Through uncertainty and change, Fresno Grizzlies take new path to baseball success

On the final day of the Fresno Grizzlies’ regular season, select fans were given prizes like gift cards, pint glasses and even a baseball jersey for attending the Sunday finale.

It was the Fresno minor league baseball team’s way of showing its appreciation for those who supported the Grizzlies during a challenging 2021 campaign.

So much uncertainty surrounded the club even months before the season started due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the change of Major League affiliations and a forced demotion within Minor League Baseball.

And as the regular season wrapped up, many of those questions about the Grizzlies both on and off the field linger and might not be answered for another year or two.

Nonetheless, the 2021 season did offer some signs of what could lie ahead and has culminated with a berth in the league championship series.

Here’s how the Grizzlies fared in their first season in Low-A ball and as a Colorado Rockies affiliate, all while navigating through attendance restrictions and cleaning protocols due to COVID-19, which already had caused the cancellation of the entire 2020 season.

“I think the most important thing about this season, more than anything else, was that baseball was back,” longtime Grizzlies radio announcer Doug Greenwald said. “For a while, we didn’t know if we’d even have a season.”

Fresno demotion within minor leagues

The Grizzlies fielded the opposite spectrum of minor league ball than what Fresno fans had been accustomed to watching the past two decades.

They were much younger, more unpolished and pretty far from receiving a Major League call-up.

This was Low-A ball now at Chukchansi Park, not Triple-A play as the Grizzlies had competed at for their first 22 years of existence.

“Going from Triple-A to Low-A, we understood there was a talent gap that fans might have to adjust to,” Grizzlies pitcher Austin Kitchen said. “What we tried to do was show that we can win at our level.”

They did.

As part of the Rockies organization, the Grizzlies did not have the luxury of working with one of the most stocked farm systems in the majors.

The Rockies farm system, in fact, ranks 26th out of the 30 Major League teams, according to MLB Pipeline.

Yet what the Grizzlies lacked in prospects, they made up for with team cohesiveness and consistency and maybe a bit of overachieving — factors that helped Fresno lock up a postseason bid with three weeks left in the season.

“We saw earlier in the year that our team was going to be good, that we had the team and the talent to win big,” Grizzlies manager Robinson Cancel said. “The players bought in to our instruction, what we’ve been teaching them and have performed well.”

In the Sunday finale, the Grizzlies defeated the San Jose Giants 7-4 on Chukchansi Park to capture the Low-A West North Division title and finish with the second-highest winning percentage throughout the entire Low-A level.

Fresno (74-41) and San Jose (76-44) will square off once more in a best-of-five championship series that begins at 6:50 p.m. Tuesday at Chukchansi Park.

Game 3, and if necessary the final two games of the series, will be played in San Jose because Chukchansi Park was previously booked for a concert when Game 5 is scheduled.

Outfielder Zac Veen, the No. 9 overall pick from the 2020 MLB amateur draft, batted .301 with 15 home runs, 83 runs and 75 RBIs in 106 games to anchor the Grizzlies offense.

Veen also had 36 steals as the Grizzlies finished with 221 stolen bases, which topped all of the Low-A West.

On the pitching side, reliever Anderson Pilar proved to be the Grizzlies’ toughest to hit off, going 6-0 with a 1.61 ERA and 1.04 WHIP with 57 strikeouts in 61 2/3 innings.

The Grizzlies as a staff posted the third- lowest ERA throughout the Low-A level at 3.79, while generating 1,119 strikeouts in 1,025 1/3 innings.

“This is one of the most selfless teams I’ve ever been a part of,” Kitchen added. “A lot of guys have done a great job adjusting to their roles and taking a next-man-up approach whenever we lost a player (to promotion or injury).

“There is no competition with one another. There’s just a lot of joy in this clubhouse and that makes a huge difference.”

Analyzing Fresno Grizzlies season attendance

Aside from the question of whether a season would be played after 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19, the other big uncertainty was whether Fresno fans would come out to Grizzlies games.

Would the pandemic turn off fans from attendance games out of health and safety concerns?

Would social distancing and other safety measures instituted at the ballpark discourage those who wanted to go to Grizzlies games from coming?

How much would the Grizzlies’ drop in the level of play impact fans’ decision to attend?

And did another change of affiliations — the Rockies are the fourth parent club in team history — give the community another reason not to support the Grizzlies?

