Red Sox reach out to their friends to prepare for 2020 campaign
We are just days away from teams reporting to training camp to get ready for the 2020 season. As we all know, this is going to be a really weird season that I’m sure none of us will forget any time soon. The Red Sox are gearing up to begin camp on July 1st like the rest of the league, but they’re going about it in a bit of a unique way.
As much as I love Fenway Park, it’s the oldest park in the league and isn’t too friendly to housing a training camp. There just aren’t enough amenities to allow proper workouts for everyone that will be involved. With a massive need for batting cages, fields, and bullpens, the Sox are making a few calls to their friends.
Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy recently spoke about the restrictions at Fenway Park and how the team has reached out for some help ahead of 2020, namely Boston College and the PawSox.
"“They have been terrific in even considering our requests to try to go up there as part of spring training,” said Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy. “We’ll see if we can work through that. We have a longterm relationship with (BC President) Father (William P.) Leahy and Coach (Mike) Gambino and Boston College baseball, so we’ll see. We don’t have any final details.”"
If you watch the Sox during spring training then you know that they love bringing in BC as well as other college teams to help both get ready for their seasons. Having the ability to use the facility at Boston College would be a massive boost for the Red Sox to get ready for this season. We all know that this team will face enough issues in 2020, having poor preparations shouldn’t be tacked onto that mountain.
The other aspect of “summer training,” is the fact that we will likely see the cancelation of the MiLB season. This will allow Boston to use McCoy Stadium, the home of the Pawtucket Red Sox. If the MiLB campaign is wiped out for 2020, using the stadium for training camp will have to serve as its farewell since the PawSox will be moving to Worcester in 2021.
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"“We’re very appreciative of all the help from the folks over there, of course with the PawSox and also the folks in government who helped make this happen,” said Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. “Still some things we need to nail down there but that’s the plan that we’re working on.”"
Teams will begin the season with a 30-player roster but will need to cut that down to the standard 26 by the end of the first month of the season. They’ll be able to keep three players on a taxi squad, with one needing to be a catcher. The point of the taxi squad is to have a couple of players ready to go in case of an injury or illness.
As it stands, it appears that anyone that will be in the overall 60 player pool but not on the 40-man roster will remain at McCoy to continue training. This’ll allow them to be in peak shape and ready for the moment ever to arise and their number called.
It’s great to see the unity between the Red Sox, PawSox, and BC. Hopefully, it yields great results for the city and franchise in 2020 as Boston aims to get back to the postseason after missing the mark in 2019. Having added support from those around them can only give the team that extra boost that they’ll need to reach the heights we last saw in 2018.