(Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series on Bradford native and former Pittsburgh Pirates assistant general manager Kyle Stark. Today: His thoughts on MLB resuming amid COVID-19, the future of the game and some of his management philosophies.)
By ANTHONY SAMBROTTO
When — and more importantly, how — will we safely get the return of pro sports?
It’s a question that’s been written about and debated at length over the last month and a half, and it’s also one that Bradford native Kyle Stark is uniquely qualified to answer.
The former Pittsburgh Pirates assistant general manager spent 15 seasons in Major League Baseball and, like the rest of us, is hopeful that America’s Pastime can return in some fashion this summer — though he admits that any path back to the diamond is a complicated one.
“There’s a lot of logistical challenges to it, and some of the logistical challenges, I think, are just out of respect for the overall well-being of society right now,” Stark said. “I think they want to be able to play to provide some healing and I think they want to be able to play because that’s a lot of people’s livelihoods. I think they are trying to be respectful of if you are going to put something in place, what does it look like?”
MLB has floated several possibilities on how to safely return to action, including having all 30 clubs travel to Arizona to play games without fans at the Diamondbacks’ facility as well as the spring training sites in the Cactus State.
And while Stark credits baseball’s leadership team for trying to think outside the box on ways to restart its season, he also wants it to be safe and not at the expense of others.
“You want to make sure that you’re not pulling those (coronavirus) tests away from people that need them,” he said. “So I think baseball is trying to navigate those things that are obvious logistical challenges but then also being respectful to the greater society.”
With the logistics of pulling off a season at the highest level already complex enough, Stark thinks that the lower levels of baseball will shut down completely for the 2020 season — a premonition that has already proven correct in some levels with the Cape Cod Baseball League and the NYCBL’s Olean Oilers cancelling their seasons in recent days.
“Judging from the people that I’ve talked to, I would be surprised if there is going to be minor league baseball this season,” Stark said. “But I’m cautiously optimistic that there will be some baseball. It’s just a matter of what that’s going to look like and on what scale.”
ATTENDANCE and television ratings have been decreasing in baseball for the better part of a decade. Everybody from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred to the managers and players to the game’s loyal fans have all offered their thoughts on how to rejuvenate the sport when it returns to action.
Some of the proposed changes have been drastic, like a pitch clock, placing a runner at second base to begin extra innings and even a mercy rule.
But Stark, who oversaw the Pirates’ minor league system and experienced some of those rule changes being experimented with at the lower levels of baseball, thinks a more conservative approach to some of the sport’s issues would serve it better in the long haul more so than an extreme overhaul.
“I think sometimes when you create too many rules changes there are unintended consequences to that,” he said. “If we changed the game too much we would get in trouble with our assumed audience.
“I think the game provides a lot of beauty in itself and I think we just need to recognize that there are some other things we can probably look around the game to continue to make sure that fans are getting a good product.”
Stark is also not naïve in the fact that the game can’t afford to sit idle as it tries to expand its audience, which he hopes will include better marketing of its star players relative to how other professional sports leagues in America manage theirs — in theory driving up TV ratings and putting more people in the seats.
“Nobody complains about an NFL game being three hours,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily the length of games — and really when you look at how much action happens on the field in an NFL game is not a ton in those three hours — but I think baseball can continue to market itself accordingly in terms of, ‘Ok, does viewing a baseball game look different today than it does five years ago?’ It probably needs to be. So I think there are some opportunities for the game to continue to evolve and grow that way.”
AND BY no means is Stark afraid of change.
During his 12 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates — the first four as director of player development and the last eight as the club’s assistant GM — Stark challenged some of baseball’s norms, and changed how the Pirates operated.
A pitching coach himself at St. Bonaventure University in 2003 and 2004, one of the first hires Stark made was naming a coach from the college ranks to be the Pirates’ pitching coordinator.
“The industry thought that was crazy, but now college coaches are getting hired all over the place in the pro game,” he said.
Not long after that move, he convinced the Pirates ownership that, rather than try to compete with other teams on the free agent market, the Pirates should concentrate on drafting and developing their own talent.
The result: after five years with his team, the Pirates snapped their 19-year postseason drought and went to the playoffs three years in a row — with many of those key players from that run being draft picks who had risen through Pittsburgh’s system and not high priced free agents.
“We identified good people, we developed good people and a lot of those people stayed because of the culture,” Stark said.
That culture, Stark added, helped the product on the field and helped people feel comfortable expressing those ideas in the workplace.
“We had a number of players who transitioned into coaches and staff members in our time there,” he said. “We had a number of guys move on to other organizations and there are a number of organizations that have leadership in key levels that were Pirates, that were developed here.
“We had a five-year window where we averaged 30-plus permission requests from other teams wanting to talk to our people.”
And ultimately that, as much as the 921 wins over the 12 years, the three playoff appearances, or changing the team’s perception around the league, is what he’s most satisfied with.
“I think during (my Pirates tenure) I’m most proud of the fact that we took some risk and challenged some things on the development side on how best to develop players that at the time were not necessarily received with open arms,” Stark said. “And now I think the industry actually does.”
