With so many unsigned free agents, the Major League Baseball Players Association organized a makeshift spring training and a pair of exhibition games against a Japanese baseball team, Japan Railway East, with Thursday’s contest live streamed for fans and scouts to watch.
The players’ workouts have been held at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., which organized the streaming through its regular partner, StreamSports, and broadcast the game over its YouTube channel with three camera angles and Scorebot software for live-scoring graphics. The game was open to MLB officials and scouts but not the general public.
The academy streams various sports from all its fields, drawing on a pool of locally based commentators. Lee Godfrey handled play by play for Thursday’s game, with former big league catcher Mike LaValliere — who serves as IMG’s catching coordinator and has worked on-air for ESPN3 — as the game analyst.
Former Washington National Tyler Moore hit a first-inning grand slam as the MLBPA team went on to win 6-5. Catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who won a World Series with the Red Sox in 2013, and former All-Star infielder Omar Infante were among the notable participants. More than four dozen free agents are still looking for jobs.
“These are big leaguers,” MLBPA spokesman Chris Dahl wrote in an email. “Fans are foremost interested in watching them play, but the live stream provides exposure and serves as a reminder that these highly talented players are still available.”
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Former Houston Astros manager Bo Porter, whom the MLBPA tasked with overseeing the spring workouts, visited the booth in the top of the third inning and discussed the importance of his group’s work making sure the players are prepared to join a big league organization later in the spring. IMG Academy baseball director Dan Simonds spoke to the broadcasters during the fourth inning, discussing the facilities available to the pro players.
The YouTube video registered 7,165 views as of publication time on Friday morning. The stream had 400-to-500 concurrent viewers for much of the early innings.