Missing their fans could have a big impact on MLB players in 2020

In all seasons before this season, a major league starting pitcher was noticed immediately when he stepped out of his dugout to begin his pregame routine. He was greeted with an initial burst of cheers if he was wearing a home uniform; the fans sitting along the foul line called his name, their words and tone framed with encouragement and hope.

If he was on the road, there would be jeers, maybe a smattering of boos or shouted derision, and yes, perhaps an autograph request mixed in. Whether temporary hero or villain, he would usually move into the outfield without turning his head to the response, as if he didn't hear anything. But he heard it all, in all seasons before 2020.

This year, those voices are gone.

"I noticed it instantly," texted Ross Stripling, who started for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night. "Usually running through the outfield and stretching, fans will yell things, ask for balls, etc. Usually instantly gives you butterflies as fans start to watch you."

The list of reasons how Major League Baseball is different this year could probably run longer than its health and safety protocol. A season of 60 games. The universal designated hitter. The 10th-inning rule. The three-batter rule. Larger rosters and playoff fields.

Nothing will alter the experience for players, however, as much as having to perform without the in-person audiences that give them instant feedback, adrenaline, anxiety, focus.

Baseball fans have missed players since the mid-March shutdown, and they have been starved for games; the first-day ratings of our ESPN broadcasts demonstrated that. But now it's the players who must proceed without the benefit of that codependent relationship most of them began developing as children, when they first felt that emotional rush attached to cheers of approval. They are likely to miss the fans at least as much as the fans missed them.

This is the great unknown, Max Scherzer said before the season's first game: what baseball without fans in the stands will be like. Scherzer added that he mentally prepared himself to pitch in this new reality, and you would never doubt that someone who throws his bullpen sessions in full game uniform will handle it this way.

But Scherzer and his peers will get some insight this year into how much their internal fuel is augmented by fans climbing to their feet in two-strike counts or the wave of optimism that accompanies each hit during a rally or how much of a free pass visitors will get amid the emptiness of Yankee Stadium, Minute Maid Park and other parks.

Christian Yelich played his first five seasons with the Miami Marlins, often in front of a sparse crowd, and he talked the other day about how it's an adjustment, that you must find a way to replicate some of the emotion that filled stands provide. Maybe it comes from a teammate, he said, or maybe it comes from within. Washington Nationals reliever Sean Doolittle mentioned that maybe he would try an extra Red Bull or coffee, or maybe he would recruit a teammate to scream at him. Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell cited Brock Holt as a dugout personality who might helpfully push others or perhaps the soft-spoken Justin Smoak, who tends to make teammates chuckle with his accent and pronunciation.

Something will be needed, as Counsell acknowledged, because there will inevitably be a 5-1 deficit in the seventh inning and the game will feel flat to the players, in desperate need of resuscitation from 30,000 fans.

Joe Panik grew up in New York and is well aware of the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees rivalry and what a packed Fenway Park is like -- that megawatt buzz of a crowd, steered by each ball and strike, filled with expectation and anticipation and fear in a place that has been saturated with all of those emotions. But while playing an exhibition game for the Toronto Blue Jays at Fenway on Tuesday, Panik said, it was so quiet among the infielders that they realized their words about pitch selection and positioning could be heard in the Red Sox dugout. "Weird," Panik said.

It might be easier for pitchers than for position players to maintain their focus without fans, one longtime evaluator said, given the requirements of the position. They start the action on each play. Stripling shut down the San Francisco Giants on Friday, holding them to one run in seven innings and focusing well.

"I think I'm in the unique position of being able to create adrenaline and energy because I'm pitching to keep my job in the rotation every time I throw," he wrote. "Makes it easy.

"I do think we've found a happy balance of white noise to play through the PA system. However, it was very, very noticeable and obvious that it was fake noise and fake fans. But I think it's better than silence and nothing in the stands."

