COVID-19, baseball’s internal feud keeping Texas Rangers in lurch over spring start
Texas Rangers players, including Gold Glove winner Joey Gallo, are working out at Globe Life Field.
Some players have high-tailed it to Arizona, where pitchers are throwing bullpen sessions under strict health guidelines at the Surprise Recreation Campus.
The rest are working out individually across the U.S. and Latin America and, in Kohei Arihara’s case, Japan.
No matter where they are located, they all have these two things in common: They want to start spring training on time and play a 162-game regular-season schedule, also starting on time.
And there’s this: They don’t know, three weeks out from pitchers and catchers reporting Feb. 17, if that will happen as COVID-19 continues its hold on the world.
“Geez, I really hope so, man,” Gallo said. “The players definitely want to. There’s definitely no arguing that. We’re on schedule. I’m training like I’m going to playing spring training games in February. I hope it doesn’t get pushed back again.”
Ultimately, the problem for the uncertainty is COVID-19. Maricopa County, where all 15 Cactus League teams train, is one of the worst-hit hot spots in the country and even beyond.
COVID-19 left all 30 MLB ballparks empty for the 2020 season.
The result was no gate revenue for teams, whose owners didn’t want to pay full player salaries. A 60-game schedule was imposed by commissioner Rob Manfred after the MLB Players Association declined the owners’ offers at a longer season.
It was an ugly airing of baseball’s dirty laundry, and the two sides remain miffed and don’t trust the other.
Hence, Gallo and everyone else in the game aren’t sure what the endgame of this round of negotiations will be or what spring training will look like.
“I think a lot of it is subject to negotiation with the Players Association,” Rangers general manager Chris Young said. “I don’t know if they’ve exchanged proposals or not. I’ve been on the other end. There’s just no blueprint for this. I know that we made it through last season, but to some extent the virus is worse than at any point we played last year. It’s still real.”
Players have entered the most intensive part of their offseason training. Position players have been hitting live pitching and are working on fielding drills. Pitchers are throwing bullpen sessions to begin the process of getting their arms built up for the regular season.
Teams are trying to solve how they will conduct camp with most minor-league seasons delayed. The Rangers could be looking at a massive big-league spring roster to cover innings and back-field games.
On Monday, city officials in Maricopa County and the president of the Cactus League issued a letter to MLB and the MLBPA asking for a one-month delay to spring training. It’s baseball’s call, but it further clouded and sowed more distrust between MLB and the MLBPA.
What no one wants is a lengthy pause and then a rushed ramp-up to the season. That swallowed up many players in 2020, including Gallo, and is thought to have led to a rash of injuries to pitchers.
But the season was completed despite early-season COVID outbreaks with the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals. Teams were held to health guidelines that included them being isolated in their hotel rooms on the road and in their homes when playing home games.
Gallo said that another bubble-type situation, starting in spring training stretching through the regular season, isn’t desirable but would be doable for most. However, there might be issues that arise.
“It’s going to be tough mentally for guys and not have much of a social life,” Gallo said. “At the end of the day, that’s our job. If that’s what they tell us to do then we have to do it.”
But it’s all speculation until MLB and the union hammer out an agreement on how the season will be conducted.
The clock is ticking. Again.
