Laguna Hills, CA - Tomorrow will mark the day that Major League Baseball clubs can increase their rosters to 40 men rather than the usual 25. Some professional baseball players will get their first taste of the big league life. However, for many more this time of year in baseball is much tougher than normal life around the game. Lack of promotion, injury, trades or releases are common place during the end of a long minor league and major league season. Hard decisions are made around the game everyday but they are simply magnified at the close of another summer marked by the Labor Day holiday weekend and they are all driven by perceived value.
The new crop of signed players from the most recent MLB First-Year Player Draft will always be one of the greatest pressures in the game for players. Fresh investments and projection of the new players with limited roster spaces available throughout the pro baseball system only make it tougher on more than others. Players that continue to improve and make the necessary adjustments to maintain value have a much greater chance of staying in the game. Those that don’t increase their value are likely to be mere statistic of merely having only played professional baseball and not making it a career.
Any hick-up from injury can cause some fans, players, families and friends to discuss the hypothetical situations. Our family has become entangled with the injury bug since my son, John Lamb, went down earlier this season which required a ’Tommy John’ surgery back in June. Not his first run with injury but his first since signing out of high school following the Kansas City Royals 5th round selection of the 2008 draft. It serves nobody any value to fret over what-if it didn’t happen. A dreaming discussion serves no purpose around a true baseball household. I have been associated with the game long enough to realize the swift changes to the perception of value and both he and I continue to be grateful for our opportunity to be around the game we love. I have confidence he will play again through the same principles that started his professional career and the displays of his ability to compete, improve and make adjustments to maintain value.
Trades and releases will always be part of the professional game and all the more reason for players to take their opportunity as serious as possible during their time of wearing a uniform. Value drives the majority of these decisions throughout a long season. Both types of these moves come without warning and can be very difficult to understand and digest for those entangled. It’s not always the end of a career around the game. Actually, many stories can be told of positive experiences from the players that simply continue to work hard at perceived value with the new organization.
There is nothing easy about playing professional baseball or being associated with a player involved in this extremely competitive environment. No need to worry about the things controlled by others perceived value. Many will leave the game with a bad taste in their mouth based on decisions by others, rather than working their way to another perception of higher value elsewhere. While this year’s full-season schedule in minor league baseball draws closer to an end for most of the players and their families, some are already looking forward to a playoff series in their respective leagues. A few might be heading into their off-season not knowing if their done playing the game for the current organization. One thing is for certain, 450 players will be getting a chance of their life to play in the show. Only time will tell if their perceived value will keep them there to make a career of playing professional baseball in the Major Leagues.