But fielders and baserunners are more apt to drift in their concentration -- and there was a rash of mistakes in the first games. In a number of contests, some players appeared to forget how many outs there were, infielders taking a step toward the dugout before catching themselves or seemingly checking on the direction of teammates before running off the field.

"You can't use it as an excuse," Yelich said, and he's right. Everybody will be playing under the same conditions.

But that doesn't mean this is not an enormous change for players who might have leaned on the fans more than they ever realized.

• Mike Freeman, a utility infielder for the Cleveland Indians, walked up to pitching coach Carl Willis after Shane Bieber's 14-strikeout, six-inning masterpiece and asked him, "Did you see that last pitch?"

"I saw the swing," Willis responded, referring to the helpless flail of veteran outfielder Alex Gordon. But it wasn't until Saturday morning that Willis saw a replay of that final Bieber pitch, a changeup that seemed to apply brakes at an intersection between the pitching mound and home plate and then take a right-hand turn on its journey to home plate.

Bieber's best pitch, as he ascended through the minor leagues, was a slider. And as he refined that, his fastball improved; his curveball got better and became his go-to pitch; and he added a cut fastball to complement his slider. Through last season, when only Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander compiled more strikeouts than Bieber's 259 among all pitchers, Bieber also tinkered with a changeup, a pitch he has refined this summer.

Which is weapon No. 5 in Bieber's expanded arsenal -- and the pitch that Gordon waved over.

"We just keep seeing him mature in front of our eyes," Willis said on Saturday. "He's a cerebral guy, he pays attention to detail -- and he pays attention."

Between Bieber's acumen and his physical skills on the mound, he is able to focus on a couple of keys, Willis said, with the flight of the baseball clueing him to any necessary adjustment. Sometimes, for example, he can over-rotate with his upper body, causing him to stride longer to home plate, with the pitch drifting high and inside. Bieber can immediately clean that up pitch to pitch through a heightened degree of body awareness.

When baseball was first shut down, the Indians reduced the volume of throwing that they asked of their pitchers. But in early June, Cleveland ramped up the group again, explaining that even if the entire 2020 season were lost, the Indians would still want their pitchers to continue to throw, so that there wouldn't be carryover to 2021. When the players resumed preparing for the season together, Bieber -- who had been throwing in California -- was right where the Indians wanted him to be, and beyond. The 25-year-old Bieber needed just 97 pitches while accumulating those 14 strikeouts, generating 21 missed swings.

"He's a professional beyond his experience," Willis said.

• Bieber answered questions in a direct message about pitching without fans in the stands: "It's definitely a little bit different without fans and will take some getting used to," he wrote. "I noticed with no sounds in the ballpark everything seems so amplified. Almost like a deafening silence which can feel odd. So the pumped in crowd noise helps a bit.

"You're definitely right about the energy aspect. During a regular season, in certain situations it's easy to get amped or borrow energy from a crowd. This year however I feel guys will have to create that energy on their own a bit more which may be a learned skill that will be useful to develop. Especially for guys that thrive off of the high pressure situation."

• Three Washington players opted out of the season -- Ryan Zimmerman, Joe Ross and Welington Castillo -- so the Nationals were already somewhat short-handed. Then on Thursday, Juan Soto, the Nationals' best offensive player, tested positive for COVID-19, and he is out indefinitely. And on Saturday, Stephen Strasburg was scratched from his scheduled start because of a wrist issue. In a 60-game season, there really is no such thing as a minor injury, not when a couple of weeks on the IL represents a quarter of the season.

• Yelich joked with reporters that his struggles at the plate during the summer camp were a tribute to longtime Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker, who is celebrating his 50th year in the booth with the team. During Uecker's six-year playing career with the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies, he batted .200. Yelich slugged a home run in the Brewers' final exhibition game against the Chicago White Sox; but against Kyle Hendricks and Yu Darvish, it appeared as if his search for his timing is ongoing.

