While nothing is official, or even submitted for that matter, Major League Baseball is expected to take the first steps towards restarting spring training and finally getting the 2020 season underway this week. Under most proposals, that second spring training would start around June 10, and the regular season would begin in early July.
June 10 is still a month away, though, and the league is already nearly two months removed from play after spring training was suspended on March 12.
With the exception of the 1994 strike, where the end of the season was cancelled, this will be the longest shutdown in at least the modern era of MLB history. That sort of unprecedented layoff will have an affect across the league.
“Everybody’s in the same boat with everything shut down," bench coach Don Kelly told me over the phone.
They may be in the same boat, but the shutdown will impact each team differently. While it would be hard to say the Pirates are benefiting from the shutdown -- especially when it comes to player development and the minor leagues -- they have been afforded the opportunity to tweak some things in their player assessment and scouting process.
Before spring, Derek Shelton and most of the incoming coaches were limited to video and phone conversations to assess Pirates players. That staff has six newcomers, including Kelly, pitching coach Oscar Marin and Tarrik Brock, who coaches first base and focuses on baserunning. Spring training was their first real opportunity to work with players, both as a group and individually.
Their time together in Bradenton, Fla., may have been shortened, but it was still valuable. Seeing them perform in person in Pirate City and in spring games added new insight for when they went back to watching video during the shutdown.
"When you watch a wide variety of games, you see a lot more things," Shelton said in a conference call this week. "In spring training, some of those instances didn’t come up, so it’s just learning more information about the group, about their movements, about how they did."
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