Return of the Alternate Site
It's going to be weird, but hopefully minor league baseball is on its way back
Next week, that baseball beast from The Twilight Zone — the Alternate Site — will make its not-so-glorious return. As Giants minor leaguers pour into Scottsdale to begin minor league spring training on April 1 (for pitchers and catchers; position players report on April 2), a separate group of approximately 28 players will head to Sacramento to take up residency in that spooky Alternate Site.
I laid out the reasons for this last month when the first draft of minor league schedules was released. With major league health and safety protocols restricting as much interaction as possible between players and the general public, it was impractical to have Triple-A players taking commercial flights for their road trips. So MLB has taken the logical step of quarantining the group of players who might be needed as major league depth in their own bubble.
Once again the Giants Alternate Site will be Sutter Field in Sacramento, and the Giants will be sending their entire Triple-A staff up to Sacramento to work with that group. That means that back in Scottsdale, the minor league spring training camp will only be breaking up into three groups for games with other teams: Double-A, High-A, and Low-A. Kyle Haines and the top development staff will stay in Scottsdale with the bigger group of players as they try to assess what level their players will be ready for. A lot needs to get decided in a short amount of time as many of the players at camp won’t have been seen by Giants staff in more than 18 months. And there are some players whom Kyle Haines and Co. might never have seen in person (Aeverson Arteaga, for instance, but we also have heard that Mauricio Pierre, one of the group of players just signed in January is coming to Scottsdale).
The group at the Alternate Site, however, is planning to hold regular scrimmages (pending MLB approval of their safety protocols) with the A’s Alternate Site team, which is going to be housed at Stockton’s Banner Island complex. And, in a big twist from last year, the RiverCats yesterday announced that they plan to have some fans at those scrimmages (if you’re a RiverCat season ticket holder you may be in luck!).
The question, then, is “who are those fans going to see scrimmaging?” If you remember my “way too early” roster preview for Sacramento — I had quite a few holes that I wasn’t able to fill in thinking through their roster. That’s still the case, particularly in the middle infield, though Farhan Zaidi said yesterday that the front office will be combing through the industry looking for shortstop depth over the next week. The current group of freely available SS is pretty uninspiring (though I believe 2019 RiverCat Cristian Adames is still available). As teams go through the process of adding NRIs to their major league rosters next week, some other players will undoubtedly shake loose, though don’t get your hopes up too high:
If you’re wondering where former Giant Daniel Robertson is about now, he signed with the Brewers, and will likely make their team. However, he is out of options, and had the Giants tendered him a contract in the winter, he’d almost assuredly be facing a DFA this week when he didn’t make the roster.
But I’m drifting off my point, as I’m prone to do. My point is that the Alternate Site roster, while roughly similar to the Triple-A group, won’t necessarily be exactly the same. Over the winter, the Giants acquired players like 2b Mitchell Tolman and OF Vince Fernandez, who might be targeted for some time in Sacramento, but their failure to nab an NRI invite to camp makes them unlikely depth pieces that the team needs to stash in the Alternate Site. Jason Krizan, on the other hand, is pretty clearly an Alternate Site player as are recently optioned players like Jason Vosler, Jaylin Davis, Chadwick Tromp and Steven Duggar, and potentially LaMonte Wade, Jr. if Brandon Belt is on the Opening Day roster.
The Giants brought a huge group of NRI pitchers to camp, and they can be expected to treat their bullpen group pretty fluidly. So, all of those relief arms who don’t end up making the Opening Day roster will take up residence in Sacramento and prepare to ride the shuttle bus up I-80 frequently. That’s basically everyone we’ve been watching the last month who doesn’t have an opt out in their contract. Shun Yamaguchi, Phil Pheifer, Scott Kazmir, Dominic Leone, Silvino Bracho — expect any and all of these guys to be populating scrimmages at Sutter Field whenever they are not on the Giants big league roster.
The big question is where are they going to send the real prospects? Steven Duggar is an obvious Alternate Site candidate, but is Heliot Ramos? I tend to think Heliot stays in Scottsdale and starts working out with the Double-A group for the minor league’s version of the Cactus League. Ramos isn’t a candidate for an early season callup, so keeping him together with the development staff and his future teammates is the best call for his development. Similarly, the starting pitcher prospects who got NRIs — Sean Hjelle, Tristan Beck, Matt Frisbee, Kei-Wai Teng — likely stick in Scottsdale. I suspect that’s the case for the recent 40-man additions as well, Camilo Doval, Kervin Castro, and Gregory Santos. There’s plenty of depth in front of them that can shuttle back and forth to San Francisco, and they probably would like to see the trio get some upper minors experience before calling them up for the first time.
And what of Joey Bart? Is he an Alternate Site candidate or does he head to Scottsdale? That’s perhaps the stickiest wicket of all. Like Ramos, the Giants have made it clear from the beginning that Bart is going to get plenty of minor league play in this year before he returns to the majors, so barring a very bad run of injuries, he wouldn’t be needed in Sacramento as depth. But he’s clearly bound for Triple-A and many of the pitchers he’ll be catching there will be in Sacramento. It might be of advantage to him to get work in with his pitching staff and also start working with the RiverCats’ coaching staff who will be monitoring his progress this summer. There’s also the workload issue — lots of bullpens to catch to keep all those arms warm. Chadwick can’t do it all! In the end, maybe Sacramento is the right place for Joey for the next month.
HOPEFULLY, the next month. The lesson that will always stick with us from 2020 is that everything is in flux, and while Triple-A baseball is hoping to get their season opened on May 6 at this point, there is obviously the chance that it will get pushed back again if MLB determines that it still can’t have Triple-A and major league players safely moving back and forth. Things do seem to be trending in the right direction and many minor league clubs now appear hopeful that they’ll be allowed some decent percentage of fans into games, but until the players go stand on the chalked line on May 6 we’ll just have to wait and see.
The other thing that remains to be determined is what effect the long layoff will have for players. Will they be rusty, will fastballs have an extra oomph and strike zones jump around more than normal. Will teams jump players over their presumed 2020 assignment levels and throw them into the deep end of a skip level. Kyle Haines recently told The Athletic’s Melissa Lockard that it will take quite awhile adjusting to the new normal of each level of competition as skip level and repeat level players are piled into various levels together and organizations have to deal with the loss of short-season ball.
One thing’s for sure — whatever we see this year it’ll be good just having the minors back.