While Major League Baseball owners and players continue to be at odds, with no contract in place, a work stoppage is a real possibility to start the season.
Baseball’s minor leagues, however, are not part of that deal and that’s good news for Jared Young.
The 26-year-old Chicago Cubs prospect from Prince George is making plans to return to the Cubs’ triple-A affiliate in Iowa for the start of the 2022 season in April.
Training camp usually starts in mid-February, although the MLB situation has clouded that start date somewhat and Young is unsure when the players will be told to report to the Cubs’ spring training facility in Mesa, Arizona, where he makes his off-season home.
“Minor leagues are separate from the big leagues, so if they don’t have a season, we’re still going to have a season, we just don’t know what time it’s going to start,” said Young. “I’m assuming it will be sometime in mid-February but we don’t have any details yet.”
After not playing at all in 2020, when the minor leagues were shut down by the pandemic, Young started the 2021 season with the double-A Tennessee Smokies, the team he played for in 2019, and was hitting .326 when he got called up to Iowa on Aug. 10. He played 37 games in triple-A and hit .254 with 32 hits, including one triple and five home runs.
Then in December, after considering one other option in Venezuela, Young’s agent arranged a tryout with the Tigres des Licey of the Dominican Winter League. For Young, it was a chance he could not refuse.
“It’s winter ball and a chance to be seen, but it’s not my primary job,” said Young. “I was down there as an off-season thing just to play and get a life experience and I did. I didn’t play as much as I wanted to and I didn’t play as much as I expected to. It was kind of miscommunication or something there but I only played a couple of games and was really looking to play and make a difference, but that’s not how it went down.
“To be honest, I didn’t play very much and I didn’t play well. I didn’t enjoy the baseball part of it. But the life experiences are something you’re not going to get anywhere else. Living in the Dominican for a month is exciting and it was awesome.”
Baseball is a religion in the Caribbean and the fans there are extremely passionate about the game, packing the stadiums with crowds of 15,000 or more. For Young, it was a cultural experience he’ll never forget.
“That was pretty cool,” said Young. “It was a lot different than the baseball people in Prince George and (the United States) are accustomed to seeing. It’s loud, it’s a big party with a baseball game going on, and they care a lot about winning. I was happy to get the chance to go down there and be part of the team. It’s fun.”
Young was one of only a few players on the team who doesn’t speak Spanish and the language barrier was a challenge for him around the team and away from the ballpark. He knew Tigres shortstop Sergio Alcantara, who came up through the Cubs system with Young before he caught on with Chicago last season, and he had played against a couple other players, but nobody else on the Dominican team was familiar to Young.
The Dominican Republic annually produces more MLB players than any country except the U.S. Of the 256 foreign-born players on major league rosters to start the 2021 season, 98 were from the Dominican. They earned roughly $400 million in the big leagues and its estimated minor league players from the country earned an additional $200 million. Players bring much of that money back in the off-season, which has a significant impact on a country whose gross domestic product in 2021 was $86 billion US.
“It’s more than just a game,” said Young. “For the fans, it’s a lifeline that you get to watch baseball every night for a few hours, it’s what they grew up on, and for the players it’s a real chance to make some money and help out your family. Baseball is where lives really change down there and I think that’s why it’s so big.”
Young arrived just before the playoffs and was limited to just five games and 16 plate appearances, going without hit with two walks before he was released from the roster. Based in the capital, Santo Domingo, the Tigres were well-stocked with major league talent, including 15-year MLB veteran Hanley Ramirez, who was drawing regular duty at first base, Young’s usual position.
“I didn’t know, going down there, that Hanley Ramirez was the first baseman, that would have been something good to know before I went because that definitely affected how much I played,” said Young. “But he’s a good guy to learn from. He’s made $160 million in the big leagues and he’s played for a long time and had insane success. Any time you play with a guy like that and pick his brain a little bit, you’d be stupid not to. I definitely spent time around him and hit with him, and hopefully some of the stuff I saw and talked to him about pays off for me. Realistically, if anything clicks from talking to him, the whole thing was worth it.”
Young says there’s no one thing he wants to improve on. He already knows the Cubs value his services and were pleased with his progress, otherwise they would not have promoted him to triple-A. He’s looking forward to getting back to Des Moines, knowing he’s only one step below his ultimate dream.
“I don’t want to mess with something that’s going well, I’ll just keep doing what I’m good at and keep doing what got me to where I am, and anything extra is I think stupid to worry about at this point” he said.
