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By Alex Simon
Cronkite News
SCOTTSDALE — Maybe nobody in baseball enjoyed the epic 2019 All-Star Home Run Derby more than officials of the Arizona Fall League. The contest came down to rookies Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays and Pete Alonso of the New York Mets, two sluggers who only months before had been playing in the Fall League.
Alonso beat Guerrero in the final 23-22, hitting a record number of home runs in the final round. It was familiar firepower to those in the Fall League, where Alonso tied for the league lead in home runs in 2018 and the duo tied for the lead in doubles.
Daniel Kurish, media communications coordinator for the Arizona Fall League, said the Home Run Derby was “perfect” exposure for the Fall League.
“That was a showcase of two guys who were sitting on these fields last year playing against each other, and now they’re in the big leagues,” Kurish said. “Last year at this time, they were playing in front of 600 people in Surprise and Scottsdale.”
Alonso and Guerrero Jr. are just two of the hundreds of Fall League alumni who have gone on to have major league success, even as quickly as in the next season after spending their fall in Arizona. But for the new crop of baseball players coming down for the 2019 season, the schedule’s been shifted forward by nearly three weeks, with the Wednesday, Sept. 18 start to the season its earliest ever.
Kurish said the move was made based on the suggestion of the 30 MLB teams and their farm directors, hoping to cut down on the time between the start of the Fall League and the end of the minor league regular season on Labor Day.
“They’d go to instructs (instructional league) for a week or two, and then they’re sitting around for a month, getting cold, doing whatever, not playing baseball,” Kurish said. “They wanted to give the players a chance to go straight from their minor leagues seasons into the Fall League season.”
The shift moves the championship game up to Oct. 26, with that game being played at 11 a.m. local time in order to avoid a conflict with Game 4 of the World Series that night. It also gives minor league players a break for the entire month of November.
“They’ve been playing baseball since February,” Kurish said. “It’s a long season, it’s a grind. So they wanted to give these guys as long as they can to rest and have an offseason.”
Starting the six-week season earlier doesn’t come without sacrifices, as the first 11 Fall League game days overlap the end of MLB regular season schedule. This includes seven days during which the Arizona Diamondbacks play at home when the Fall League has games.
But Kurish said the overlap shouldn’t be a problem and that the Diamondbacks have been “so supportive” of the Fall League.
“We are not in competition with the Arizona Diamondbacks,” Kurish said. “I don’t think, if you’re a Diamondbacks season ticket holder, that you’re going to miss a Diamondbacks game, especially right now with this late push they’re putting on.”
In addition to the scheduling changes, two of the leagues six venues, Scottsdale Stadium and Surprise Stadium, are being renovated to get ready for 2020 Cactus League spring training. It means two other venues — Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Scottsdale and the Peoria Sports Complex — will host two teams this fall. Salt River Fields will even host two doubleheaders during the first week of October (Wednesday, Oct. 2 and Saturday, Oct. 5).
In another twist, Fall League teams will also play 12 games against Mexican Pacific League teams, including a game in Tucson on Oct. 5 as part of the Mexican Baseball Fiesta. Having a variety of competition is something Kurish believes players in the Fall League will enjoy.
“I’m sure they played against these teams, these same (Fall League) players, in the minors for weeks and weeks and weeks — not every one of them but they’re familiar,” Kurish said. “But you get these Mexican Winter League teams, and it’s an entirely different level of competition. Some of those guys on those teams are former big leaguers … so it’s a different look.”
Kurish believes there will be “an even higher class of player” in the Fall League this year because MLB removed the league’s roster restrictions. In the past, players could only participate in the Fall League if they were at Double-A or Triple-A and had not exceeded their major league rookie limits, with only a few exceptions.
By removing the restrictions, Kurish said the Fall League can better serve its true purpose as a developmental league for the 30 MLB teams.
“We’re trying to help the big league teams help develop their players any way they want to,” Kurish said. “So if they’re sending us a guy who got injured and needs to make up the innings, that’s why you’re here. If they’re sending a guy who they think is going to be up in the big leagues next year and they just need a little polish, send them here.
“We’re just trying to cater to the big league teams, and whatever they need this league to be, let it be that for them.”
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