Baseball's second spring training of 2020 is set to get underway over the weekend, and there are plenty of question marks about each and every team and how the short 60-game season will play out. Join the crew at SI as they chat on spring training 2.0 and its biggest questions.
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00:00Major League Baseball teams have to get ready to play.
00:04I wouldn't call it spring training necessarily,
00:06but they do have to warm up for the season this summer.
00:09How do they do it?
00:10For more, I'm joined by our Emma Batcheleri
00:12and Max Goodman of Inside the Pinstripes.
00:14Emma, you know, when you talk about
00:15this vastly approaching schedule
00:17and the current circumstances we're all dealing with,
00:20how are teams getting ready?
00:23Yeah, so each team will have a spring training site,
00:27which for most of them will be
00:28their actual major league ballpark.
00:30But they also, each one has designated
00:31a alternate spring training site.
00:34And they will be able to kind of divide
00:36their 60-player pool between those two sites as they see fit.
00:41So I think, you know, you're going to see,
00:44in those pools you have prospects
00:46who otherwise would not be in a position
00:48to probably be training with the major league team.
00:51You're seeing a lot of minor league free agents
00:53who have just been picked up
00:54after this transaction freeze ended.
00:56It really is just gonna be a very different environment
00:59than what we're used to.
01:00Guys will be coming in, having spent this hiatus
01:03with different resources to training tools.
01:06They've all been kind of doing their own thing.
01:08So there's a lot to catch up on,
01:09especially for pitchers who will be looking to ramp back up.
01:13And yeah, there's gonna be a lot going on,
01:16very different split between each team's
01:19spring training site and alternate spring training site.
01:22Max, how have you seen this work for the Yankees?
01:25Well, Emma brought up a lot of great points
01:26that apply to all 30 big league teams.
01:29Specifically for the Yankees,
01:30there's two things to look out for.
01:32The first is health,
01:33and that's keeping the coronavirus out of the clubhouse
01:37and making sure it doesn't infiltrate the team
01:39or any team for that matter.
01:40But also for the Yankees, it's keeping players healthy
01:43and getting those guys who were injured
01:46during spring training in the last few months
01:48who are supposed to be ready to go for this season,
01:50making sure that they're actually training
01:52and getting those workouts in
01:55before the season actually begins.
01:57And the second one is, like Emma said,
01:59there's gonna be a lot of jockeying for position
02:01with the prospects that are there
02:03and the depth guys and the starters.
02:05For the Yankees, narrowing down to a 30-man roster
02:08that'll eventually go down to 28 and 26
02:11is easier said than done.
02:13When we were trying to figure out
02:14what the 25-man roster would have been
02:17before COVID-19 ever happened,
02:20it was tough to figure out those final few spots,
02:22I guess is what I'm trying to say.
02:23So figuring out with a surplus of talent
02:27on the Yankees bench which players are gonna be picked
02:29and which will be on the taxi squad
02:30and which we'll have to wait and see
02:32if they'll make an appearance this season.
02:35Well, look, we're all trying to figure out
02:37what to do in these uncertain times,
02:38Major League Baseball teams included.
02:41Emma, Max, appreciate your time.
02:43Thanks.