Hundreds of minor league baseball players were cut Thursday and hundreds more are expected to lose their jobs as the sport grapples with the near certainty that the minor league season will be canceled, sources told ESPN.
Team officials said a vast majority of the players would likely have been released toward the end of spring training even if baseball were not halted by the coronavirus pandemic, according to sources, but the cuts en masse, which could wind up numbering more than 1,000, nevertheless reverberated around the game, sources said. Released players expressed fear that their careers would be over, and those whose teams hadn't yet made cuts prepared for a tenuous next few days, sources said.