MLB Players Adjust To No Fans In The Stands In 2020

Image credit: Kenley Jansen (Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images)

For nearly a decade, the routine has been the same for Kenley Jansen.

The bullpen door swings open, 2Pac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love” blasts from the Dodger Stadium speakers and 50,000 screaming fans rise to their feet to welcome the closer into the game.

Dodger Stadium has been known to shake when that scene plays out. Jansen, like most closers, channels that energy and harnesses it, using the energy rush provided by the fans to reach back for a little extra something on his pitches.

For the first 301 saves of his career, Jansen could always count on fans in the stands to give him that little shot of adrenaline.

Now, with ballparks empty, he’s finding it difficult to come by.

“Man it’s hard, I’m not gonna lie about it,” Jansen said. “It’s an adjustment that we have to make pretty quick here because it’s so much easier to do it with your fans. Whether your fans are cheering you or you’re on the visitor’s side and they’re booing you, when you try to come out and shut it down, it’s so much easier when there’s fans in the stands.”

The 2020 season has been defined by unprecedented changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic. None is more visible than the lack of fans in parks across the country.

The pandemic has closed all ballparks to fans since the season began July 23. Aside from players forced to socially distance outside their dugouts or the occasional group of team employees, games have been played nightly in front of tens of thousands of empty seats.

“When (Giancarlo) Stanton hit the ball out of the stadium, you kind of miss hearing those oohs and aahs and different things like that,” Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge said in reference to Stanton’s 459-foot home run on Opening Day, according to the New York Post. “It has definitely been different. Hopefully by the end of the year at some point we have some fans in the stands and bring some of that back.”

The quiet of fanless games has altered on-field behavior in a number of ways. Players can hear opposing dugouts more clearly, which occasionally leads to tensions over an overheard remark. Pitching coaches have to be more hushed when discussing strategy with their pitchers on the mound. A player’s frustration, normally discernible only through body language, can now be heard audibly with curse words echoing throughout the stadium. During an early-August series between the Yankees and Phillies, Yankees lefthander Jordan Montgomery complained that Phillies announcers were talking louder when Yankees pitchers were throwing, distracting them mid-pitch.

From a performance standpoint, relief pitchers have been the most vocal group about how the lack of fans affects them. Stadiums have begun piping in recorded crowd noise and playing player intro videos on the scoreboard as they normally would, but it’s not the same as tens of thousands of delirious fans reaching a crescendo in anticipation of the final out.

“Everybody in the bullpen will be saying that running into the games and going out there pitching, it’s a little awkward,” said Padres closer Kirby Yates, the reigning National League saves leader.

“Guys at the back end are used to it being loud. Crowds are usually really into the game, and it’s pretty quiet. It is what it is, and everybody has to deal with it.”

The numbers don’t quite bear out late-inning relievers struggling more without fans than with them.

Teams blew a combined 68 saves in 201 opportunities through the first three weeks of the 2020 season, a 33.8% blown save rate. In 2019, teams blew 33.0% of save opportunities through the first three weeks of the season.

Still, there’s a general acknowledgment that the quiet takes a while to get used to.

“We make an adjustment just to try to keep focus more and more locked in,” Jansen said. “Don’t try to find it, like I want to dig in and find the adrenaline. Just let it happen.”

Teams have gotten creative to fill the visual void, too. The Dodgers, in the shadow of Hollywood, have placed cardboard cutouts of celebrities in the seats behind home plate. The Padres, who play in Petco Park, began a trend of using cardboard cutouts of dogs as well as people. The Twins placed giant headshots of former players behind home plate. The Athletics, in addition to people and pets, added a cutout of Charlie-O the mule, the franchise’s live animal mascot from 1965 to 1976.

Nineteen teams created programs where fans could submit pictures and pay to have a cardboard cutout of themselves placed in the stands. Prices range from $25 to $500.

But there is no substitute for the real thing, and fans have found ways to still watch live baseball.

In San Diego, fans have flocked to the downtown rooftop bars and patios overlooking Petco Park to catch a glimpse, albeit a distant one, of the action.

In Philadelphia, a group of fans calling themselves the “Phandemic Krew” has watched games through the locked stadium gates in center field, complete with chants, taunts, signs and air horns. They even hired a drumline to play one game.

The players see it, hear it and appreciate it. They’re progressively getting used to having no fans in the stands, but they’re all in universal agreement: They look forward to the day fans are allowed back into stadiums.

“The fans are what make this game,” Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer said. “It’s definitely a different type of atmosphere, but we all realize what’s at stake here. We all realize what’s at hand.”