MLB: What To Expect From AAA Delay, Return Of Alternate Site

With MLB deciding to delay the start of the AAA season, alternate sites are back in 2021. What should fans expect?

MLB officially delayed the start of the Triple-A season yesterday. Which means one thing is for certain:

The Toronto Blue Jays could have stayed in Buffalo.

Actually, that’s not the big takeaway. You do have to imagine that’s crossing Blue Jays players minds though, as Sahern stadium would now appear to have a lot of April availability. No, the big takeaway is that alternate sites are back in 2021. At least for a month at any rate, though that Jeff Passan report indicates that some MLB higher-ups foresee them lingering longer than that.

Which begs the question, what impact does this have on the 2021 season?

If you’re wondering whether or not this means the actual MLB season could be delayed, you can likely relax. Despite MLB concerns about an April start, the MLBPA’s truculence on giving an inch to the league this offseason made those concerns irrelevant. Once spring training started, the ship sailed on pushing Opening Day back to May.

However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be some noticeable impacts at the big league level going forward. In particular, I can see the following ramifications stemming from a minor league wide pause on 2021.

Longer Look At Prospects

Look for MLB teams to have some tough choices to make when it comes to prospects this spring. Minor league spring training will take place, but I would expect organizations to want to keep as close of an eye as possible on top level talent. The best place to do that, and the best reps, are going to come from Cactus and Grapefruit League innings.

Now, that is not to say teams are going to start tripping over themselves starting up service time clocks as a result of all this. Quite the opposite, in fact, which we’ll get to in a moment. What would not surprise at all though, is if organizations hold back on those demotions of the top guys that received those token, get your feet wet invites. Look for them to get a slightly longer look, and for workload to get spread a little more evenly between roster contenders and seat fillers this spring.

Teams were already going to have an incentive to do this anyway as a result of the 2020 short season. A minor league delay just gives them one more reason to do so.

Service Time Manipulation Galore

Here’s one that should have the front office of every MLB team licking their chops- and every MLB fan shaking in their boots. It’s time to talk about service time.

Perennially, service time clock manipulation arises as a spring training talking point. Is it smart or despicable? Are teams trying to win or penny pinch? Are those things mutually exclusive? Teams do it, the players hate it, fans are divided. To say that it has come up as a sticking point between the league and the MLBPA would be an understatement, and it is going to be a major source of contention when that new CBA is being negotiated next winter.

Unfortunately, delaying the minor league season just gave every team a face saving excuse for keeping rookies down in the minors until mid-summer. With minor league games not even being played until May, how could organizations possibly hope to get a feel for how their prospects are faring? Transparent? Yes. Are clubs going to say it anyway? You bet. In fairness to the organizations, there is some honest player development logic to it. Undoubtedly, some players that will debut in 2021 will benefit from playing some real baseball games- perhaps for the first time since 2019.

It’s just that I don’t expect those teams to be anything close to judicious when it comes to deciding who stays down and who breaks camp. When the forthcoming MLB work stoppage comes in 2022, look no farther than the blatant service time tinkering you’re about to witness.

Roster Construction

Lastly, this will have an impact on MLB roster construction, at least early on in the season.

With alternate sites back in play, teams could look to play fast and loose with their taxi squads in 2021. Not to mention the MLB roster itself, when it comes to veteran pitching.

In terms of the taxi squad, keep in mind those players aren’t earning service time. So there’s no real harm- baseball wise- in teams shuffling players back and forth between site and squad. Be it for development reasons, as a reward, or both. Those on the bubble prospects will get a second life, and teams will get to put off their 26th man decisions a little longer. Whoever does break camp in that role might now be more likely to just be whoever will be most helpful the first week of April than they would have been otherwise.

In terms of veteran pitching talent, where options and service time are less of an issue, MLB teams are probably going to more willing to churn through arms in the early days of the season when it doesn’t mean disrupting minor league operations. That, or bringing in a player into the clubhouse who had perhaps been working under less stringent Covid testing conditions.

I’d expect more bullpen days and more six man rotations in April than I would in May. Again, many teams had said they were doing this already. Having all of your Triple A pitchers lying around at the alternate site just makes this easier to do now.

Other than that, no real impact at the big league level. The current plight of the minor leagues- that’s another story.