MLB trade rumors and news: There won’t be any Minor League Baseball in 2020

Photo by Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

As had been expected, the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out the 2020 MiLB season.

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• In news that was expected but still highly unfortunate, Minor League Baseball announced Tuesday that its 2020 season is cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Needless to say, this news is absolutely awful for countless minor-league players, coaches, team employees, and broadcasters who are trying to move up the ladder in baseball and will have to put their dreams on hold for another year.
• When Mike Leake announced Monday that he was opting out of the 2020 season without pay, it felt a little more like an outlier situation rather than something that could spread throughout the league. Don’t get us wrong, we respect the hell out of Leake’s decision, but we didn’t think he would be the first of many. That could prove to be a mistake on our part as Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond, and Joe Ross quickly followed him in opting out of the season. Desmond’s essay from Instagram is a must-read, btw.
• Cant say we’re too surprised by this one: The Red Sox have placed ace Chris Sale on the 60-day IL, thus canning him for the season. Sale went under the knife in March for Tommy John surgery, and was expected the miss this season anyway, if there was even going to be a season to miss. But now that contracts have been ironed out and a date for baseball has been set, the Red Sox have made it official. Now Boston has an empty spot on their 40-man that they need to fill in a very limited market. In a perfect world where Yasiel Puig is signed, the Sox could snatch him right away because that pretty absurd. Realistically speaking, MLB.com’s Ian Browne is reporting that Boston could be prepping that spot for Jonathan Lucroy, who they previously had a minor league deal drawn up with and would serve as a backup for Christian Vazquez.
• Until there’s an effective treatment or vaccine for COVID-19, virtually every fun thing in life is going to be accompanied by an asterisk, uncertain to actually happen until the day it occurs due to the unpredictable nature of the virus. But it looks likelier than ever before that there will be some form of a 2020 MLB season, as the league and the players’ union worked out all their disagreements last week and announced plans to play a 60-game schedule with numerous rule changes and protocols to keep players safe and curtail spread of the virus. Now we’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that the league is able to keep COVID-19 spread under control for the next four months or so.
• The Bryce Harper-Hunter Strickland beef went dormant for 3 years, then exploded into a famous brawl.
• We weren’t even able to bask in the announcement of baseball’s return for more than an hour or so before it was reported that three Rockies players — Charlie Blackmon, Phillip Diehland Ryan Castellani — tested positive for COVID-19 after working out at Coors Field. It feels like this type of news is going to pop up pretty frequently over the next few months as the league navigates through the pandemic.
• Amid multiple clubs such as the Phillies and Blue Jays reporting several cases of coronavirus, MLB shut down spring training sites for deep cleaning and will tighten testing protocols moving forward.
• Let’s take a break from all the baseball we don’t have to focus on some baseball we did have, once upon a time. How much better is the pitching in the postseason?
• Still reeling from the draft? We are too. Stay in the know with profiles and analysis of every pick from the first round and beyond here.
• The baseball industry “isn’t very profitable,” according to Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr.
• Chris Archer recently went under the knife to correct thoracic outlet syndrome. The timing of the procedure means that he will not play during the 2020 season regardless of when it starts or how many games it ends up being. Given that TOS can be a really scary thing to have, we wish Chris a speedy and successful recovery.
• More scandal? Sure, I’ll take a sprinkling. A New York District judge has ordered Major League Baseball and the Yankees to unseal a letter from 2017 sent from Rob Manfred to Yankees general manager Brian Cashman. First reported by Evan Drellich of The Athletic, The letter allegedly details the extend of rule violations that occurred in the 2015-16 season. If this isn’t brand new information, it’s like the other charge from 2017 that found the Yankees in violation of using a cellphone in the dugout during games. However, if it’s another full scale sign cheating scandal, the Yankees are heading back to court. They are expected to appeal the ruling.
• In tragic, unsettling news, MLB teams have released hundreds of minor league players, with more players likely to be released in the coming weeks. As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds across the country, billionaires are making the choices to cut menial, insignificant costs in the form of the people who make them money. If you’re looking to help during this difficult times, tweet us at @mlbdailydish while we work with Adopt A Minor Leaguer to help find sponsors for MiLB players struggling.
• MLB and Minor League Baseball are reportedly close to an agreement that would cause 42 minor-league teams to lose their big-league affiliations. While there are perhaps a few positives to be taken from this deal — every club will have the same number of minor-league affiliates, travel will be more efficient, and minor-leaguers will get paid more — it’s extremely rough news for employees and fans in the affected markets and the players whose dreams will be crushed as more than 1,000 jobs are eliminated.
• After undergoing Tommy John surgery last September, Adam Warren’s baseball suitors weren’t exactly beating down his door for a contract. However, he was able to snag a deal with a team he’s already very familiar with: the Yankees. The reliever has worked out a two-year minor league contract with the club, reports George A. King III of the New York Post. He would already be spending 2020 recovering from surgery, so the added time given the current situation only strengthens his case for a good comeback in 2021.
• Need some additional drama to add to this pandemic situation? According to a report from Zach Buchanan of The Athletic, three minority owners of the Diamondbacks have joined forces to sue Ken Kendrick, the team’s managing general partner. The suit stems from a letter Kendrick sent owners that instructed anyone with less than one percent of the team either increase their shares of the franchise or sell them back to the team at a price that will be determined by an appraiser. While Kendrick feels this ultimatum was fair and square, this trio of owners are saying this act of backing them into the corner was illegal. Cue soap opera music.
• There is a lot of potential weirdness surrounding the current COVID-19 situation and what the loss of regular season games or even the whole season could mean for various players and team employees. However, one such area of weirdness has already been ironed out as it has been reported that even if the 2020 season doesn’t happen, the punishments handed down to the Astros’ Jeff Luhnow and AJ Hinch will be considered served. This was likely to be a necessary move given how the league is planning on handling MLB service time, even though it doesn’t necessarily feel great.