Mariners taxi squad to arrive in Tacoma on July 27
The kids are coming to Tacoma.
When the Seattle Mariners break camp next week and hit the road for Houston for their season opener, they will send the players not named to their 30-man roster to Cheney Stadium to continue workouts.
This group of 30 players — which makes up the Mariners’ taxi squad, and will eventually increase to 34 players as big league rosters shrink throughout the season — is expected to arrive in Tacoma on July 27.
Cheney Stadium, the home of Seattle’s Triple-A affiliate, the Tacoma Rainiers, will play host to the taxi squad for 70 days.
“The Rainiers have always been great to work with, and their willingness to jump in and host our squad is another great example of this,” Mariners general manager Jerry Dipoto said in a release. “We are lucky to have a facility and staff of the caliber of Tacoma to partner with, and are very appreciative of the efforts of the Tacoma franchise.”
When Major League Baseball announced it would play a shortened season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, teams were allotted 60-man player pools, and the Mariners loaded theirs up with 23 of their top 30 prospects, as well as four of their six draft picks this season.
Most of those players, including top prospects like outfielders Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez, and starting pitcher Logan Gilbert, are expected to be among the group that trains in Tacoma this summer.
“We are entering into this really viewing it as a 17-month process,” Dipoto said in June. “How are we going to build our pitcher innings over the next 17 months? What does 2020 plus 2021 look like for the Mariners?
“We are viewing this as almost the beginning of an on-boarding for the next 17 months and messaging it to the players like that.”
The situation for their prospects is not ideal given the cancellation of the minor league season, but Dipoto believes the chance for some of the players who the Mariners expect to contribute at the big league level in the coming years to practice in Tacoma is still a positive opportunity for development.
“Our players are younger than most teams, up through the big leagues,” Dipoto said in June. “We have a young major league roster. They are otherwise healthy and, while other teams have a group of aging players who might be making the turn in their career toward the back end, we actually have a group of players who are still on the precipice, getting ready to start on the front end.
“So, while we might not be able to make up for the developmental time that we’re losing — there’s just no way to go back and replicate 500 plate appearances or 150 innings — what we can plan on is that while everybody else is getting a year older or, a year closer to the backside of their career, our guys are still young and part of what we’re doing moving forward.
“If that slows us down by three or six months, then it slows us down a little, but we don’t think it inhibits our growth. Eventually, our players are still going to hit the ground running and achieve whatever ceiling they were able to achieve, it just might take a little bit longer. The fact that they’re still as talented as they ever were still as healthy as they were when this all started benefits us, and I guess, in the grand scheme of things, that puts us in a slightly better position than many other teams that were going through this.”
The Mariners don’t plan to elevate their top prospects to the big league level during the shortened season — though Kelenic has certainly made a convincing case for why they should so far in camp — but with their three most recent first-round picks in Gilbert, George Kirby and Emerson Hancock all planned to pitch in Tacoma this summer, Seattle’s young hitters will still see some of the organization’s best arms.
“They’re going to face as good or better pitching every day in Tacoma than they would anywhere else than they could have possibly been assigned,” Dipoto said. “And that’s both physical stuff and major league preparedness. So we don’t think we’re losing out necessarily on player development for the guys who are headed to Tacoma.
“We just have to be patient ... and remain focused on the big picture, which is the full development of our players.”
Mariners manager Scott Servais said last week the routine in Tacoma will be somewhat similar to how camp workouts have been structured in Seattle, with different fundamentals focused on each day and possibly four intrasquad games per week to help the pitchers reach the innings goals set for them, and position players log significant plate appearances.
“We want to make sure those guys get their innings in, to make sure that they’re in a good spot when we get to next spring and looking into 2021,” Servais said.
Similar to how health and safety protocols are set up at T-Mobile Park, everyone with access to Cheney Stadium will follow the regulations set up by MLB as well as Washington state and Pierce County health officials.
Players and field staff will be tested for COVID-19 every other day, according to a release from the Rainiers, and have their temperatures checked frequently.
Stadium staff and media members with access to the workouts will also undergo daily temperature checks and health screenings.
Per MLB, state and county regulations, fans will not have access to the stadium.
“Professional baseball is meant to be played in front of big crowds, and has brought Americans together — like no other sport — since its inception,” Rainiers president Aaron Artman said in the release. “But this is the next best thing, and Mariners baseball at Cheney Stadium, in any form, is good news.”
Cheney Stadium, which has been mostly empty since professional sports shut down in March, will also begin hosting Tacoma Defiance soccer matches again, without fans, when the USL Championship season resumes July 18.
This story was originally published July 15, 2020 at 4:58 PM.