Grizzlies President Derek Franks said his front office staff will evaluate several statistics to get some answers.

“We keep saying here that there’s a lot of data points to analyze with the pandemic and the new structure of Minor League Baseball and how that impacted us,” Franks said. “Time will tell.”

Due to COVID-19 safety protocol in place, the Grizzlies played their first 18 home games with a 33% seating capacity.

The Grizzlies used a measuring tape to figure out how to seat as many people in the downtown stadium while enforcing six-feet social distances between different parties in every direction while seated.

By June 15, all seating capacity restrictions were lifted.

Wearing facial masks was not required for vaccinated people at Chukchansi Park, per CDC guidance. But non-vaccinated people were recommended to wear face coverings when unable to maintain proper physical distancing.

For the season, the Grizzlies averaged an announced crowd of 2,928 at home. By comparison, the Grizzlies’ road games generated an average of 1,229.

So the Grizzlies had the top attendance mark among the eight teams in the Low-A West. But the Grizzlies also have the biggest ballpark with Chukchansi Park able to seat a maximum 10,650.

In addition, the Grizzlies’ 2021 attendance was significantly less than what the club averaged in previous seasons.

But that was pre-pandemic and when the Grizzlies were at the Triple-A level.

In their two most recent seasons before the pandemic, the Grizzlies averaged 5,430 fans per game in 2019 and 5,791 per game in 2018.

Encouraging signs for Fresno baseball

One encouraging sign for the Grizzlies was Fresno’s willingness to come out to Grizzlies games for special events and holidays.

The Fourth of July game was a sellout announced crowd of 10,877. The July 3 game, which occurred on a Saturday night, had a crowd of 9,197.

“That July 4th weekend is when things started to feel like how it was before the pandemic,” Franks said. “But not all the way.”

Franks knew that though the Grizzlies neared maximum capacity in those games, the lack of group ticket sales going into this season would prevent the Fresno club from continuing their high attendance beyond the holiday stretch.

In the 41 games that Chukchansi Park could’ve had maximum capacity, the Grizzlies drew an average of 3,304.

Was that reduction of about 2,000 fans per game compared with 2019 because of the pandemic or the drop of the level of play?

Franks isn’t quite sure.

But he’s hopeful attendance will increase in future seasons, especially if the pandemic ends.

“We had 85% of our season ticket holders when they had the option to take a refund (because of the canceled 2020 season), they rolled through and stayed with our team,” Franks said. “And it was even higher on the group outings, at 90-plus percent.

“When (the demotion) happened, we really didn’t have a large number of people who reached out and wanted a refund.

“We’re encouraged by that,” Franks said. “It tells us that our core group of folks are in for Fresno baseball no matter what it is.”

Fresno Grizzlies’ future

While some Fresno fans might pine for the day the Grizzlies return to Triple-A or become an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants again or Los Angeles Dodgers somehow, the Grizzlies simply are looking to establish a bit more stability.

The Grizzlies are wrapping up their second season under the ownership group Fresno Sports and Events LLC, which consists of managing general partner Michael Baker, his father Ray Baker and Jim Coufos. Franks, a longtime team executive, also has a small portion of club ownership.

The Fresno franchise is trying to recover from a financial loss that surpassed $2 million from the canceled 2020 season.

In addition, the Grizzlies still are getting familiar with their latest MLB affiliation.

Prior to this season, the Grizzlies signed a 10-year Player Development Contract with the Rockies to serve as Colorado’s Low-A affiliate.

Before then, the Grizzlies had been the Washington Nationals’ Triple-A affiliate in 2019, the Houston Astros’ Triple-A club from 2015-2018 and the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team from 1998-2014.

“One thing I will say is the fans who’ve come, it definitely has felt like they’ve had our backs,” Kitchen said. “They cheer us on all the time and bring a lot of energy.”

The Grizzlies also plan to give fans more to get excited about with more upgrades and improvements around the ballpark on the horizon.

Chukchansi Park already went through a significant renovation prior to the 2019 season, with the latest ownership group investing $3.4 million to make the venue more fan friendly.

“Now that we’ve gotten through this tough season of uncertainty, we want to get back to having fans look forward to new ballpark enhancements,” Franks said. “We’re back. We’re in a really healthy place.

“There’s nowhere to go but up from here.”

This story was originally published September 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.