KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Hunter Owen is still looking for that opportunity to impress his new bosses.
Last year, the Pirates’ farmhand was the best hitter in Class AA Altoona, recording 15 home runs and a .935 OPS over 268 plate appearances, before earning a midseason promotion to Indianapolis. Early on in his time with Class AAA Indianapolis, he was hit with a 96-mph fastball on his left hand and missed three weeks. He admits now he returned back too soon, and his results showed it.
He went into spring training 2020 finally able to grip a bat properly again and was eyeing another midseason promotion to the majors at some point.
COVID-19 changed that. He was also left out of the 60-player pool the Pirates could use, meaning he hasn’t faced live pitching since spring training abruptly ended in March.
Owen will turn 27 later this month, making 2021 an incredibly important year in his career. Failing to reach the majors at some point would greatly decrease the chances he ever does.
To make sure he doesn’t go into next spring training a year removed from playing, he is looking to secure a spot in winter ball.
“At this point, I’m not really too worried about the competition aspect of it as much as getting reps,” Owen was telling me. “Seeing live pitching, getting my body back to operating like it would in a normal season. So I don’t feel like I let a whole year slide by.”
All signs point to the winter leagues still taking place this year, despite the pandemic. The three most popular will be the Dominican, Puerto Rican and Mexican Pacific leagues. There also is an Australian League, but it only plays a couple days per week, and a Venezuelan league. Major League Baseball prevented players from participating in Venezuela after the United States levied sanctions on the country.
The Arizona Fall League and instructional leagues are expected to be cancelled, making those spots in the Caribbean and Australia even more coveted.
With the exception of a handful of injured individuals and hardship cases and those in the 60-player pool, all players within the Pirates’ minor leagues have been at home since March. While they are communicating with minor-league coaches and sending videos to try to make sure players do get at least some instruction this year, even though they have mostly been on their own.
Ben Cherington has remained optimistic that the Pirates will be able to have some type of formal group instruction and hinted earlier this week it could happen at Pirate City in Bradenton Fla. However, nothing is guaranteed.
“If it can be done safely, we have confidence in that and the league has confidence in that, then sure, absolutely,” Cherington said recently of the prospect. “That’s an opportunity we would want to pursue. And I’m sure if that’s the case, there will certainly be some competition for those spots.”
The players who could really use the winter leagues the most are older minor-leaguers, such as Owen, and those who had their season end early with non-baseball related injuries. Failing to play this year hurts their chances of making the majors in 2021.
“This is a really crippling year,” an MLB agent told me. “If you’re Rule 5 eligible, how do you realistically expect to be taken in the Rule 5? You didn’t do anything this year. It’s a lost year for everybody where you didn’t compile any more stats. You just got older, and in this game, age per level is the No. 1 predictor for future success.
“If you’re a prospect, and you have an opportunity to go into the Dominican, I think you’ve got to go,” the same agent added later. “If you weren’t put on the 60-man, you better be fighting for your life to get into winter ball.”
The obvious holdup are health concerns. It’s unrealistic to expect a winter league’s health protocols and precautions to be as strict as MLB’s, and even then, there have been several outbreaks across baseball this season.
But the general consensus is it’s also risky to be away from the game for a year, especially if 2021 is a make or break year.
“I feel like if you take the proper precautions, you can help your case,” Owen said. “It’s one of those things that I’m a healthy kid, I’ve got a great immune system. Right now, I just need to get back to playing to progress my career.”
