Great news on the developmental side for all MLB organizations, but particularly those that invest heavily in player acquisition and development in Latin America.
Not only will there be stateside instructional ball (i.e., the Cubs prospects in Arizona), there will also be instructional ball in the Dominican Republic:
Major League Baseball will allow teams to start playing games at Dominican instructional league soon: https://t.co/LKcEdTg69d
— Ben Badler (@BenBadler) October 9, 2020
That’s huge for an organization like the Cubs, which not only has substantial facilities in the DR, but also annually has a huge volume of prospects (enough for two teams). Many of those prospects haven’t been able to organize and play for a year, and that includes many 2019 IFA signings who have yet to make any kind of organized debut. Many are behind the eight-ball already, but there’s nothing you can do about the missed time. All you can do is get the youngsters playing as soon as possible.
So this is a big step on that front.
Incidentally, the Cubs have continued to sign players even as the 2019-20 IFA period wound up getting extended thanks to the pandemic. So they should have a huge crop of players, including very recent signees, ready to go.
Note, though, that anticipated signees for the 2020-21 class (which doesn’t officially open now until January 15) cannot participate in these instructs. So that means if you were hoping to hear about coming top signing Cristian Hernandez, you’ll just have to keep waiting.