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MESA, Ariz. — At this sprawling desert sports complex, dozens of MLB players have convened to stage their own version of spring training as they await a conclusion to the lockout.
For the attendees, most of whom normally report to a spring camp in Arizona or reside in the region, it’s an opportunity to throw bullpen sessions or take batting practice with friends and acquaintances. Team logos are nowhere to be found. Black T-shirts and caps that say “MLB Players” are worn, bringing another layer of cohesiveness to a group that has vowed to remain unified during the negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement.
Mixed workouts of this magnitude are a new experience for all.
“During the season you are kind of like cordial foes,” Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen said Tuesday. “Here, it’s kind of cool — [Kevin] Plawecki just caught me, and I played against him for two years in D.C., and getting to have that dynamic was kind of interesting.”
Bell Bank Park, a 320-acre site, bills itself as the largest sports and entertainment facility in North America. It’s within this complex the players can work out and hardly get noticed by those arriving to participate in a multitude of athletic activities.
Plawecki, the former Mets catcher, lives nearby and has embraced the opportunity to work out with a larger group. Like many, he picks and chooses which days he will attend.
It’s not spring training for these players, but it’s an opportunity to stay fresh and await what they hope will be a relatively quick summons to disperse and start four weeks in camp.
“We’re not asking for the moon,” Giants outfielder Austin Slater said. “We’re just asking for a fair deal, and that is something guys have been able to rally around.”
Players were reluctant to discuss the nuts and bolts of the collective bargaining agreement negotiations, as representatives from MLB and the union convened in New York with the hope of averting cancellations in the regular season. Last week, commissioner Rob Manfred said the first two series of the regular season had been canceled, but in the latest negotiations MLB was reportedly offering a pathway to keep the 162-game schedule intact.
“The game just needs to be on the field, you need to be seen and you need to be playing in front of the fans,” Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks said. “That is what the game is all about. That is how you grow the game. That is how kids see you. It reminds me of the COVID season [in 2020], just how terrible that was. You shouldn’t be missing months of baseball for the kids and everybody else.”
Treinen, while signing autographs for a few fans who ventured into the workout area, indicated he was concerned about the possibility of patrons avoiding the ballpark once the lockout concludes.
“You feel for the fans,” Treinen said. “I have been a fan longer than I have been a player, so I put myself in their shoes and I know people can judge and say the money factor from both sides. But it’s just we want fans in the stands and we want this season to happen, because we miss them. Fans make baseball great. We’re just trying to do right for those ahead of us.”
This generation of players barely (if at all) remembers the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series and continued into the ensuing season. Fans’ disenchantment was high and needed the home-run barrage that occurred in the aftermath — highlighted by the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa record chase of 1998 — to help resurrect the game.
“I don’t think we are going to have another steroid era to save the game,” Slater said.
Treinen expressed concern about potential rules changes that could lead to the implementation of a pitch clock.
“If you put pitchers out there and they are worried more about a clock than executing and giving a team that has invested heavily in them their best, you could have a quality of game that could hurt,” Trienen said.
“We have to be real careful about the type of rules we change in this game, because there are a lot of purists that are finding their way out of baseball, and when you don’t have a passionate fan base from the purists, who are the most passionate, and then you try to appeal to people who aren’t necessarily baseball fans, but you are trying to get more eyes on the game, you don’t really have a strong fan base.”
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