• There is a presumption among rival executives and some player agents that Mookie Betts' $365 million extension must have been all but complete at the time of the COVID-19 shutdown, because with future financial conditions so uncertain, one official said, "It makes absolutely no sense to do that deal right now." Nobody knows when a coronavirus vaccine will be available, nobody knows when fans will return to the stands en masse and nobody knows what direction the sport's labor relations will take, with the current collective bargaining agreement set to expire late next year.

Additionally, rival officials cite the long-standing practice of Andrew Friedman, who leads baseball operations for the Dodgers, to almost never overpay, a habit that has fueled his discovery of undervalued talent and his excellent record of risk aversion.

"In a year, that deal might look like an overpay by 15-20%, depending on what happens with [the coronavirus] and with the market," said one executive.

Dodgers sources insist the talks began little more than a week ago. Either way, it's an exceptional contract for Betts, the second largest in baseball history, and the Dodgers will easily handle the cost, given their relative wealth and extraordinary payroll flexibility. Betts is the only player under contract with the Dodgers beyond the 2022 season.

• With Betts off the board, George Springer will be the most coveted outfielder available in free agency. Teams worth watching: The New York Mets, who presumably will be operating under a new ownership group looking to be aggressive; the Red Sox, who could make a long-term outfield investment in either Jackie Bradley Jr. or a free agent; and the Blue Jays, who have a ton of payroll flexibility because of how many high-end young (and cheap) players inhabit their roster.

Because of the deferred salary in the contract, the Players Association values the deal at $306,657,882. According to MLB.com, Phillies GM Matt Klentak -- who faces the challenge of re-signing J.T. Realmuto -- seemed to refer to the Betts deal when he said, "I'm always careful not to weigh in on another team's player or contract, but I will say that it appears to me that it was a very creative and collaborative solution that really reflects the uniqueness of 2020."

• Chicago Cubs skipper David Ross spoke with confidence in a Zoom call on Friday that he can readily shift from the teammate/friend/mentor relationship he has with a lot of the Cubs players to being their manager, and his sense of humor is always handy. Kyle Hendricks was one out away from becoming the first Cubs pitcher in 46 years to throw a complete game on Opening Day when Ross went to the mound to talk to Hendricks. Ross mentioned Hendricks' climbing pitch count and asked him how he felt.

"I've got one more," Hendricks said, referring to the upcoming hitter.

"Good," Ross said, "because that's all I'm giving you."

Hendricks ended the game on the next pitch, the first complete game thrown by a Cubs pitcher on Opening Day since Bill Bonham in 1974.

• Steve Cohen has more money than any other individual bidder for the Mets, but word is drifting around that the group led by Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez has a shot to emerge with control of the team. Rodriguez, a colleague on Sunday Night Baseball, has a lot of contacts around the game from which to draw, and among those I've wondered about as possible lieutenants if the Rodriguez-Lopez group buys the team include former Red Sox manager Alex Cora; Buck Showalter, who managed Rodriguez with the Texas Rangers; and Edgar Martinez, who is like a big brother to Rodriguez.

• Drawing from just three days of sample size, the theory here is that baserunning and defensive execution might be compromised more than other parts of the game, coming out of the truncated summer camp. Just take these examples from Saturday:

The Dodgers trailed the Giants 5-1 in the fourth inning and lost two outs on the bases -- Chris Taylor was thrown out easily attempting to take a base when the ball got away, and later, Joc Pederson was doubled off first on a short fly ball into center field. In the Brewers-Cubs game, Lorenzo Cain broke for third on a grounder in front of him -- a mistake -- but was rescued when the Cubs failed to close the gap in a rundown.

• Among the iterations discussed for the expanded playoff format that was slammed together by MLB and the players' union was the intriguing concept of a postseason draft, with the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 seeds -- the division winners in each league -- choosing their opponents within a pre-playoff selection show. This was not among the final details agreed to, although there is a small chance -- "minute," according to a source -- that it could be revitalized before the end of the regular season.

And it should be added. That kind of launch into the postseason would be a perfect way to kick off the playoffs, in the same way that the NCAA basketball tournament selection show kicks off conversation about matchups and rivalries.

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