MORE PIRATES
• While a 10-10 stretch hardly qualifies as a hot streak, the Pirates no longer have a stranglehold on the worst record in baseball, as their winning percentage is trending up at the same time those of the Red Sox and Diamondbacks are going down. However, there is no guarantee the worst record in baseball will clinch the top pick in next year’s amateur draft. Since the season is less than 80 games long, commissioner Rob Manfred has the power to potentially change the order of the draft, pending the approval of the players association. He could be less inclined to alter the order since a full season is expected to be played, but given how the league has explored ways to televise more events — like having a playoff selection round — a draft lottery could be a real possibility. -- Stumpf
• After a bit of a delay, right-handed pitcher Jandel Gustave is at the Altoona training site. He also is under team control for 2021, and if he is added to the roster, he should have one option year remaining. Pitching depth is always a good thing to have, and Gustave has had stretches of being a good middle relief option. With the bullpen and pitching staff potentially in flux for 2021, there are obvious benefits to having him in AAA. -- Stumpf
STEELERS
• People wondering how the NFL is going to pull off its traveling road show when Major League Baseball has had issues with players testing positive on the road need not be concerned. While baseball teams go on the road for days at a time, the NFL is going to be bringing its teams into visiting cities for less than 24 hours at a time. Teams will leave later in the day -- the Steelers typically flew out in the early afternoon in previous years -- and go straight to the hotel. From there, the players will be locked down in the team hotel. They won't be permitted any visitors, can't go to any hotel bars or restaurants, or even order food to their rooms. Everything will be done in a bubble-type situation on the road. This doesn't mean there won't be some random issues with players testing positive for coronavirus, but the league doesn't expect the same issues that baseball has had, mostly because players are going on the road for days at a time and grow bored. -- Dale Lolley on the South Side
• The decision to go with Zach Banner over Chuks Okorafor at right tackle was not an easy one for the coaching staff -- though the groin injury Okorafor suffered in the second week of training camp that caused him to miss a few days made it easier. It also doesn't mean the Steelers aren't still high on Okorafor, a third-round draft pick in 2018. But, as one Steelers' source told me, Banner made himself a lot of money in this camp. A 2017 fourth-round draft pick of the Colts, Banner initially made the 53-man roster that season, but was cut a day later and claimed by the Browns. He was released by the winless Browns later that season and signed with the Panthers, who cut him during training camp in 2018. That's when he was signed by the Steelers, who now see him as their possible left tackle of the future. In fact, don't be surprised if it's Banner -- a pending free agent -- who gets a contract extension before the start of the regular season. The Steelers feel that strongly about him. As I reported here a couple of weeks ago, Banner and Okorafor were the two best tackles in training camp according to team sources. They are viewed as the starting 2021 tackles. -- Lolley
• The Cam Heyward deal included a relatively small $17.5-million signing bonus. Heyward also received a $2.5-million roster bonus today as part of the deal, which lowered his 2020 salary to just over $1 million. So, essentially, his deal gets spread out over five seasons with $20 million of that being signing bonus right now. His base salaries in 2023 and 2024 combine for $31.85 million, meaning more than $50 million of his deal is tied up in bonus money and the final two seasons of his contract. Right now, this is a back-loaded deal in which the Steelers could easily get out of with the 31-year-old Heyward after the 2022 season with relatively little pain. -- Lolley
PENGUINS
• This has been a year unlike any other in the NHL -- and most of the rest of the world, of course -- and the repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic figure to be felt for months to come. The virus has wrought havoc on the normal NHL schedule, causing everything from the truncating of the 2019-20 regular season to the mid-summer start of the Stanley Cup playoffs to the cancelation of the annual pre-draft prospects combine, and the changes won't stop there. It still is far from certain wen the 2020-21 season will begin -- the league's announced target date of Dec. 1 seems increasingly unrealistic, mostly because there's little evidence to suggest that fans will be able to attend games by then -- and that means the starting date for training camps has yet to be set. Those usually would be getting underway right around now, and Jim Rutherford acknowledged that when Labor Day passes, his internal clock tells him that hockey is about to get back in session. "For people who have been around ... you walk outside and you start to get that feel in the weather," he said. "It reminds you that you're heading for training camp, that the days are getting shorter again. It's kind of in the air, as we're used to it on an annual basis. We're thinking that we should be on our way to training camp, and here were are watching games. They're still playing for the Stanley Cup. ... Hopefully, this is the last year of this kind of stuff. Hopefully, everything can get back to normal." -- Dave Molinari
• Patric Hornqvist has one season left with the full no-trade clause in his contract -- it switches to a limited no-trade for the final two years of the deal -- so he would have the ability to veto any trade in which the Penguins might want to include him in coming weeks and months. That's precisely what Phil Kessel did when the Penguins tried to send him to Minnesota last summer, and Kessel's case illustrates a point that might be easy to overlook: Players don't necessarily want a no-trade clause simply to assure that they remain with a particular club, but to give them a say in where they end up if the team decides to move them. While Kessel didn't want to go to the Wild, he subsequently agreed to accept a trade to Arizona. The no-trade allowed him to end up in a place where he wanted to be. -- Molinari
• It seems like a long shot at this point, but the Penguins haven't completely ruled out adding another assistant coach to join Mike Vellucci and Todd Reirden on Mike Sullivan's staff. "I might not (hire another)," Rutherford said. "I've talked to a few people about it. We'll see where it goes. We may just go with two (assistants) this year. Or we may add another guy." -- Molinari
• Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Dominik Simon, Zach Aston-Reese and Nick Bjugstad have had surgeries of varying severity in recent months -- Simon and Aston-Reese might well still be sidelined when the 2020-21 season gets underway -- but a source familiar with such issues said that no other Penguins players are currently scheduled to have an operation during the off-season. -- Molinari