’t really know.”

Nobody does.

Not what a major league season will look like during a second pandemic season, let alone the structure of a minor league operation that was facing contraction even before every affiliated league was scrapped in 2020.

The latest: With the previous agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (Minor League Baseball) expiring in September, Major League Baseball is gearing up to run the minors moving forward and it appears intent on cutting teams to 120, removing roughly a quarter of the teams in affiliated ball in 2019.

The Padres’ short-season Tri-city affiliate in eastern Washington was on the initial chopping block leaked last winter, but a finalized list has not been made public. That could occur before early December, along with news of reorganization of its leagues. There has, for instance, already been widespread reporting that the Midwest League, including low Single-a Fort Wayne, could become a high Single-a circuit and California League teams like the Lake Elsinore Storm could shift to low Single-a.

Sources in Fort Wayne, Lake Elsinore, Double-a Amarillo and Triple-a El Paso are cautiously optimistic about continuing their relationships with the Padres, but they can’t say for certain.

The minor league season also could be shorter than the previous 140-game schedules. In the face of another season impacted by the pandemic, the start of the 2021 minor league season could also be staggered to allow MLB players to get in and out of spring training complexes before minor leaguers ramp up.

All of this uncertainty made it especially important to squeeze in as much developmental time this fall as possible.

Including intrasquad action and games largely against organizations with spring training facilities on the west side of Phoenix, Saturday’s finale against the Texas Rangers in Surprise pushed the Padres’ fall schedule to more than 40 games.

Of course, shortstop CJ

Abrams (ranked No. 2 among Padres prospects by Mlb.com) and 2020 firstrounder Robert Hassell III (No. 5) got a taste of that during their stints at Petco Park during summer camp and continued to perform well this fall. Two additions from the 2019-2020 international class, Reginald Preciado (No. 11) and Ismael Mena (No. 15), also showed well, as did catcher Blake Hunt (No. 14), while 2019 third-rounder Hudson Head’s (No. 9) persisting hamstring issues barred him from picking up at-bats until the final week.

A lost 2020 season, however, prevented lower-profile players from landing on radars and right-hander Reiss Knehr made up for lost time.

A 20th-rounder out of Fordham in 2018, Knehr was added to the 2019 Arizona Fall League after spending all of 2019 in Lake Elsinore and by all accounts in the Padres organization was poised for a breakout season at Double-a Amarillo when the minor league season was scrapped.

The 6-foot-2, 205-pound pitcher has a 95 mph fastball to go with a plus change-up and an average slider, all of which have taken steps forward since posting a 4.72 ERA and striking out 11.4 batters per nine innings through his first two pro seasons.

“He’s really opened up eyes this fall,” Geaney said. “He’s a good name to watch heading into 2021.” Whenever it starts. And whatever it looks like.