Major League Baseball has continued to adjust its plans and policies in the wake for the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic prompting the cancellation of remaining Spring Training games and delaying the start of the regular season by at least two weeks.
Teams initially were permitted to keep their Spring Training facilities open and available to players, which the Los Angeles Dodgers intended to take advantage of by holding involuntary workouts.
However, MLB began advising players to return home, though also left them the option of remaining in the city of their Spring Training camp, or heading to their team’s hometown. That has since been followed by the league banning all workouts and activities that may lead to a grouping of players gathering.
The MLB memo outlined camps were still to remain available to players on the 40-man roster, whereas Minor Leaguers were to return to their offseason home. According to Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times, the Dodgers have taken action with the majority of their Minor League players:
The Dodgers sent most of their minor leaguers home, but are keeping players that are rehabbing, live in high-risk areas in Asia and the U.S. or can't fly home for other reasons (i.e. Venezuela).
— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) March 15, 2020
Compensation and amenities for Minor Leaguers has been an underlying tension with the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic. When speaking with reporters on Friday, Dodgers president of baseball operations said the team was in discussions how to best go about matters.
As a whole, the Dodgers and MLB face a difficult situation given the unpredictable nature of the virus. “Certainly unprecedented. There are a lot of challenges and things we’re working through and meeting on,” Friedman said over the weekend.
“We met with our coaches and a lot of our staff earlier. There aren’t a lot of questions we can answer right now, but we are setting up channels of communication and will keep people posted as we learn more. Trying to get to all questions and doing the best we can with the information we have.
“Trying to wrap our arms around this and figure out what makes the most sense with our Arizona operations and also as guys start to gravitate to L.A., how to kind of divide and conquer.”
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